Short And Long Term Effects Of Bacon's Rebellion

Throughout 1786 and 1787, Shays' Rebellion, a series of protests by American farmers against local enforcement, that spread through South Carolina, Maine, Connecticut, New York and New Hampshire, but the protests were the strongest in Massachusetts. Massachusetts got the worst of the Rebellion because they had bad harvests, economic depression, new laws, West Indies trade, and high taxes due to Revolutionary War debts. Daniel Shays, former captain of the Continental Army, led Shays' Rebellion. Seen as one of the major factors that led to the writing of the new constitution, the rebellion is important.

In the HISTORY, Shay’s Rebellion is the protest around 1786 to 1787 by the American farmers that are against the state and the locals collecting all the taxes and judgmental for the debt. The farmers from New Hampshire and South Carolina rebel in Massachusetts. In addition, it is where there are bad harvests, economic depression, and high taxes to threatened the farmers with the loss of their farms. A man who was from Massachusetts, Daniel Shays, was a captain in the Continental army. Furthermore, at Springfield there were incidents where leading merchants, lawyers, and supporters of the state government were harassed.

Virginia was facing many social issues with the emergence of a ruling class. For that reason, Bacon was able to gain support from disgruntled poor whites and indentured blacks. Bacon led a campaign against the Indians and the Virginia government with his militia of lower class citizens. 2. This document was signed during this organized rebellion on July 30, 1676.

The colonists were taking the Native American's property and taking advantage of the native Americans in the trade by getting them drunk so they could get more land. King Philip, the religious leader the Native Americans.

During the early 1600’s there were two influential men, John Smith and William Bradford, that both wrote stories on their experience in America being European, where they set off to the New World to become leaders of a colony. Smith wrote The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles and Bradford wrote Of Plymouth Plantation. Smith became a leader of Jamestown, and Bradford became the governor of Plymouth. Smith and Bradford had major differences when it came to their views on Native Americans. They both want the majority same thing for their communities, but they do have some differences on how they want their community to be.

The Governor, Sir William Berkley did not help the English settlers because he had a secret alliance with the Native Americans. In the article it stated, “Colonists denounced the government as a corrupt band of oligarchs more interested in lining their pockets than protecting the people.”

Throughout the seventeenth century, conflict between Europeans and Native Americans was rampant and constant. As more and more Europeans migrated to America, violence became increasingly consistent. This seemingly institutionalized pattern of conflict begs a question: Was conflict between Europeans and Native Americans inevitable? Kevin Kenny and Cynthia J. Van Zandt take opposing sides on the issue. Kevin Kenny asserts that William Penn’s vision for cordial relations with local Native Americans was destined for failure due to European colonists’ demands for privately owned land.

Bacon’s Rebellion is well known to students of colonial America, although no-one has succeeded in writing a convincing account of it. The first question historians asked was who was responsible for the widespread anarchy that followed the breakdown of government authority in the colony between 1676 and 1677. One historian attributes the rebellion to Nathaniel Bacon, and describes Governor Berkeley as a man doing his best to implement sensible policies. Another sees the Rebellion as prefiguring the American Revolution, with Bacon as an early George Washington, already defying British authority.

When looking at the social and political changes that took place during the early American colonies you can see a steady progression towards ideologies that would lead to the Revolution. When you have different levels of government being put in place by the states depending upon their needs, where rural areas had different court systems than more urban areas, you see a level of independence for governance that the colonists began to see the benefit of having, separate from the rule of the Crown. To counter this increase in independence. the Crown implemented ever changing political positions that could be assigned to those who were loyal to the Crown and the social hierarchy that was prevalent in Britain at the time. These actions of corruption

Nathaniel Bacon is one of the few rebellious people whose name has been taught from school to school in America. “Why is that?” , you may ask, “Why him? Why is his rebellion significant in American history?”. Bacon’s rebellion used to be seen as the start of the American Revolution, but now, modern historians have uncovered the truth of the Virginian Rebellion of 1676.

His argument, clearly articulated in the afterword, is that Bacon’sRebellion served as the first act in a longer drama that did not reach its cli-max until the Glorious Revolution. Successive crises between 1675 and 1689were fueled by the same underlying factors, which Rice refers to as unresolved“dilemmas” that produced “dramatic tension” (211). Restive colonists inVirginia and Maryland faced one dilemma, struggling to assert their rightsas Englishmen in an increasingly repressive regime controlled by wealthyoligarchs. Native Americans faced another dilemma, struggling to surviveEnglish territorial expansion and the escalating violence of the Indian slavetrade. Colonial leaders attempted to strike a balance between the demands of their English subjects and their Indian allies, but ultimately found this to beimpossible.

One of the more well-known and documented acts of political violence started in the colonial era when “Nathaniel Bacon and a sizable number of Virginians rose up in armed rebellion against the royal governor of the colony in 1676.” (Britanica) It was the result of Bacon and the then Gov. Berkeley having two different viewpoints about Indians and colony expansion. Berkeley did not want to remove the Indians for fear of war with the Indians as well as trade being interrupted. Berkeley eventually “launched military expeditions against Bacon” (Britanica) and his colonialists.

King Philips War and Bacon’s Rebellion were two pivotal points in early American history. Ironically, they both shared many similarities between them. There are three main points of discussion in comparison of the two conflicts: 1) why the fighting started, 2) what they were fighting over, and finally 3) who they were fighting against. Each of these conflicts resulted in tragic loss of many lives of settlers and Indians and caused even more tension between the English and the Native Americans.

Gordon S. Wood, “the preeminent historian of the Revolution”, is a well known American historian who has received several awards such as the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize for his historical books. In his book, The American Revolution: A History, he breaks down the key events based on his experiences and knowledge on the Revolutionary period. Wood was born in Concord, Massachusetts on November 27,1933. Wood teaches at many liberal renowned universities such as Brown, Cambridge, Northwestern , and Harvard. Now being eighty one years old, he recently retired from Brown University and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

The Natives believed that the Europeans are “edgy, rapacious, and remotely maladroit.” Sure enough, the settlers in Jamestown kenned little about farming and found the environment baffling. It was conspicuous that the colonists needed the avail of the Natives. Despite their inexperience the English dominated the Indians. From “the beginning the Virginia Company indited that the relationship would ineluctably become bellicose: for you Cannot Carry Your Selves so towards them but they will Grow Discontented with Your habitation.”