In the last episode on the Timeline, “Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685,” we looked at the political and geopolitical aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion. This time we tackle the changes inside Virginia’s society and economy in the years following Bacon’s Rebellion, some of which may have been because of the Rebellion, and others of which probably would have happened anyway.

The first half of the episode looks at the governorship of Thomas, Lord Culpeper, and his deft efforts to give effect to the Crown’s desire “to substitute the benevolent despotism of the king for the rapacious local despotism that had brought on one rebellion and threatened to bring on another.” In the second half, we consider the rise of Black slavery in Virginia and the decline of indentured servitude in the quarter century following Bacon’s Rebellion, the economic foundations of the shift, and the untended and somewhat surprising social consequence that by the early 18th century Virginia was a much more stable society than it had been when it had depended on English indentured servants.

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Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

John C. Coombs, “The Phases of Conversion: A New Chronology for the Rise of Slavery in Early Virginia,” The William and Mary Quarterly, July 2011.

“An Act Concerning Servants and Slaves” (Virginia, 1705)

Matthew Restall is an historian and author of over forty books, focusing on the Spanish Conquest era in the Americas; on Aztec and Maya history; on the history of colonial Mesoamerica, primarily Yucatan but including Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; on the historical African diaspora in the Americas; and on the history of popular music. Matthew is most recently the author of The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus, the topic of and inspiration for this conversation. Finally, he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Anthropology, and Director of Latin American Studies, at Pennsylvania State University.

We discussed the phenomenon of “Columbiana,” the vast mythology that has befogged the history and biography of Christopher Columbus, the man, almost entirely for purposes that he himself would not have understood. His book, which I quite recommend, addresses nine such “lives” and the historical mysteries around them. We touch on the four of those that I thought would most appeal to longstanding and attentive listeners – his early life and his pitching for the funding for the “Enterprise of the Indies” – which are the first two lives, and the curious resurrection of Columbus in the 19th century as the founding “grandfather” of the United States, followed by his last “life” – so far – as the great hero of Italian-Americans. This last leads to a discussion of the perception of Columbus today. Along the way we go down numerous rabbit holes, including that there is, even today, a direct descendant of Columbus who bears the title “Admiral of the Ocean Sea.”

Other relevant links

Matthew Restall, The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus

History Impossible Podcast, “War for the Frontiers of History and America (w/ Jack Henneman of The History of the Americans)”: Apple and Spotify

Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus

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This episode looks again at the causes of Bacon’s Rebellion in light of what we have now learned, before turning to the region of the Chesapeake in the years after the Rebellion.

There are two big themes in the post-Bacon Chesapeake. The first, the subject of this episode, is geopolitical. After Bacon, what changed in intercolonial affairs, in the relationship between the Chesapeake colonies and England, and between those colonies and the indigenous nations? The second theme, for part 2, is essentially domestic. How did Virginia itself change politically, economically, and socially, with a special emphasis on the terms of labor and the types of people performing it?

Along the way we look at the crazed conspiracy theories that roiled not only Virginia and Maryland, but England, how they affected the various protagonists, led to the negotiation of the “Covenant Chain” between the Iroquois and New York and the other English colonies of North America, and how the end of Bacon’s Rebellion unleashed explosive growth of the trade in enslaved Indians from the Carolinas and points south.

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

Josias (Josiah) Fendall

Other episodes mentioned

Notes on Virginia 1644-1675

The Free County of Albemarle

Rogues and Dogs and Fendall’s Rebellion

It is late January 1677 in Virginia. Loyalists under the command of Governor Sir William Berkeley had suppressed Bacon’s Rebellion just after New Year. Now Berkeley was prosecuting the surviving leaders of the rebellion, and loyalist units were looting the estates of wealthy Baconistas to recover losses they had suffered during the war.

Then a fleet from London materialized at the mouth of the James, carrying three royal commissioners and a thousand “red coats,” English regular infantry. Their mission, per Charles II, was to suppress the rebellion – which Berkeley and his supporters had already done – and to discover the root causes of the rebellion. They were not prepared to intervene in a peace they had not fought for, which peace Berkeley was determined to shape to the advantage of his faction. Berkeley’s first interest was in justice for himself and his allies, the loyalists who had defended the government of the Crown; the commissioners were focused on the fiscal priorities of the Crown, and were therefore intent on moving beyond the war – bygones – and getting Virginia back to the important work of growing tobacco.

There would be consequences.

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia

Charles McLean Andrews, Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence

Wilcomb E. Washburn, Review of Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence, Pacific Historical Review, May 1985.

John M. Murrin, Review of Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence, The William and Mary Quarterly, January 1986.

