Essay 1 "Bacon's Rebellion"

To this day Native American people still are not treated the way that they should be. In his article, “Billions Missing From U.S. Indian Trust Fund,” Dyer, who has had work featured in numerous magazines such as the New York Times, maintains that “In his testimony before Congress, John Echohawk, director of Native American Rights Fund, called it "yet another serious and continuing breach in a long history of dishonorable treatment of Indian tribes and individual Indians by the United States government." Arizona Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, bluntly called it "theft from Indian people." These men were describing the single largest and longest-lasting financial scandal in history involving the federal government of the United States. With no other recourse left at their disposal, NARF, along with other attorneys, filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court on June 10 on behalf of more than 300,000 American Indians. The suit charges Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Assistant Interior Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Ada Deer and Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin with illegal conduct in regard to the management of Indian money held in trust accounts and managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If the lawsuit's claims are correct, and there's an overwhelming body of evidence that suggests they are, then the federal government has lost, misappropriated or, in some cases, stolen billions of dollars from some of its poorest citizens.” It is absurd how through the years the Natives still are not given proper treatment, whether the subject at hand be the treatment towards them and their land, or in this case, the treatment of their entrusted money.


Background Information

In recent discussions of Bacon's Rebellion, a controversial issue has been whether Bacon and his followers had proper justification and means for rebellion against the richer whites and the Native Americans or was it unnecessary. On one hand, some writers take the side of Bacon and his followers, for example Historians Zinn and Stefoff, in A Younger People's History of the United States, who portray Bacon as a hero. From this perspective, "It was not a war of American colonist against the British. Instead, Bacon's Rebellion was an uprising of angry, poor colonists against two groups they saw as their enemies. One was the Indians. The other was the colonists' own rich and privileged leaders." [35] Then, in 1676, the unhappy Virginians found a leader in farmer Nathaniel Bacon so they elected him into the colonial government, the House of Burgesses. Following the election, Bacon was ready to take matters into his own hands, as it says, "Bacon was ready to send armed militias, or armed grouped of citizens, to fight the Indians.” These people were not controlled by the government, which alarmed Governor William Berkeley, so they announced Bacon as a rebel. He was captured then set free when two thousand of Bacon’s supporters had marched into Jamestown, which they began raiding the Indians and set their capital, Jamestown on fire.

Bacon gave his reason for the rebellion in a paper called "Declaration of the People," in which showed the frontiersman's hatred of the Indians and the common people's anger toward the rich, and Bacon's accusations of Sir William Berkeley, Sir Henry Chichley, William Claiburne Junior, Lieut. Coll. Christopher Wormeley, Thomas Hawkins, William Sherwood, Phillip Ludwell, along with all the others listed on the document, as to their wrong doings with unfair taxes, non-protection of the western farmers from the Indians, going against the King, etc. A few months following, Bacon got sick and died. After Bacon’s death, there basically became a sense of inferiority with England controlling the new American colony, and the new American colony controlling the Natives.

Many of the poor settlers were mislead. They came to America with the promise of the good lives they would have in American and the possibility of becoming very wealthy, but that was not the case. According to Zinn, "Many poor people bound for America became indentured servants. They signed an agreement called an indenture that said that they would repay the cost of their journey to America by working for a master for five or seven years. Once they got to American these servants were treated inhumanely and sold as though they were livestock. Many Virginians were unhappy because of terrible conditions they had as servants or the state of living in poverty. Plus, there was a constant reality of the saying, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." Due to the wealthy being in fear of the Indian hostility, the danger of slave revolts, and the growing class anger of poor whites, they [the wealthy] tried to turn all the others against each other; the poor against the Indians, the blacks against the the Indians, and blacks and white against each other [racism]. Everything developed over time in this same pattern with the divided social and racial classes, these that still exist today. In synapses, Bacon's Rebellion impacted history so much so, that it lead to future rebellions. Which brings me to my question of whether or not it was just for the Indians to be treated poorly during Bacon’s Rebellion?


