Nathaniel Bacon - Trivia

Colonial leader, born in Suffolk, E England, UK. He emigrated to Virginia c.1674, where he became a landowner and planter. He opposed Governor Sir William Berkeley's Indian policies, and in 1676 he attacked the Pamunkey, Susquehanna, and Occaneechi tribes without a commission from Berkeley, who denounced him as a traitor. Bacon then marched on Jamestown, and when a compromise settlement failed, he captured and burned the town. At one point he controlled nearly all of Virginia, but troops were on their way from England to support Berkeley. Bacon died of influenza (Oct 1676) and the rebellion soon collapsed.

Nathaniel Bacon (1640/6 – October 26, 1676) was a colonist and plantation owner of the Virginia Colony of Jamestown, famous for his "Virginia Rebellion", commonly known as Bacon's Rebellion, which ended in the burning of Jamestown to the ground.

Bacon's Rebellion

Bacon's Rebellion was begun by Nathaniel Bacon's disagreement with Royal Governor William Berkeley's friendly policies toward the Native Americans.

For this attack, Bacon became a local hero, especially among the colonists who both wanted to move west and hated the Indians. In response to this, Governor Berkeley branded Bacon a traitor, but Bacon was later pardoned, having apologized.

Bacon then felt that Berkeley had gone back on his pledge to pursue the Indians, and his ire turned toward the colonial government. In the first popular rebellion in colonial America, Bacon led troops of lower-class planters, servants, and some free and enslaved blacks to Jamestown and burned the capital to the ground.

As the insurrection continued in Virginia, an English naval squadron was sent to capture Bacon. An earlier attribution of him as the Nathaniel Bacon born in 1646 or 1647 appears to be spurious, based on no firm foundation, although widely repeated in later literature including Encyclopædia Britannica. She is not Elizabeth Brooke (even though this is repeated in many books), who in fact married a man named Nathaniel Bacon although that Nathaniel was a generation older than the one who this article is about.

Trivia

In Surry County, the Allen family's circa 1665 brick home became known as "Bacon's Castle" because it was occupied as a fort or "castle" in 1676 during Bacon's Rebellion. However, contrary to popular folklore, Nathaniel Bacon never lived at Bacon's Castle, or is even known to have occupied it. Instead, the rebellious Nathaniel Bacon was the proprietor of Curles Neck Plantation in Henrico County, about 30 miles upriver on the northern bank of the James River.