A group of rebels led by Nathaniel Bacon set fire to Jamestown in 1676 to protest the governorship of William Berkeley. (Illustration via Getty Images)
Mayhem that began with pigs ultimately led to the deaths of innocents, the burning of Virginia’s capital at Jamestown and the execution of more than 20 people.
As America celebrates 250 years of independence this summer, an earlier rebellion often gets overlooked. At the center of the turmoil stood the charismatic and contentious Nathaniel Bacon, cousin by marriage to Royal Gov. Sir William Berkeley, against whom he led an insurrection in 1676.
By the mid-17th century, resentment simmered among Virginia’s farmers and merchants outside the colony’s ruling plantation elite. Their grievances centered on taxes tied to tobacco, declining economic conditions and the unsettled western frontier, where colonists sought land already occupied by Native peoples.
Berkeley favored maintaining profitable alliances with tribes friendly to the colony while restraining expansion into contested territory. During his 35 years in power — the longest tenure of any Colonial Virginia governor — he rewarded allies and relatives with land and offices. Voting rights also were restricted to property owners, which left many colonists without political representation. The combination of these elements built public resentment.
Economic pressures added to the discontent. Trade regulations imposed by England, competition from tobacco growers in Maryland and the Carolinas, and wars with the Dutch contributed to rising taxes. Hailstorms, floods and droughts compounded the misery. Colonists looked for someone to blame — namely, Native tribes and the government’s failure to control them.
Into this volatile atmosphere stepped Bacon. Born in Suffolk, England; educated at Cambridge; and trained in law, Bacon arrived in Virginia in 1674 with his wife and two daughters. His departure from England may have been encouraged by his father, as Bacon faced allegations stemming from a land dispute. His May 1670 marriage to Elizabeth Duke resulted in her disinheritance. Despite this baggage, Gov. Berkeley welcomed him as family.
Berkeley appointed Bacon to the Council of State and granted him land, including 820 acres at Curles Neck in present-day Henrico County. Bacon also acquired a plantation and maintained a trading post near Bacon’s Quarter Branch, a stream that later marked Richmond’s northern boundary. The site is near present-day West Bacon Street off Chamberlayne Avenue.
Bacon partnered with the ambitious trader William Byrd, whose operations at the Falls of the James generated wealth through commerce with the tribes, tobacco farming, land speculation, and the importation of indentured servants and enslaved Africans. Berkeley’s own interests in the beaver pelt trade competed directly with those of Bacon and Byrd.
The crisis erupted in July 1675 on the Northern Neck plantation of Thomas Mathew. Members of the Doeg tribe, reportedly seeking compensation for unpaid goods, seized some of Mathew’s pigs. Violence followed, and several Doegs died.
Outraged colonists demanded retaliation. A Virginia militia instead attacked a group of Susquehannocks, killing 14 people who had no connection to the dispute. The Susquehannocks, themselves displaced from Pennsylvania, fought back, and frontier violence ensued.
Berkeley sought restraint and diplomacy. Bacon preferred war. As he later wrote, his aim was “to ruin and extirpate all Indians in General.”
In September 1675, Bacon accused friendly Appamatuck Indians of stealing corn. Berkeley rebuked him for the action. The following spring, the General Assembly met in Jamestown to address frontier security while preserving relations with allied tribes. Plans included a chain of frontier forts and a temporary suspension of trade.
Then, an attack on Bacon’s trading post killed an overseer. Bacon demanded authorization to lead a punitive expedition, but Berkeley refused.
Bacon recruited roughly 150 followers anyway, including farmers, free Black people and indentured servants, gathering them near Bacon’s Quarter Branch. Encouraged by Byrd, he initiated unauthorized attacks against Native groups.
Berkeley responded by removing Bacon from the Council and publicly denouncing him as a rebel. The governor offered pardons to Bacon’s followers if they returned home and called for elections to a new House of Burgesses.
The conflict instead widened. Bacon manipulated the Occaneechi tribe into helping him attack Susquehannocks. When the alliance collapsed, Bacon’s men massacred the Occaneechi chief and several hundred men, women and children. Berkeley again declared Bacon an outlaw.
The governor’s denunciation galvanized Bacon and his supporters. Henrico County voters, some under the influence of violence or alcohol, elected him and his ally James Crewes as burgesses. Arriving in Jamestown accompanied by armed followers, Bacon was arrested and appeared before Berkeley. He knelt and requested forgiveness.
The governor pardoned him and restored his seat. Yet when Bacon insisted on a commission to wage war on the tribes, Berkeley withdrew his prior agreement.
So, Bacon fled to Henrico. On June 23, 1676, he returned to Jamestown with some 500 people eager to fight. Berkeley, age 70 at the time, stood in the doorway of the statehouse, opened his shirt and dared Bacon to shoot him.
Bacon did not fire, but Berkeley yielded. Charges were dropped, and the House of Burgesses passed a series of reforms later known as “Bacon’s Laws,” including restoration of voting rights to landless white men.
The awkward truce failed. The governor withdrew to the Eastern Shore, while Bacon established headquarters at Middle Plantation, today’s Williamsburg.
On July 30, 1676, Bacon issued his “Declaration in the Name of the People,” condemning unfair taxation, political exclusion and Berkeley’s alleged corruption. He accused the governor of failing to protect settlers from attacks and signed the document, “Nathaniell Bacon Generall, by Consent of the People.”
In August, prominent Virginians called for a new assembly under Bacon’s authority. Berkeley returned to Jamestown. Bacon’s force occupied Berkeley’s nearby Green Spring estate before marching on the capital. After a siege and stalemate, Berkeley’s group departed Jamestown by boat on Sept. 18, 1676.
Bacon realized he could neither defend nor abandon the place. He instead burned Jamestown to the ground. He died a month later, on Oct. 26, 1676, at Gloucester Hall plantation.
Berkeley, his reputation in tatters, returned to England. William Byrd, who first encouraged Bacon toward conflict, successfully distanced himself from the rebellion and rose within Virginia’s Colonial establishment.
“Bacon’s Laws” were repealed, but his legacy remains. In 1916, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in Virginia honored Bacon with a plaque in the Virginia House of Delegates. The United Daughters of the Confederacy also that year dubbed him “the First American Rebel.”
Yet Bacon’s motives and his significance are debated. As scholar Brent Tarter observes in Encyclopedia Virginia, Bacon’s Rebellion brought closer English supervision of Virginia and sped the colony’s reliance on enslaved labor. More than three centuries later, “Bacon’s Rebellion” remains one of the most important — and controversial — episodes in Virginia history.
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