This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 Excerpt: ...The owners of big plantations got all the power, and the poorer people had little to say in the government. 170 Bacon's Rebellion, 1676.--When matters were at their worst in Virginia the Indians arose, and Berkeley did nothing to protect the people.1 Thereupon, young Nathaniel Bacon, at the head of a band of ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 Excerpt: ...The owners of big plantations got all the power, and the poorer people had little to say in the government. 170 Bacon's Rebellion, 1676.--When matters were at their worst in Virginia the Indians arose, and Berkeley did nothing to protect the people.1 Thereupon, young Nathaniel Bacon, at the head of a band of frontiersmen, the poorer farmers back from the seaboard, defeated the Indians, much to the disgust of Governor Berkeley, who was a born aristocrat, and who thought the common people ought to follow, not lead, even in fighting Indians. Berkeley regarded Bacon as a rebel, and his followers were called "the scum of the country." The long struggle which now ensued between Bacon's followers and the governor's forces was a revolt of the poor farmers on the frontier against the power of the rich planters nearer the coast. When, after Bacon's death, the revolt failed, Berkeley punished the surviving rebels so severely that Charles II declared: " The old fool has hanged more men in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father." The failure of the rebellion marks the triumph of the planters, of Virginia's aristocracy, in government and society. 171. England Plans to Unite the Colonies.--By the time of the reign of James II (1685-88) the desire of the English government to rule the colonies more strictly had become a very real danger to their liberty. It was hard for the men in the king's council in England to look after so many colonies, and especially hard to make the colonies obey the Navigation Acts, the laws about trading with foreign nations. The English authorities, therefore, proposed that the Northern colonies at least be united; and in the 1 It was said that because the governor's income depended upon the duties rece...
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