Bacon’s Rebellion was the political result of a confluence of economic problems in the Virginia colony. Many believe it was the first sign of the serious economic distress in the English colonies that would fully surface as a cause of the American Revolutionary War 100 years later. Bacon’s Rebellion, which occurred during America and Virginia’s first recession, is an example of how economic conditions can cause a change in government and political instability. It is probably the first example of what became the great American tradition of “voting your pocketbook.”
In 1676, the English colony of Virginia was experiencing its first major economic downturn after years of growth and prosperity. Tobacco had been the main agricultural product of this rich colony, but in the 1670s, the colony of Mary-land had begun growing tobacco as well. The Carolinas were also increasing their tobacco production. As a result, tobacco prices were declining.
The governor of the Virginia colony, Sir William Berkeley, and his administrators got the money to run the colony from taxing the colony’s planters and participating in the very profitable fur trade with the Indians. With tobacco prices declining, the colony’s tax revenues declined as well. The governor decided to replace the loss of tobacco tax receipts by increasing the tax rates on planters. Virginia at this time was largely made up of wealthy tobacco planters who ran completely self-sufficient plantations. But there was another group of small planters and traders on Virginia’s frontier, including George Washington’s ancestors.
Under the English Navigation Act of 1651, the governor of Virginia had a total monopoly on shipping from the colony. This monopoly benefited the large plantation owners, with their large economies of scale, by providing them with a secure market for their products. At this same time, increased demand for manufactured British goods in the colonies had inflated the prices of manufactured goods. Even the Virginia weather of 1675—a summer drought and a hurricane—had exacerbated economic problems for the colony.
The small Virginia planters were severely hurt by the decrease in tobacco prices, the increase in tobacco taxes, and the higher cost of manufactured goods. Small planters also faced other cost disadvantages because they had to use an agent for shipping and had to pay a tax on the transfer of the tobacco to that shipping agent. The very large planters, such as the Lees and Carters of Virginia, were more insulated from tobacco price swings and the price of imported goods. Several of these large planters also benefited from a share in Governor Berkeley’s lucrative fur trade.
Berkeley had also started a trade in deerskins so he could sell the leather in Europe; this also hurt the small planters and traders on Virginia’s frontier. Deer were abundant on the frontier and offered another source of income for these poor Virginians, but Berkeley also set high taxes on this trade and controlled it through his shipping monopoly. Berkeley also tried to diversify the economy, testing silk-worms on his and other plantations and expanding hemp production, but the Virginia economy remained largely tobacco based.
The governor and larger plantation owners had begun to use black slaves as a means to reduce their production costs. Small planters generally employed poor white laborers and white indentured servants. These workers opposed the growing use of slaves on plantations, seeing them as competitors who were taking their work. White workers had been attracted from England with wages four times the rate in England. Planters paid for the transportation of these workers from England. In return, the workers indentured themselves to the planters until the debt was repaid. These “indentured servants” usually worked four to seven years before gaining their freedom. Once these white indentured servants paid off their debt, they could remain on the plantation earning a good wage or could become small farmers.
All of these factors led to tensions between the governor and the large planters on one side and the small planters, independent farmers, and white workers on the other side. The increasing costs of production, higher taxes, and lower tobacco prices hurt the small farmers. The competition from slaves hurt the white workers’ prospects and their hopes of paying off their indenture debt. The small planters and independent farmers also desired access to more land on the Virginia frontier because tobacco depleted the soil quickly. The large plantations, meanwhile, had access to fresh tobacco land in the Virginia heartland. As frontier farmers cleared new land for new tobacco fields, they provoked conflicts with the Indians who lived near them on the Virginia frontier.
Fights with the Indians over land had been common for decades. The governor, with his interest in the fur trade, was reluctant to fight the Indians who often traded furs with settlers and buyers on the frontier. Berkeley had built forts and sent troops in response to complaints from whites on the frontier, but to pay for these forts and troops, he taxed the frontier planters more, particularly after the decline in the tobacco market.Berkeley governed with a state council of 12 handpicked wealthy planters that made up the upper house. The lower house of burgesses comprised elected planters. The governor convened the council or house at his discretion and determined when elections to the house of burgesses took place. Berkeley had not called for elections for the decade before Bacon’s Rebellion because those in power were favorable to him. Without elections as a pressure-release valve, Virginia’s economic problems led to political rebellion.
Nathaniel Bacon, a large planter, a member of the state council, and the governor’s relative by marriage, organized a revolt. Still, Bacon’s roots were with the small planters. He put together an army of poor whites, slaves, and small planters to challenge Berkeley’s government. They issued a Declaration of the People of Virginia (1676) highlighting the issues of unjust taxes, Berkeley’s monopoly of the fur trade, and lack of protection against the Indians.
Bacon’s army took the capital of Jamestown and the seat of government, holding it for months. Berkeley asked the English king Charles II to send 1,000 troops and used them to defeat the rebels after Bacon died of natural causes during the war. Berkeley refused to pardon any of the rebels—they had burned Jamestown before abandoning it— and made no changes in his policy of high taxes. He was eventually relieved of his governorship by the king because of his harsh treatment of the rebels. Berkeley died before he could justify his actions in person before King Charles.
A similar rebellion (Culpeper’s Rebellion) occurred a year later in North Carolina over tobacco taxes for small tobacco growers. Ultimately, the Virginia economy improved as tobacco and fur prices rebounded, but the problem of high taxes and uneven representation in Virginia’s government remained until the American Revolution. Poor white servants, white laborers, and independent farmers were replaced by black slaves on most plantations. Bacon’s Rebellion remains an example of a local economic crisis caused by global competition, a transformation in the labor market (poor laborers to slaves), market realignments from price declines of an economy’s major crop, and import inflation in the price of manufactured goods.
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