The Story of Bacon's RebellionStanard, Mary Newton
History
The Story of Bacon's Rebellion
Stanard, Mary Newton
Bacon's Rebellion, 1676; Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Governor Berkeley, finding it beyond his power to stem the tide of
reformation which tossed the old man about like a leaf whose little
summer is past,--a tide by which his former glory seemed to be utterly
submerged and blotted out,--pleaded sickness as an excuse to get away
from it all, and take refuge within his own home, but in vain. Not until
he had placed his signature to each one of the acts passed for the
relief of the people and correction of the existing abuses would Bacon
permit him to stir a step.
But the Assembly was not wholly taken up with revising the laws. It
devoted much attention to planning the Indian campaign to be carried on
under "General Bacon," for which 1,000 men and provisions were provided.
For this little army we are told that some volunteered to enlist and
others were talked into doing so by members of the Council--Councillor
Ballard being especially zealous in the work. It was also decided to
enlist the aid of the Pamunkey Indians, who were descendants of
Powhatan's braves, and had been allies of the English against other
tribes. Accordingly, the "Queen of Pamunkey" was invited to appear
before the House of Burgesses and say what she would do. The "Queen" at
this time commanded a hundred and fifty warriors. She was the widow of
the "mighty Totapotamoy" who had led a hundred warriors, in aid of the
English, at the battle of "Bloody Run," and was slain with most of his
men. The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
possesses an interesting relic in what is known as the "Indian
Crown,"--a silver frontlet presented to the "Queen of Pamunkey" by the
English Government, as a testimonial of friendship.
This forest queen is said to have "entered the chamber with a
comportment graceful to admiration, bringing on her right hand an
Englishman interpreter, and on her left her son, a stripling twenty
years of age, she having round her head a plait of black and white
wampumpeag, three inches broad, in imitation of a crown, and was clothed
in a mantle of dressed deerskins with the hair outwards and the edge cut
round six inches deep, which made strings resembling twisted fringe from
the shoulders to the feet; thus with grave courtlike gestures and a
majestic air in her face, she walked up our long room to the lower end
of the table, where after a few entreaties, she sat down; the
interpreter and her son standing by her on either side, as they had
walked up."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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