Bacon's Rebellion Essay Rough Draft

Bacon’s rebellion was brought on by the differences in the classes of the Chesapeake colonies. The classes changed and evolved throughout the century. Until mid-century, classes were not separated by how much money you had, but by whether you were free or not. Towards the later half of the century, three changes in the economy occurred that redrew the social class lines. First, as more and more tobacco was grown, it made tobacco prices decrease because it was not as much of a luxury anymore, this decreased planter’s profits. So it took freed servants longer to save up enough money to buy their own land. Second, the mortality rate in the Chesapeake lowered, so more servants survived their indentures, leading to more free landless men. Finally, since the mortality rate was declining, planters lived longer so they had more time to make money and become wealthier. This created a planters elite. These three changes separated the colonies into two different classes. The upper class was made up of the elite planters and yeoman planters and the lower class was made up of the landless colonists who were mostly freed servants. These two different classes had completely different lifestyles. The freed slaves were trying to find land to buy and make enough money to buy it which was more difficult because the elite society, including Berkeley, wanted to keep relationships with the Indians for trade and other purposes.

Class had a big impact on Bacon’s rebellion. Governor Berkeley felt like the Indians were more of a threat than the lower class, freed servants. Therefore, Berkeley made sure to keep relations with the Native Americans and give them plenty of land even if it meant not giving the lower class what they wanted. This caused a lot of conflict between the landless farmers on the western frontier and then Indians trying to protect their land. The elite farmers did not care as much about the little amount of land available because they already had their land and were making a good profit off of it. It was the landless farmers that were trying to find land to buy that could not find it because of Berkeley’s loyalties to the Native Americans. Because of this, the lower class thought that the elite farmers were operating the government for their own gain because they did not do anything about lessening amount of free land on the western frontier. Berkeley and the elite wanted to keep their ties with the Indians for trade and to keep the peace with them since there had been problems with Indians before. If all of the freed servants had already had land or if enough land was already available then there would not have been a problem, accept for the fact that many indentured servants were living out their indentures so they were free so there were many newly freed servants. This situation enraged the Chesapeake’s lower class which caused the rebellion. The rebels looked for a leader that would support their views and Nathaniel Bacon saw this as a good opportunity to increase his local standing so he agreed to lead volunteer militia units. This seems odd that Bacon would choose to be the leader of this rebellion when he was the cousin of General Berkeley by marriage and was not in the lower class of the landless farmers and freed servants. He was welcomed into the elite society when he arrived in Virginia in 1674. So it seems odd that Bacon would choose to lead the lower class against the upper class when he was originally in the upper class. And much less, so that he could increase his local standing with the people. Leading a rebellion does not seem like the way to make yourself real popular in society, expect maybe with the rebels. But now Nathaniel Bacon is famous for what is considered his rebellion which is really a battle between the poor and wealthy.

This rebellion changed the Chesapeake colonies immensely. Although the grandees still remained in power of the council the tension between the two classes lessened. But the tensions between races increased. Some believe this is because after the rebellion, most planters and land owners made the switch to African slaves instead of indentured servants. This was the start of the racism to come, not only for the African slaves but also for the Indian tribes. Both were looked down upon more after the rebellion. And Berkeley and the elite society realized that keeping friendly relationships with their fellow white men was more important then their relationships with the Native Americans. We still see something like this in society today. At first, the elite sided with the Indians because that benefited them more because they were able to trade with them. Just like now how the bigger companies are hiring more immigrants and sending work out of the country because it benefits them because they can do the same amount of labor for cheaper than if they hired your average American citizen. History does repeat itself. Hopefully, there will not be another rebellion.