Nathaniel Bacon (12 January 1647 [O.S. 2 January] - 5 November 1676 [O.S. 26 October]) was an English-born Virginia colonist who led an armed insurrection against the colonial government of Governor William Berkeley in 1676, an episode known as Bacon's Rebellion. He is a contested figure in American colonial history: variously characterized as a proto-democratic rebel against aristocratic misrule, a frontier opportunist driven primarily by anti-Native American animus, or an early catalyst of the racial codification that would define American chattel slavery.
Born in Suffolk, England, to a prosperous family with connections to the Virginia gentry, Bacon emigrated to Virginia in 1674. Through family connection and purchased land, he quickly acquired a seat on the Governor's Council. His grievances against Berkeley's government centered on frontier defense policy - specifically Berkeley's refusal to authorize indiscriminate campaigns against Native American tribes on the colony's western edges - and on what Bacon characterized as monopolistic control of the fur trade by Berkeley's allies.
For the history of events leading to and including the rebellion, see Bacon's Rebellion - History.
Bacon died of dysentery in October 1676, before Berkeley's forces could suppress him, and the rebellion collapsed shortly after. Berkeley executed twenty-three of Bacon's followers before being recalled to England. The rebellion's longer-term significance is debated among historians. Some scholarship emphasizes its role in accelerating the shift from indentured European labor to enslaved African labor in the Chesapeake, on the theory that the rebellion demonstrated the political volatility of a large class of landless, armed, free poor - a demographic that African chattel slavery would displace. Other scholars question the directness of this causal link. Bacon's own motivations, ideology, and popular support remain subjects of active historiographical dispute.
* Bacon as democratic precursor - Some historians and popular accounts have portrayed Bacon as an early voice for colonial self-government and resistance to entrenched oligarchy. This interpretation foregrounds his rhetoric against Berkeley's inner circle and his appeal to landless colonists. See nathaniel-bacon-proto-democrat-viewpoint.
* Bacon as racial aggressor - A competing interpretation centers Bacon's explicit goal of exterminating Native Americans regardless of alliance status with the English, arguing that his democratic rhetoric masked or served an agenda of ethnic violence on the frontier. See nathaniel-bacon-racial-aggressor-viewpoint.
* Bacon as catalyst of racial slavery - Drawing on Edmund Morgan's influential thesis, some historians argue Bacon's Rebellion - by revealing the danger of a multiracial alliance of the poor - prompted Virginia planters to invest in African chattel slavery as a more controllable labor and social system. See nathaniel-bacon-slavery-catalyst-viewpoint.
* Bacon as self-interested factional actor - Some historians downplay ideological readings and portray Bacon primarily as an ambitious planter pursuing personal and factional advantage under cover of populist grievance. See nathaniel-bacon-factional-actor-viewpoint.
* Racial codification thesis - Historians dispute whether Bacon's Rebellion was a direct or primary cause of Virginia's subsequent hardening of racial slavery statutes, with critics arguing the causal relationship is overstated or imprecisely evidenced. See bacons-rebellion-slavery-causation-controversy.
* Legacy and commemoration - Bacon's status as a hero or villain in Virginia and American public memory has been contested, particularly in debates over historical monuments and curricula. See nathaniel-bacon-legacy-controversy.
* Bacon's Rebellion - Main topic page for the rebellion itself * Bacon's Rebellion - History - Full historical account * nathaniel-bacon-proto-democrat-viewpoint * nathaniel-bacon-racial-aggressor-viewpoint * nathaniel-bacon-slavery-catalyst-viewpoint * nathaniel-bacon-factional-actor-viewpoint * bacons-rebellion-slavery-causation-controversy * nathaniel-bacon-legacy-controversy * United States of America - 17th Century History * virginia-colonial-history * bacons-rebellion-viewpoint-debate
1. Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957). 2. Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975). 3. Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence (New York: Knopf, 1984). 4. Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). 5. James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon's Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).