Bacon, Nathaniel
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Nathaniel (1647-1676), a leader of the Virginian colonists. He was a native of Suffolk, England. He was a distant relative of Francis Bacon. He was well born and well educated, but emigrated to Virginia in a spirit of adventure. Here he became a member of the governor's council, and an especial champion of the cause of the common people. Affairs were not going well in the colony. Charles II had granted Virginia to two worthless favorites, the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpepper. Their agents were demanding payment for land from all settlers who could not show perfect title. Berkeley, the governor, was an aristocrat. He had no sympathy with the settlers. He had not called for the election of a new assembly in thirteen years. The assembly that held over transacted business to his liking, and he did not want a new element to get control. The vestries, the governing boards of the various parish churches, had become self-elective bodies, "close corporations." To add to their grievances, the settlers were harassed by the Indians. Cabins were set on fire at night, and the inhabitants were massacred, scalped, or carried into capitivity. Berkeley was carrying on a profitable trade through agents with the Indians, and appeared to be indifferent. He levied taxes of 2,000 pounds of tobacco for the building of forts, and allowed his officials to embezzle the proceeds. The atrocities of the Indians and the stubborn refusal of the government to take measures for the protection of the settlers became so exasperating that the people rose in revolt under Bacon, and proceeded to chastise the Indians. They then refused to lay down their arms until the governor should issue a proclamation of amnesty. A new election was called. Bacon was chosen a member. The new assembly widened the suffrage, gave the freemen of each parish the right to choose the vestries, and made other changes of a popular nature. Under pressure, Governor Berkeley not only pardoned Bacon, but promised him a commission to raise a volunteer army. Bacon suspected that the governor was planning to arrest him. He left James-town secretly but came back at the head of 500 men. Berkeley proclaimed him a rebel. Bacon's forces besieged Jamestown and reduced it to ashes. In the midst of their altercations Bacon died of a fever Many of the popular leaders were executed by the irate governor. The uprising is known in history as Bacon's Rebellion. See Berkeley ; Sir William
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account presents Bacon as "an especial champion of the cause of the common people," driven to revolt by Indian atrocities and Berkeley's indifference — a reading that made him a proto-patriot of 1776. Modern historians keep the grievances but change the emphasis: Bacon's campaigns fell largely on tribes at peace with Virginia, including the tributary Occaneechi and Pamunkey, and are now often described as a war of extermination waged by land-hungry frontiersmen rather than a fight for popular liberty. Since Edmund Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), the rebellion has also been read as a spur to hardening racial slavery, on the argument that Virginia's planters preferred enslaved Africans to a restive class of poor white servants who had once marched with Bacon. The physical setting has been recovered too: excavation at Jamestown from 1994 onward located the original 1607 fort on ground Aiton's readers assumed had washed into the James River.
Written for this edition, 2026.