Journal Entry #1
Lincoln Hirn
Colonial History
Bacon’s Rebellion and its Impact on Labor Regimes in Colonial Virginia
One of the most defining themes of the first century of English colonization in 17th
century Virginia was labor. The nascent colonies were kept afloat by their productive output,
primarily in the form of tobacco cultivation, and the increasingly wealthy planters turned to
cheap labor in order to expand their agrarian empires. Throughout the century, the labor
regimes in America shifted, as the colonial focus moved from the small scale farming of
Jamestown to the massive plantations that inevitably come to mind when one envisions the
pre-Civil War South. The most drastic element of this shift was the replacement of the system
of indentured servitude by large scale slavery. This shift was the result of many shifting colonial
forces, and Bacon’s Rebellion, the armed uprising against Virginia governor William Berkeley in
1676 acted as a spark that ignited a kindling of unrest that had been mounting since the
founding of Jamestown and that would be fueled by a variety of economic and social forces.
The Rebellion failed, but as the ringleaders swung in the noose the fire spread, and in the years
following the Rebellion the New World witnessed the creation of Virginia as a truly slave-based
economy, as the planter elite of Virginia consolidated their power on the backs of enslaved
Africans.
Slavery as a means of agricultural of labor in Virginia was by no means an entirely postrebellion development. Indeed, the famed Jamestown tobacco pioneer John Rolfe wrote of the
importation of “20. And odd Negroes” (Horwitz, 365) to the settlement of Jamestown as early
as 1619. While slavery has undoubtedly and inexcusably been a part of the Virginia agrarian
culture since its inception, it was not always the most prominent form of coerced labor in the
tobacco fields. Historian T.H. Breen writes that the solution to the demand for tobacco labor
“In the middle of the 17th Century … was the importation of white indentured servants.” (Breen,
4) These laborers, who were usually white English immigrants, were not slaves, but they
worked for no wages over a period of time specified by an indenture contract, which the
servants would agree to in order to secure passage to the New World. As one might expect,
this system of contractual bondage was the cause of a significant amount of strife, and both the
masters and the servants voiced a multitude of grievances. Chief among the grievances for the
masters was the quality of their laborers, and Breen again writes of the planters’ complaints of
“indentured workers as a bunch of ‘desperate villans.’” (Breen, 5)
The servants, who were predominantly young, poor men, griped as well, chafing in their
bonds. Everything came to a head in 1676, when Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion of
disillusioned laborers, later described by Government representatives as “free men that had
but lately crept out of the condition of Servants.” (Breen, 6) The rebellion, while initially
successful, faltered after Bacon died of illness, and the remaining ringleaders were executed by
Governor William Berkeley. The rebellion failed, but its indirect results continue to be felt
today.
Bacon’s Rebellion shook the Virginia aristocracy to its core. The unease that had been
mounting for decades had finally combusted in the form of Nathaniel Bacon, and his coalition
of laborers. Over the next decade, the planters’ mistrust of the servant class grew, but the class
itself diminished, shrinking from a rather diverse group of white servants and black slaves,
united by their bondage, to a group comprised solely of black slaves and this “Rapid shift from
indentured to enslaved labor” (Tartar, 120) continues to define America today.
This shift was by no means the result of the Rebellion alone, but it was certainly
enhanced by the uprising. In the years following Bacon’s Rebellion, a slew of small-scale
servant uprisings erupted, and the system of labor that had dominated Virginia for decades was
suddenly thrown into disarray. The system, which “until the rebellion broke out in 1676 … had
all seemed to work,” (Tartar, 108) had been irrevocably changed by Nathaniel Bacon. The
aftermath of the rebellions coincided with developments in the
methods used to transfer slaves to the Americas. These
developments greatly increased the supply of slaves to the colony,
allowing “Planters greater selectivity in the choice of servants.”
(Breen, 14) Nathaniel Bacon had given the planters an excellent
reason to eschew the labor practices of the past, and the new supply
Nathaniel Bacon
Image from:
http://memory.loc.gov/
of slaves gave the planters a means to circumvent rebellious laborers.
This shift from servitude to slavery not only worsened the already
deplorable condition of blacks in Virginia, but enhanced the position of the planters, who now
had permanent laborers whose arrival acted as essentially an enormous influx of capital for the
elite. The new and massive system of slavery that had been birthed by the process of sweeping
change kicked off by the Rebellion now allowed the planters to consolidate their wealth in the
form of human property. By 1700, slavery had truly become the economic backbone of
Virginia, creating a “Planters’ patriarchy that emerged into full flower in the decades following
Bacon’s Rebellion.” (Tartar, 120)
The remarkable change that occurred in Virginia over the relatively short period
following Bacon’s Rebellion was the result of a myriad of forces from both the Old and New
Worlds, but the era of transition can be traced back to 1676. The rebellion helped spark a
defining shift in the way the Southern economy operated, creating a distinct class system of
marked by the distinct characterization of the plantation masters and slaves who defined such a
large swath of American history. Bacon’s Rebellion, in conjunction with a variety of changing
cultural, economic, and social forces, helped to create one of the most impactful periods of
change in early American history.