Bacon's rebellion rough draft

-----According to Dictionary.com, a hero is "A man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities," while rebellion is," Open, organized, and armed resistance to one's government or ruler.” Although there may be everyday heroes like firemen, policemen, or good role models, it is much more common to have heroes among leaders, soldiers, and “freedom fighters” in a time of war, such as a rebellion. In a rebellion, a leader, soldier, or “freedom fighter” must distinguish himself to his government and/or the people of his country. It is also imperative that the people or person he or she is recognized by believes that they have their best interests in mind. In the case of Nathaniel Bacon Jr., having the recognition and respect of the majority of the population meant being a savior to the poor and recently freed colonists, but only at the price of being a traitor to William Berkeley (the governor) and the rich plantation owners (the government).
-----The idea that Bacon and his men were causing nothing but trouble for the colonists and the government is nothing new. Michael J. Puglisi, the esteemed president of Virginia Intremont College, is one with such an interpretation of the event. Casting a sort of shadow of injustice over the event, Puglisi states in his article "'Whether They Be Friends Or Foes:' The Roles And Reactions Of Tributary Native Groups Caught In Colonial Conflicts" that the colonists had "a record with a lack of regard for the integrity and the well-being of the tributary tribes [...]" (83). Though this is a very mild quote, it is safe to assume that there were much larger prejudices than this lets on. Bacon was a person who would have this sort of extreme prejudice, because an Indian raid on one of his plantations had killed his plantation overseer and close friend. This actually happened to be the event that propelled him into the war.
-----Although Puglisi makes a very strong and plausible argument, there are others such as Robert Beverly, who takes his interpretation to an almost extremist level in his excerpt from "The History and Present State of Virginia". In this excerpt, Beverly persuades that Bacon's real reason for the rebellion was "endeavored to ruin a Governor, whom they all entirely loved and had unanimously chosen; [...]" (Document #1). This statement implies that all Bacon wanted to do was take the Governor’s power for himself without inciting complete anarchy within the colony so he could govern later. Farther into the excerpt Beverly explains this when he states the four base reasons he believes the rebellion began; “First, the extremely low Price of Tobacco, and the ill usage of the Planters in the Exchange of Goods for it…Secondly, the Splintering [of] the Colony into [numerous] Proprietaries…Thirdly, the heavy restraint and Burdens laid upon their Trade by Act of Parliament in England. Fourthly, the Disturbance given by the Indians….” In so arguing, he reasons that Bacon (as the General by Consent of the People, or the ideas which they stand for) was not just an anarchist or terrorist, but a person who could manipulate the anger and frustration of the poor and recently freed to serve his own will, making him even more dangerous to the delicate society they held.
-----Though Puglisi and Beverly make many very logical points, there is another popular interpretation that indicates the massacre by the colonists and Bacon's hatred of them was justified by their need to defend themselves, which coincidentally makes Bacon look like a "True American Hero", or a sort of Robin Hood. "The History of Bacon's and Ingram's Rebellion" (Ingram being the person who took over after Bacon’s death) is a perfect example of this view, though the author is unknown. It is obvious through the amount of detail presented that the writer clearly was a first-hand witness of "these brutish and inhumane brutes" (Document #5), but the fact that we do not know the status or standing of the author makes him less credible than a stated author. In “The History of Bacon and Ingram’s Rebellion”, the thought-to-be colonist exclaims "they de-vised a hundred ways to torter and torment those poore soules [colonists] with, whose reched fate it was to fall in to there unmercyfull hands" (Document #5). This morally justifies the Indian’s slaughter to the poorer colonists, who made up the majority of the population and Bacon’s army. This moral justification made it very easy to sway toward a very violent reaction to the actions of the Indians and the government.
-----In every conflict where there is a hero, there also must be a villain. Though both sides may not agree who is the villain or who is the hero, there always is a pair for each side to adore (hero) or hate (villain). To the common poor farmer, the hero was Bacon while the villain was Berkeley, the generic oppressive dictator only out for his own gain and the gain of those close to him. In a letter to his friend and ally Henry Coventry he confides,” he [Bacon] came downe to James Towne with about three-score men thinking to surprise me and the Councel… [S]ome other loyal gentlemen had sent me fourty men of quality to assist me in any exigent” (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1915651?seq=6). Here Berkeley clearly states himself that the common poor/free men wanted Berkeley dead so that they could take over Jamestown. I believe that the death of William Berkeley would have been more of a symbolic way of showing to everyone watching that the old ways had failed, and there was a new way to react to the problems at hand.
