Nathaniel Bacon (Virginia colonist)

Bacon was born on January 3, 1647, in Friston Hall in Suffolk, England, to influential landowner parents Thomas Bacon and his wife Elizabeth (daughter of Sir Robert Brooke of Cockfield Hall, Yoxford and his wife Elizabeth). Nathaniel was his father's only son, and had one full sister, and a half-sister by his father's second wife Martha (Reade), his natural mother having died in 1649 when he was two years old. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he was admitted as a Fellow-Commoner at St Catharine's College in 1661. He traveled around Europe (Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Netherlands) in 1663–1664 with the celebrated naturalist John Ray and fellow pupils Francis Willughby and Philip Skippon. At the end of April 1664, in Naples, Ray and Skippon took ship for Messina, to continue their expedition together to Sicily, leaving Willughby and Bacon to return north to Rome. He was admitted to study law at Gray's Inn in November 1664. Nathaniel married Elizabeth Duke, the daughter of Sir Edward Duke of Benhall (1604–1671) and his wife Ellenor Panton, reputedly in direct defiance of her father's veto. After accusations that Nathaniel had cheated another young man of his inheritance, Thomas Bacon gave his son the considerable sum of £1,800 and the young man sailed into exile across the Atlantic. Upon arriving in Virginia, Nathaniel Bacon bought two frontier plantations on the James River. ==Relocation to Virginia==

Since his cousin and namesake Nathaniel Bacon was a prominent colonial leader and friend of governor William Berkeley, Bacon initially settled in Jamestown, the capital. By 1675 Bacon was himself appointed to the governor's council. Berkeley's wife, the former Frances Culpeper, may also have been Bacon's cousin by marriage. == Bacon's Rebellion ==

Before the "Virginia Rebellion" (as it came to be called) began in earnest in 1674, some freeholders on the Virginian frontier demanded that Native Americans, including those in friendly tribes living on treaty-protected lands, should be driven out or killed. They also protested against corruption in the government of Governor Berkeley, which has been described as "incorrigibly corrupt, inhumanely oppressive, and inexcusably inefficient, especially in war". Predating Bacon's Rebellion, the Anglo-Powhatan Wars instituted the distinct hierarchical separation and selfishness between the Indians and the Virginians that would eventually mold into the basis for the subduing of the Indians during Bacon's Rebellion. The Susquehannocks retaliated in force against plantations, killing 60 settlers in Maryland and a further 36 in their first assault on Virginia soil. Then other tribes joined in, killing settlers, burning houses and fields and slaughtering livestock as far as the James and York rivers. Seeking to avoid a larger conflict similar to King Philip's War in New England, Berkeley advocated containment, proposing the construction of several defensive fortifications along the frontier and urging frontier settlers to gather in a defensive posture. Frontier settlers dismissed the plan as expensive and inadequate, and also suspected that it might be a pretext for raising tax rates. Another plantation was significantly upstream, near the falls of the James River at Shockoe Creek, and had more cattle. Indian raiders killed Bacon's overseer on that upriver plantation, and Bacon soon emerged as a rebel leader. When Berkeley refused to grant Bacon a military commission to attack all Indians, Bacon mustered his own force of 400–500 men and moved up the James River to attack the Doeg and Pamunkey tribes. Although both had generally lived peaceably with the colonists, and had not attacked the frontier settlements, their cultivated lands were valuable. In March, Berkeley had attempted to secure warriors from the Pamunkey tribe to fight hostile tribes pursuant to earlier treaties. The Pamunkey queen Cockacoeske passionately reminded the Governor's Council of the deaths 20 years ago of her husband and 100 warriors whom they had provided in a similar situation. The chairman had ignored her complaint, and instead continued to demand more warriors, receiving a promise in return to supply a dozen. Berkeley did arrest Bacon and remove him from the council, but Bacon's men quickly secured his release, and forced Berkeley to hold legislative elections. Meanwhile, Bacon's men continued their offensive against the Pamunkeys, who fled into Dragon Swamp. When the friendly Occoneechee managed to capture a Susquehannock fort, Bacon's forces demanded all the spoils, although they had not assisted in the fighting. They then attacked the Oconeechee by treachery, killing 100 to 400 men, women and children. Despite Bacon's outlaw status, voters of Henrico County elected him and his mentor James Crewes to the recomposed House of Burgesses. That body enacted a number of sweeping reforms, limiting the governor's powers and restoring suffrage rights to landless freemen. Scouting parties accordingly set out to requisition supplies, as well as to kill and enslave Indians, prompting protests from citizens of Gloucester County who were subject to the militia's exactions. Bacon's forces retreated to Middle Plantation (later renamed Williamsburg). On July 30, 1676, Bacon and his makeshift army issued a Declaration of the People, Months of conflict ensued, including a naval attempt across the Potomac and in Chesapeake Bay by Bacon's allies to capture Berkeley at Accomac. Bacon himself focused on the Pamunkey in Dragon Swamp; his forces seized 3 horse-loads of goods, enslaved 45 Indians and killed many more, prompting the queen Cockacoeske (who narrowly escaped with her son) to throw herself on the mercy of the Governor's Council. Berkeley raised his own army of mercenaries on the Eastern Shore, and also captured Bacon's naval allies and executed the two leaders. Bacon's forces then turned against the colony's capital, burning Jamestown to the ground on September 19, 1676. Before a Royal Navy squadron could arrive, Bacon died of dysentery on October 26, 1676. Although John Ingram took control of the rebel forces, the rebellion soon collapsed. Governor Berkeley returned to power, seizing the property of several rebels and ultimately hanging twenty-three men, many without trial. == Legacy ==

Despite recent historians' views of the conflict, many in the early United States, including Thomas Jefferson, saw Bacon as a patriot and believed that Bacon's Rebellion was a prelude to the later American Revolution against the control of the Crown. This understanding of the conflict was reflected in twentieth-century commemorations, including a memorial window in Colonial Williamsburg, and a prominent tablet in the Virginia House of Delegates chamber of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, which recalls Bacon as "A great Patriot Leader of the Virginia People who died while defending their rights October 26, 1676." ==References==