Bacon's Rebellion

Right.

Like after Bacon's rebelled, when you kind of think about it, like we've been deconstructing whiteness and what it means.

And we talk about how it robbed people of European descent of their roots in so many ways.

Beautiful roots.

Virginia dealt with almost all of the problems, not only that we're dealing with today, but that America has dealt with in the past.

If you want a really good example of how contemporaneous this time period feels, you can go on the Old Glory Club sub stack, read an article I wrote called Bacon's Rebellion, Three Lessons in Politics.

I'm really proud of that article.

Because it kind of perfectly extrapolates what I'm trying to say here.

Virginia in the 17th century almost faced the exact same problems that, A, we face today, but also that is kind of perpetually repeated throughout American history.

You have this conflict between the frontier and the established sort of coastal elites.

That is as early as Bacon's Rebellion.

That is as early as the 16...

And so at the end of the day, America is a venture and the government that we created 150 years after those ships landed in Jamestown was created to extend and facilitate the venture.

And kind of moving forward in this history, you discuss how in the aftermath of Bacon's rebellion, the planner class created a new social class.

And so I'm curious, can you talk a little bit more about this and again, why it might challenge some preconceived notions about the history of race in the United States?

Absolutely.

You had the planner class and you had multiracial indentured servants.

And, you know, 20 or 30 years in, these indentured servants are starting to get pissed because they feel that they are being exploited and they begin to rise up.

And Bacon's Rebellion is an example of that, where this multiracial group of rebels essentially burned Jamestown to the ground.

And the planter said, all right, we're going to have to figure out how we create more stability within this group if we're going to be able to, again, extend this venture.

Refuse pits were explored meticulously, since before the dawn of history man has left his story and the objects he discarded.

When archaeology at Jamestown is mentioned, the question is often asked, why was it necessary to treat so famous a historic site as an archaeological problem at all? Isn't the story finished with the accounts of John Smith's adventures, the romance of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, the Starving Time, the Indian Massacre of 1622, Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion against Governor Berkeley, and the establishment of the first Legislative Assembly? The archaeologists answer is that the real drama of daily life of the settlers, the life they knew twenty-four hours a day, is locked in the unwritten history beneath humus and tangled vegetation of the island.

Here a thimble from the ruins of a cottage still retains a pellet of paper to keep it on a tiny finger that wore it three hundred years ago.

a bent halberd in an abandoned well a discarded sword and a piece of armour tell again the passing of terror of the unknown after the indians retreated for ever into the distant hills and forests rust-eaten axes wedges mattocks and saws recall the struggle to clear a wilderness the simple essentials of life in the first desperate years have largely vanished with traces of the first fort and its frame buildings but in later houses the evidence of venetian glass dutch and english delft ware pewter and silver eating utensils and other comforts and adam hoffman

never lost you will find only one other identified with positive assurance the ludwell house third and fourth state houses row the remaining one hundred and forty structures so far discovered by excavating have no clear-cut identity with their owners to complicate matters more bricks from many burned or dismantled houses were salvaged for reuse sometimes leaving only vague soil shadows for the archaeologist to ponder from artifacts associated with foundation traces relative datings and usually the use of the structure can be deduced from physical evidence unless a contemporaneous map is some day found we shall know little more than this about the houses at jamestown except for the testimony of assorted hardware ceramics glassware metalware and other imperishable reminders of seventeenth-century arts and crafts churches the first church service at jamestown was held under a piece of sailcloth in may 1607 the first frame church constructed within the palisades burned with the entire first fort in january 1608 and was eventually replaced by another frame structure after the fort was rebuilt the exact date of the first church to stand on a brick foundation is uncertain possibly sixteen thirty nine brick foundation traces uncovered in nineteen o one by john tyler junior a civil engineer who volunteered his services for the association for the preservation of virginia antiquities lie behind the free-standing brick church tower which remains the only standing ruin to-day the modern brick structure and roof enclose and protect the footing evidence of the walls of two separate churches and a tiled chancel flooring indication of fire among these foundations was noted by tyler illustration caption

a mansion structure of public building dating from the second quarter of the seventeenth century

rebuilt once and burned about the time of bacon's rebellion sixteen seventy six and of Mansions Despite official urgings that they build substantial townhouses on Jamestown Island, the first successful planters often preferred

to build on their own holdings away from the capital, once the Indian menace had passed.

History does not fully explain the events of the next few months, but we can readily see that the excitement must have been intense.

Our patriots were fully aware that only ten years before this time Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of Virginia, had forcibly put down Bacon's rebellion, and had executed over twenty of those who had resisted his government, although they appeared to be actuated by the same patriotic motives which had influenced the Ipswich leaders.

The year 1688 was a trying year for our Massachusetts Bay colony.

In England, King James was pushing his efforts for the acquirement of absolute power.

And we don't really have the evidence to suggest that if we don't tell the truth about what this coalition looks like and how it harms all of us, that somehow just talking about economic issues is going to separate people from that idea.

I think not just like a Bacon's Rebellion conversation, but MLK talking about the warden.

He said, I'm sitting here in jail.

You can't even afford to buy your kids lunch.

History does not fully explain the events of the next few months, but we can readily see that the excitement must have been intense.

Our patriots were fully aware that only ten years before this time Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of Virginia, had forcibly put down Bacon's rebellion, and had executed over twenty of those who had resisted his government, although they appeared to be actuated by the same patriotic motives which had influenced the Ipswich leaders.

The year 1688 was a trying year for our Massachusetts Bay colony.

In England, King James was pushing his efforts for the acquirement of absolute power.