Last episode ended with Sir William Berkeley, on the deck of a ship in the James, watching Jamestown burn to the ground in the wee hours of September 19, 1676. The rebels under Nathaniel Bacon were ascendant, and Berkeley resolved to return to his refuge on the Eastern Shore and plot the next phase of his increasingly desperate war. Little did he know that the tide of the war was about to turn again in his favor.

This episode begins in London in the summer of 1676, where Crown officials were just beginning to figure out what to do about the turmoil in Virginia, over which they had incomplete and very emotional news. Charles II made some decisions with long-term consequences for Virginia.

At about the same time, in a stroke of luck – good or bad, depending on one’s point of view – Bacon died rather horribly. He had done a good job building an organization with an orderly succession plan, but the rebellion had lost its most charismatic leader.

A few weeks before Bacon died, at the end of September, the first of several armed merchant ships arrived in the Chesapeake, and after learning about the revolt their captains pledged their service to Berkeley. They would provide crucial support in an amphibious war against rebels along the James and York rivers. One of the captains, Thomas Grantham of the powerful 500-ton Concord, emerged as a courageous and wise diplomat, and would do more than anyone to end the rebellion in early January, 1677.

At the end of the war, Berkeley mopped up, and prosecuted and executed most of the leaders of the rebellion. Richard Lawrence, however, disappeared, and was never seen again.

The episode ends with the arrival of royal commissioners and a thousand English regular infantry at the end of January, which would be more bad news for Sir William Berkeley.

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia

Charles McLean Andrews, Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690

Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia

Virginia Governor Sir William Berkeley has fled to the Eastern Shore with a small group of loyalist planters and a detachment of perhaps only fifty armed men. Nathaniel Bacon has occupied Berkeley’s estate near Jamestown, and dispatched men to capture loyalist ships anchored there. Bacon’s “navy” has out in search of Berkeley, but Berkeley turned the tables in an audacious amphibious attack and grabbed control of the Bay and the rivers. While Bacon was mucking around in the Dragon Swamp hunting notionally allied Pamunkeys, Berkeley recaptured Jamestown. Loyalist victory seemed at hand, but Bacon forced Berkeley to retreat from Jamestown a second time in part by grabbing the wives of loyalist planters and using them as human shields, and this time the rebels burn it to the ground.

At the end of the episode, it appears that the rebels had the upper hand. Little did they understand that the loyalist cause was far from lost, and the rebellion was, unbeknownst to anybody, on the brink of disaster.

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia

Various authors, for the National Park Service, “Mapping the Dragon:
AN INDIGENOUS HISTORY OF BACON’S REBELLION” (pdf)

Charles McLean Andrews, Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690

Nathaniel Bacon and his army of volunteers have returned from beating up on the friendly Occaneechees (Occaneechis) on the Roanoke River in southern Virginia. It is election day, and Henrico County will elect Bacon and his sidekick, James Crews, to the Virginia Assembly, which has been called into session on June 5, 1676. This episode describes the dramatic session of that Assembly, which began with Bacon’s arrest and ended with he and his army holding the Assembly at gunpoint. Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, demonstrates his own flair for the dramatic along the way, but by the end of this episode has taken refuge with other loyalists on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Oh, and there is a “manifesto.” Never a good sign.

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My Substack

X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans

Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia

Matthew Kruer, Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America

Nathaniel Bacon, “Declaration of the People,” July 30, 1676

Nathaniel Bacon, “Bacon’s Manifesto,” July 1676

The Susquehannocks, having successfully escaped from their beseiged fort on Piscataway Creek in Maryland, fled through the Virginia Piedmont to set up winter quarters on the James and Roanoke Rivers. In January 1676, they launched a measured counterattack. The settlers on the frontier panicked and evacuated. Rumors of war spread. The horrors of King Philip’s War loomed large, especially in the thinking of Sir William Berkeley, the governor. A fundamental debate over how to respond to those Susquehannock attacks set up the confrontation between Nathaniel Bacon and his populist – and it should be said, hard-drinking – frontiersmen on the one hand, and Berkeley and his loyalist supporters on the other. Along the way we consider Governor Berkeley’s background and the experiences that shaped him, and the political challenges that he now confronted. The episode ends with Bacon’s massacre of the Occaneechees (Occaneechis), heretofore allies of Virginia, on their island in the Roanoke River.

Check out the new merch store!

X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans

Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

Matthew Kruer, Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia

Various authors, for the National Park Service, “Mapping the Dragon:
AN INDIGENOUS HISTORY OF BACON’S REBELLION” (pdf)