-----Bacon was a young man, fresh from England and ready to start a new life, and what better way to start a new life than to become governor of a colony? Multiple Berkeley supporters exaggerate that Bacon had his own agenda; of course he did! He was trying to become the governor and gain the backing of the people and for the reason to improve the lifestyle of the people. My idea that Bacon was trying to improve the lifestyle of the people is not shared with the Berkeley supporters I just mentioned, though. The great majority of this group believes that Bacon was a greedy man out to gain a hefty profit from the backs of the people, but were they doing anything different? “Of these the aforesaid Articles Wee accuse Sr. Wm: Berkeley as guiltie of Each and Everie of the same. As one who hath Traiterouslie attempted, violated and Injured his Maties: Interest here, by the loss of a greate Part of his Maties: Colonie” (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/jamestown-browse?id=J1035). Though written by Bacon, I think that in this letter the fear the poor colonists of Bacon’s rebellion had of losing their life is betrayed in the writing of the letter to all colonists. There is a sort of underlying panicked tone lying right underneath the anger that the document is portraying. If there was an underlying panicked tone then the colonists were most likely reacting out of fear and not out of a want to overtake the government. Whether Bacon shared this constant sense of panic I am not sure, but if he did it was most likely in his best interest to lead the rebellion the best he could for the people so as to be protected by them against all physical hurts. Too bad that didn’t include disease or sickness.
-----Even if what he did was for his benefit or for the benefit of the people, he was still a traitor to his government and the rich plantation owners who ran it, no matter how much he cared for the people. This is not whether the government is corrupt or not, because you are still a traitor to a corrupt government if you begin a rebellion, but rather why he chose to take the one path that would surely turn him away from the government. Once again, it may have been out of this fear for his life that he shared with so many other colonists and the fear of abandonment that they all felt from the government that spurred their rebellion. It also may have been Bacon controlling them for his own gain, in which case he would take the governor’s place and rule the colony, but I believe that it was both of these. Based o the facts and opinions I have read from Puglisi, Zinn and Steffof, and Beverly, my educated guess is that Bacon initially started the rebellion out of fear and then grew into the role of leader and against what they saw as the government’s reign of tyranny. At the beginning, Bacon may have been reacting out of fear, but once he grew out of that and understood what it was he was doing and the implications of it, he weighed the odds and found it would be better for himself and those he loved to try and refine the government t better fit the common good. In short, he allied himself with the majority of the population because he saw that as safer and more beneficial, although riskier, than allying himself with the government.
-----Bacon’s rebellion still has relevance to us today, but more in the way of knowledge than anything else. We can learn from the colonist’s reactions, motives, reasoning what not to do to anger the people or how to keep the consent or love of the people and not incite the hatred or misdirected anger of them. This knowledge can probably be related to the Afghanistan conflict and Iraq war. Although there was no rebellion or uprising of the American people, that is the whole point. The government chose that it was best for the government and America as a whole to declare war and to use the anger of the people to fuel it. This is unlike Berkeley and the government of Jamestown who chose that it was in their best interest, not the best interest of the people, not to enter into a war with the Indians, so letting their people die. If Berkeley had declared war on the Indians, the conflict itself would have been different, but the outcome would have been the same as it is today, a new respect for the government from the people and a submitted population. Though the outcome would have been different than that of the Iraq war, where the government spurned the disrespect of much of the population by staying in war, the outcome would have been much similar to that of the Afghanistan conflict.
-----Also, the media played as much of a role then as it does now. Though their media was word of mouth and our is the news, they were presented with horror stories like those of the thought-to-be colonist while we are presented with them by the news, who hopes to keep the American people stirred up about the problems we face in this war. It was partly because of what they heard that the colonists joined the rebellion and chose to fight against their “beloved governor”. An example of a use of the media for the support of the war we are currently involved in is a PSA done by Muhammad Ali where,” ‘Ali will hopefully be able to convey the idea that Muslims in America lead a free life, practice their religion in a form in which they choose to practice it,’ Mr. Valenti said. The second point: ‘It's not a war against Islam. It's a war against murderers who kill innocent people.’ (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E0D61631F930A15751C1A9679C8B63&scp=6&sq=entering+afghanistan&st=nyt)” Here, the media uses a known American icon to further their cause, while the colonists were doing almost the same thing, except using Bacon as their known icon, who also happened to be the leader.
-----Though a traitor to his king and country, Bacon saw himself as a liberator, winning the support of the people and defending their land. Though he may have had an agenda in wanting to lead the rebellion, everyone always has something that they wish to get out of a situation. For Bacon this may have been a better position in the colony, while for the colonists it was more freedom, and for the American people in the time of the Afghanistan Conflict, it was retaliation for our lost loved ones. Throughout all these difficulties it seems as if the government is trying to please themselves of the people. This is how it should be, a government serving the people in order to benefit the lives of the American people as a whole, but are we ready to give something up so that someone else can have what we have? Although there is much to learn from Bacon’s rebellion, I believe that there is a long way to go before the ideals that Nathaniel Bacon and the “Freedom Fighter” colonists wanted for America are completely fulfilled.