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
In an address to the Assembly in June, 1680, Governor Berkeley's
successor, Governor Jeffreys--the same Jeffreys that had been a Royal
Commissioner--reminded the Virginians how the King had pardoned "all
persons whatever" that had engaged in the uprising, "except Bacon that
died and Lawrence that fled away," and added, "as his Majesty hath
forgot it himself, he doth expect this to be the last time of your
remembering the late Rebellion, and shall look upon them to be ill men
that rub the sore by using any future reproaches or terms of distinction
whatever."
XVI.
CONCLUSION.
And was Bacon's Rebellion, then, a failure? Far from it. Judged by its
results, it was indeed a signal success, for though the gallant leader
himself was cut down by disease at a moment when he himself felt that he
had but begun his work, though many of the bravest of his men paid for
their allegiance to the popular cause upon the scaffold, that cause was
won--not lost. Most of the people's grievances were relieved by the
reforms in the administration of the government, and the re-enactment of
Bacon's Laws made the relief permanent. The worst of all the
grievances--the Indian atrocities--was removed once and forever, for
Bacon had inspired the savages with a wholesome fear of the pale faces,
so that many of them removed their settlements to a safe distance from
their English neighbors, and a general treaty of peace, which seems to
have been faithfully kept, was effected with the others. And so the
colonists never had any more trouble with the red men until they began
to make settlements beyond the Blue Ridge.
According to a deposition made by "Great Peter, the great man of the
Nansemond Indians," the Weyanoke tribe, "when Bacon disturbed the
Indians," fled to their former settlements upon Roanoke River, in North
Carolina. In 1711 some "old men of the Nottaway Indians" upon being
asked if they knew anything of the return of the Weyanokes to Carolina
replied, "They did go thither for they were afraid of Squire Bacon, and
therefore were resolved to go to their own land."
Lovely woman flits in and out through the whole story of Bacon's
Rebellion, touching up the narrative here and there with the interest
her presence always creates. First there is the fair and fascinating
young wife of Sir William Berkeley, said to have turned his head in his
old age. A beautiful portrait of her remains to make excuses for the
bewitched husband's weakness. She seems to have been capable of
excessive irony upon occasion. The Royal Commissioners indignantly
complained that when they went ashore and called upon Lady Frances
Berkeley she received them courteously and sent them back to the wharf,
in state, in the Governor's coach, but they afterward found that the
coachman she chose to drive them was the "common hangman."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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