There were now about forty thousand people in Virginia, many of whom had been born and reared there. For the most part, they disapproved of Berkeley’s high-handed course and of his disregard of the rights and privileges of the colonists. But he was the lawful governor and they were loyal, law-abiding people; probably they would have gone on submitting and grumbling had it not been for the Indian attacks and Governor Berkeley’s failure to protect the outlying settlements. Fierce Indian tribes from Pennsylvania had come south; they were now on the borders of the Virginia colony--murdering, burning, and pillaging, making life and property unsafe. In the spring of 1676 the House of Burgesses voted to send five hundred men to protect the frontiers, but instead of ordering them to march Berkeley disbanded the little army. There was at this time in Jamestown an Englishman as brave and resolute as Berkeley himself and as devoted to the rights of the people as Berkeley was to those of the king. This was Nathaniel Bacon. He had been in Virginia only a few months, but he was so popular and so talented that soon after his arrival he was chosen a member of the governor’s council. A few weeks after the governor disbanded the army which should have marched to protect the frontier settlements, Bacon received news that the Indians had attacked his plantation on the James and had killed the overseer and a servant. Immediately he collected a little band of his friends and neighbors and servants, and marched against the Indians. He sent to ask Berkeley for a commission; this was refused and Bacon marched on without it. He defeated the Indians and returned home in triumph. Governor Berkeley was angry because Bacon had assumed authority without a commission and would have liked to punish him as a traitor. But the sympathies of the people were with the young Englishman; the governor had to give up and in the end had to promise Bacon a commission to fight against the Indians. He delayed drawing up the paper, however, until Bacon at the head of several hundred planters marched to Jamestown and required it by force. At the head of these troops, Bacon marched from Jamestown into the Indian country. The governor, meanwhile, declared Bacon a traitor, raised forces, and prepared to fight. Bacon and his men pledged themselves to stand together in defence of the rights of the people. This was in August, 1676, a hundred years before the American Revolution, which, like the Great Rebellion, was undertaken to uphold the people’s rights.