Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

Book Excerptn people to rise in arms and perhaps bring about "the utter dispersion" of the planters. With the staple crop of the colony a drug on the market because of the Navigation Acts, with tax piled on tax to buy back the liberties of the people from favorites of the King, with self-government made a mockery by the corrupting of the Burgesses, with the small farmers in rags, the people were ready to rise in arms at the least excuse. Before young Nathaniel Bacon set foot on Virginia soil Berkeley and his henchmen were trembling in their boots. The governor thought that if an opportunity offered itself the planters might go over to the Dutch "in hopes of bettering their condition by sharing the plunder of the country with them."Into this mass of dynamite an Indian war threw a torch. The resulting explosion was Bacon's Rebellion. In 1674 two mutinies had failed, it was said because the people, after assembling in arms, could not find a leader. Two years later, when again angry men gathered, they f