Kilted in the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the US

[macwilkin]

Aye, Bacon's Rebellion. I think that was the first example of that kind of resistance to tyrants in American and colonial history.

Your Obedient Servant,

Karl

Well, uh...no. Bacon's Rebellion really wasn't the first shots in the American Revolution, as conventional wisdom and old history texts would have us believe. Yes, Gov. Berkley of Virginia wasn't the most honest civil servant, but Nathaniel Bacon was no George Washington.

Mostly the rebellion centered around the fact that Bacon was upset for not being included in Berkley's circle for kickbacks on frontier fortifications, and Bacon then used the threat of First Nations on the western frontier as a justification for rebellion against Berkley. Virginia at that time contained a fairly large population of landless white males (mostly former indentured servants that had survived) and to be landless was to be nothing in colonial society. Bacon stoked this group by stating that Berkley was denying them frontier lands and that he would drive the Indians from them to allow these folks to settle. The Rebels did burn Jamestown, but Bacon died before anything else could come of it. After Bacon's Rebellion, the gentry turned more to African slaves to work their plantations.


Apologies for the mini-lecture, but it's good practice for next semester.

T.