Body/ Discussion

The Indians were very unselfish people. They allowed the colonists to have a portion of land, yet the colonists were so selfish that they still took more without thinking of how the Indian people would feel about it. “The Indians had their lands seized by white frontiersmen.” (“A Young People’s History of the United States” by Historians Howard Zinn and Rebecca Stefoff). Part of the reason for the colonists coming into the Indian’s land was that once the indentured servants became free, they had to be given the land promised to them and the only land that was left was not theirs to be giving away in the first place, it was the Indian’s land. “Bacon’s Rebellion stated with trouble on Virginia’s western frontier. By the 1670s rich landowners controlled most of eastern Virginia. As a result, many ordinary people felt that they were pushed towards the frontier. Life was more dangerous there.” [Zinn] This made the frontiersmen feel like their government had let them down. In the American Promise, they state that “the number of land-hungry colonists, especially poor, recently freed servants, continued to multiply. In their quest for land, they pushed beyond the treaty limits of English settlement and encroached steadily on Indian land.” The way I see it, the colonists were just being greedy. They received a big portion of land and yet they wanted more and more. Whether or not they had enough land to give to the indentured servants or not, they should not have continued to go into the Indian land boundaries that they had formerly said they would not protrude. I think that the Indians had all the right to be unhappy about this issue. After all, any of us today would be mad if that were to happen to us. No one should be ok with other people taking what is rightfully ours.

The Indians clearly were not always intentionally harming the colonists. Some of the colonists were on the native’s side of this issue, especially those in the government. “The settlers had problems with the Natives American. They wanted the colony’s leaders to fight the Indians, but the politicians and big landowners who ran the colony wouldn’t fight.”[Zinn] This could have been because of issues like tobacco, but regardless, if the Indians were really in the wrong about how they were acting towards the colonists, the government would have had to uphold their duty and step in to do something about it, even if it were only slight. If the government’s actions were only slight, they would maintain the peace and still have the opportunities of trading with the Indians, while defending and protecting their people at the same time. “When Bacon began his private war against Indians, Berkeley – who hoped to keep the peace among the frontiers – declared the upstart a rebel.” [“The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century” by Warren Billings, ed.] If the Indians’ treatment towards the colonists were to really be a big deal, the government would have had to step in and do something about it. But they did not, therefore showing that the Indians were treating the colonists in an acceptable manner. This is presented clearly because Berkeley went as far as to announce Bacon as a rebel for trying to fight the Indians. Keep in mind that Bacon and Berkeley were formerly on good terms, as stated in “The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century,” where it says, “Bacon’s status as a member of prominent English family gained him recognition from Virginia’s governor, Sir William Berkeley.” All in all, the Virginian government did not see the treatment of the Indians towards the colonists as an issue, so clearly it was not that immoral.

How can anyone be sure that Bacon had probable cause for stating the rebellion? No one knows that he did for sure. Although some people see Bacon as a hero, helping the poor farmers, others thought he was greedy. “Bacon owned a good bit of land. He probably cared more about fighting Indians than about helping the poor. Still, the common people of Virginia felt that he was on their side.” [Zinn] Like it said in the quote, Bacon might have cared more about fighting the Indians than about helping the poor. For all we know, he could have very well been an inspirational speaker and convinced many people into believing that his cause was just and that is was all for those people. Realistically, were a few Indians killing one of Bacon’s dear friends reason enough to start hatred against Indians as a whole, even the ones that were their “friends”? In “Whether They be Friends or Foes” by Michael J. Puglisi of the Marian College, it says “Both [referring to native groups such as the Powhatan and the so-called Praying Indians] felt the obvious isolation from tribes that lived outside of colonial control, but both also suffered from the lingering and thriving English prejudice against any Indians, regardless of their administrative loyalties or behavioral patterns. During the 1670s, this ambiguous situation resulted in open attacks on the peaceful native groups in Virginia and Massachusetts.” To add to the concept, “Another [referring to one of the members of Governor Berkeley’s council] said that the Indian problem was the original cause of Bacon’s Rebellion, but the poor people had joined because they wanted to seize and share the wealth of the rich.” [Zinn] This comes to show that many of Bacon’s “supporters” were only contributing out of their own wants for more money because after all, the major groups fighting in Bacon’s Rebellion were the Rich Englishmen and the Indians, verses the Poor farmers and Bacon, so money or class was of great relevance.

The Native Americans were not treated properly during Bacon’s Rebellion. Majority of the time the Natives saw the colonists as god’s people, which they were. They allowed the colonists to take over their land and be unpleasant towards them. I really do not think that Bacon had probable cause to “go to war” with the Indians. Some questions that come to my mind that could or could not prove Bacon’s point to be probable are “What was Bacon’s initial intent to fighting with the Indians? Why did Bacon have so much hatred towards these people? Was this rebellion really meaningful to those poor farmers that were lead, by Bacon, to believe that the Indians were somehow the enemy? Were the Natives really in the wrong?” Because in my own opinion, all this harshness towards the Indians was not necessary and the colonists could have very well handled the Natives in a different manner and still have gotten their greedy, selfish wants or needs.