Chapter 3: Persons of Mean and Vile Condition

Bacon’s Rebellion • 1676-1677• First rebellion in the

American Colonies • Between the American

Indians and Colonial Government in the Virginia Colony

• Conflict about how to deal with the Indians

Nathaniel Bacon• Leader of the rebellion • Higher class• Concerned about

killing Indians than helping the poor (Lower Class)

• Denied treaty between Berkeley and Powhatan

• Captured by the military and then released

• Died of a sickness

After the Release of Bacon

• Created a populist • Took militia in and raided Pamunkey and

killed men, children, and women• Raised resentment against the rich and

hatred towards the American Indians • The Indians protested the Virginia Land Co.

monopoly of the Beaver trade , unfair taxes, and political favoritism

• His fall lead to munity even amongst his own militia

William Berkeley • Governor of Virginia • His attraction to bacon was his idea of

“leveling”

1700’s• Colonies grew faster • England was fighting a series of wars• Some merchants made money from the wars• Meant higher taxes, unemployment, and poverty • Virginia legislature passed laws to punish servants who

rebelled • Voyage to America lasted eight, ten, or twelve weeks,

servants were profits that marked the slave ships • Gap between rich and poor widened, as violence and the

threat of violence increased, and the problem of control became more serious

Traveling • Conditions were awful • 8-12 weeks • Servants were packed

into the ship like items • Servants died of

starvation • Some servants were

eaten • Children died of hunger

and disease and thrown in the ocean

• Women who were pregnant thrown in the sea if un able to deliver

Revolts• 5 revolts against the proprietor • Erupt with great violence and frequency • Elite (upper class) fear of revolts• Upper classes developed tactics to deal with fear • “not born free but born slave and free”

Economic classes • Caused tensions • Revolts start to occur • ¾ of the New York land

belong to to 30 people (upper class)

• The poor was growing too, more and more became poor

• “..in all times some must be rich, some poore, some highe and eminient in power and digniteie; others meane and in subjection”

Cruel Treatment of Servants

• Beatings and whippings • Women servants were

raped • High suicide rate

• Not allowed to have children and marry because it would interfere with work

• Without consent it is seen as adultery, fornication and children seen as bastards

• Many servants would die after their arrival, many were children due to:

• Disease and Starvation

• Scared of the outcome if they rebelled

• Whipping, starvation, misery, etc.

After the Rebellion • Racism was becoming

more and more practical• White slaves were allowed

to join the militia in fear of slave rebellion growing

• Black slaves were pouring in

• Everywhere the poor were struggling to stay alive, especially from freezing in the cold weather

• Indians remained an obstacle to expansion

• Black slaves were easier to control

• The numbers grew, the prospect of a slave rebellion grew

• Class lines hardened through the colonial period, distinction between rich and poor become sharper

• They lived off the black slaves and white servants

Boston • Boston grew from 1678-

1770• The % of adult males who

were poor lost property rights meaning voting rights

• Richest of all regions 29% of the town were landless men

• Rioting became a form of protest

• Severe food shortage

• Protesting the high prices established by merchants demolished the public market

• “the town meetings, while ostensibly democratic, were in reality controlled year after year by the same group of merchant aristocrats, who secured most of the important offices”

After the Rebellion (cont.)

• Strikes by workers increased among coopers, butchers, bakers, and other landless artisans as well as sailors

• Demolishing public squares as well as homes of the landed• Natives were not acquire or considered for labor and were

constant threat on frontier • Slaves escaping plantations in the South to join Tribes • White running to join native tribes, but if captured and given

the chance to go back to white society, they would go back • Southern militias used blacks to find Indians on the frontier

Aftermath • Middle class small farmers and city artisans promoted

to created a bond between landed and poorer whites • System of indentured servitude quickly disappear,

thus alienating the negro and Indians which brought loyalty

• Brought loyalty and directed hatred away from class conflicts enough to keep the these groups apart

• To bind the loyalty a device was equality and liberty, could eventually unite whites to fight a revolution against England, without ending slavery and equality

Reference(s) • Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of

America. New York, New York, CA. Harper Collins Publishers, 1995.