Bacon’s Rebellion: Fueled by Unstable Class Structure

Bacon’s Rebellion largely revolved around the feelings that the lower class colonists and farmers had towards the upper class land owners. For the most part, the lower class citizens of Virginia hated the class above them. A major portion of that hatred was due to the fact that the class of each individual citizen was directly given to them by their parents. In other words, you were born into either power or poverty. You class, in the seventeenth century, rarely shifted up or down on the social hierarchy, especially within the confines of the Virginia colony. The commoners envied the wealthy, both for their land and money, as well as their places of power among the rest of the colony. From this envy, resentment blossomed. The majority of the colonists in Virginia, the poorer farmers, wished that they had more land, but, due to their status’ as unwealthy citizens, they could not achieve such a feat. This caused frustration and anger among the lower class population.



Nathanial Bacon seized this moment in time, when the colonists were so angry, to fuel his own rebellion. He knew that the poor farmers needed more land. He was also aware of how much land was untouched by Englishmen to the west, and was being unproductively inhabited by the Natives. With these thoughts in mind, utilizing his own power in the government, Bacon rallied up many farmers and indentured servants and set off. Monica R. Gisolfi put it into words rather well when she wrote how Nathanial Bacon went through farmlands with his gang of poor colonists and “gather[ed] slaves and indentured servants to join them.” Upon analysis of this quote, you see how effectively it displays how deeply the poor colonists’ hate dwelled within them; that Bacon and his band of followers could walk onto someone’s land and simply swipe them away from their work. It also shows how tightly knit the poor farmers and indentured servants were, because they had no bonds with the wealthy strong enough to stop them. Not only does it display how together the lower class was, but also the schism between the rich and poor.



Since prosperous land was so sparse, few planters were able to generate enough profit to be referred to as high class, wealthy plantation owners. Due to this rough distribution of land there was no middle class to speak of. Also, this was a main factor causing the poor to stay poor. Those underprivileged farmers had neither the land, nor the money to rise up the hierarchical social ranking of the Virginia colony. The lack of valuable land meant that low class had no land to significantly increase their profits. These facts lead them to being unable to buy more land, because the ratio of citizens to available land was so high. Land must have cost a lot more money, seeing as it was so sparingly distributed.Another effect of the lack of available land was that wealthy land owners made up a small percentage of the population. Thus, the majority of the population was impoverished. The lack of a middle class made life harder for the poor citizens of Virginia. As stated earlier, the lower class was unable to reach ‘wealthy’ status among the Virginians. Indentured servants who lived out their servitude became free man, which posed another problem, because they had no money to buy land. Such men and women were freed into poverty. Their dreams of a glorious life in the New World were crushed by their lack of money and residency. This did nothing but expand the gap between the rich and the poor, and raise the potential farmer to land ratio.



The small percentage of wealthy land owners tended to be government officials. Many lower class land owners viewed this distribution of power as a conflict of interest. In The American Dream, Bacon is said to have claimed that the “elite planters operated the government for private gain.” Nathanial Bacon was speaking against such a dishonorable act in Chesapeake’s society. Obviously, the rich wished to be richer, thus taking advantage of their positions of power. This angered many commoners, who strongly needed more land, which the officials would not allow them to have. The Governor at the time, Berkley, was singled out. Nathanial told his followers that he was denying them access to the Natives’ land solely because he held substantial trades with them. This would be yet another example of how unstable the Chesapeake society was during the seventeenth century, and how it directly contributed to Bacon’s Rebellion; the poor could not control their own fates because the rich held governmental positions, and they sought to destroy that chokehold over them.


Though the rebellion was eventually crushed, things did got better in Chesapeake. The colonists, both rich and poor, banded together to defeat the Indians. This was necessary because the Native Americans were retaliating due to the English intruding on their territories, and taking their land. One thing that did not change, was the planter elites’ positions of power. Their power in the colony was not limited, however, after the rebellion. As The American Promise states, “If anything [Bacon’s Rebellion] strengthened their power.” Whether their stronghold over the Chesapeake society was positive or remained negative is irrelevant to the argument of class structure’s importance in the aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion. The important part that cannot be overlooked is that the grandees still held their land and power after such a violent rebellion was raised geared towards them losing both.


Society began to stabilize after the rebellion took place. One huge help to the cause was that the ratio of people to land began to lower. This led to less animosity between classes as free men got more land from the Natives. Indentured servants were no longer coming into the colony after slavery was introduced. Increase of land helped many freed servants acquire residency and farmland. Also, a middle class began to shape as slavery increased profits substantially. All of these facts lessened the tension between the lower and high class citizens of the Virginia colonies.