Talk:Bacon's Rebellion/Archive 1

Archive 1

Avoiding the word war

I changed the wording slightly to avoid the use of this word in a context which could be confused with the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. Vaoverland 09:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Susquehannock

I changed the Susquehanaug tribe name to Susquehannock, so it links to the wikipedia page about the tribe, whose name had quite a few spellings and variations. Pfly 02:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Right to bear arms

"Historian Helen Hill Miller has pointed out that one of the most important reforms made during Bacon's government was the recognition of the right to bear arms, so that the common man could defend himself from hostile Indians, but also so that he may oppose a despotic regime. After Berkeley's resumption of power, this right was one of the first he repealed."

The right to bear arms page seems to contradict this. Did Berkeley really make it illegal to bear arms? How did the militia function then? Source of repeal claim? Pfly 05:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

The following was written in the "In culture" section:

"Bacon's Rebellion was also when pigs tried to take over the world. when they failed the frase "when pigs fly" came about because it was impossible for the pigs to over-come their supperiors. Therefore the pigs never flew and we learned how to make bacon. Hence BACON's rebellion. This all hapend in 3062 when Tiger Woods became the first person to rise from the dead and become our countries tenth president. Also in 3062 we learned that global warming is good because when we stopped poluting everybody exept the Americans and the Chinease died in the cold frost. We didn't freeze due to the fact that we still had a smog cloud surruonding us."

I went ahead and deleted it. Not sure if there was anything important there before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.3.246 (talk) 03:53, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

• Yes that is vandalism, thanks for the revert-- Penubag  06:18, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism?

I suspect the last sentence in Paragraph 2 under the "Effects of the Rebellion" heading -- "It was also deemed illegal to purchase or make bacon from 1678 until it was repealed in 1854" has been inserted as a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtrac3y (talk • contribs) 14:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, thanks for the info. I have reverted out the vandalism-- Penubag  21:39, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the wrong man

The engraving is From "An Historical Discourse" thus it shows the other Nathaniel Bacon of the 17th Century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.216.101.202 (talk) 19:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct, this is an engraving of Sir Nathaniel Bacon. Nathaniel Bacon the rebel was not knighted.

I have moved this image to the correct article and removed it from Bacon's Rebellion as well.

TuckerResearch (talk) 21:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism...Again!

Somebody crossed out "Bacon's Rebellion" and replaced it with "Bacon's Fagfest". Not to mention someone continually is putting the name Admiral Ackbar, redricting to the page about genitals. (I don't know if I got all of them). There are also several others. This is probably the cause of Bacon's Rebellion having a somewhat funny name, thus pwople like to mess around with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.161.228 (talk) 20:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Various edits

In the various edits I made, I took out this claim:

"The colonial governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, had given suffrage to property-holders only"

Because I didn't think it was true -- I thought Virginian suffrage was for property-holders only from long before Berkeley's time. But I realize I could be wrong. If he really did disenfranchise the poor it ought to be in the article. Is it true? Pfly 14:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Responding to myself.. in reading last night I found that this may be true -- that landless people, at least some of them, did have voting rights up to 1670, if I recall correctly. I don't know if anyone is reading this page other than vandals, but this suffrage point could be put back in. I'll do so later when I find sources and time. Also, I was looking into the idea that the right to bear arms stems in part from Bacon's Rebellion, and it seemed unlikely, or at best much more complex and issue than I thought. Something to expand on in this article. Pfly 17:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, yes, we non-vandals read it too. Granted, it's an obscure topic, but isn't that part of what Wikipedia is about? You seem to be doing a fine job of editing, and it's thanks to people like you that Wikipedia is the resource it is.Artemis-Arethusa 16:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Berkeley had reduced suffrage from every man to only land owning men in 1670 (or some time around then) in order to bring to government of Virginia more in line with practices in England. Although i don't have a copy of it in front of me, Ed Morgan's book American Slavery American Freedom goes over this, i believe a chapter or two before the chapter on Bacon's Rebellion. The book itself mostly focuses on things like this in terms of the social history of early Virginia, so i recommend the book to the person who asked the suffrage question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.39.14.226 (talk) 12:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Reverted Vandalism and Inaccurate information

The 56-year-old governor returned to his burned capital and his looted home at the end of January 1677. His wife described Green Spring in a letter to her cousin: 'it looked like one of those the boys pull down at Shrovetide, & was almost as much to repair as if it had beene new to build, and no sign that ever there had beene a fence around it...'[2]

If you do the math, the governor is in his 70s by the time of the conflict. The information has been in there a while and it doesn't add anything to the article. I propose deleting it.

--128.111.53.209 (talk) 21:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Sir Thomas Grantham

A link to the article on Sir Thomas Grantham might be appropriate.

"To better facilitate"

In the article "to better facilitate the Indian problem" doesn't make sense. One facilitates a solution, not a problem. (I suppose you could use "to better facilitate the problem" ironically, but clearly that is not what is meant to be going on here.) - Jmabel | Talk 20:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Speculation

I would prefer some of the more speculative statements be redacted. The men hanged were returned to the Colony by King Charles II with a pardon, which the governor ignored and then tried, convicted, and hung them. I believe the statements regarding the legacy of racism and class warfare stray far from the historical records available, and belong elsewhere. It borders on revisionist history. The words "the farmers" sound as though they are a minority sub-class or special interest group. Thats what everyone did in Virginia. They didnt have a banking system with vaults of currency, large transactions were conducted in contracts with delivery dates based on harvest/curing times and ship arrivals from the east indies. The enmity between these people didnt suddenly change after Bacons rebellion, but it did lead to revolution one hundred years later. The slavery issue was still two centuries away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drdaveversion (talk • contribs) 21:13, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Class warfare or geographic conflict?

Bacon's rebellion was not so much "class warfare" as it was a geographic conflict. The term "class warfare" itself is not a neutral term and I suggest that the article be rewritten in a more neutral manner

Would class struggle be more accurate? What evidence are you citing for your assertion that land, space, regional identity, etc., were the primary factors at play? Because often land-tenancy and land-claims issues involve class struggle, control over resources, and the ability to extract rent or produces surpluses. It may well have been the case that Native bands were attacking white settlers, but unless this is framed in terms of frontier expansion and appropriation of Native territory, it will only appear to be a racial/geographical conflict. It was a larger conflict about access to land for strata who were looking to become independent 'free' producers which caused hostility toward 'Indians.' See Theodore W. Allen's two-volume The Invention of the White Race for citations.undergroundman 22:33, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Guns, killing, etc. Warfare, not "struggle". Economic oppression of class. "A People's History Of The United States", Zinn. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.169.167.231 (talk) 14:03, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Datura Stramonium in the Rebellion?

From the entry at Datura Stramonium, q.v. we see:

Datura stramonium is the name of a poisonous weed, sometimes used as a hallucinogen. Commonly called Thorn Apple. Datura stramonium is classified as a deleriant, or an anticholinergic. It grows over almost all of the contiguous 48 states in the US.

In the US it is called Jimson Weed, stinkweed (because of its stinky smell), or more rarely Jimpson Weed; it got this name from the town of Jamestown, Virginia, where British soldiers were secretly drugged with it (in their salad), while attempting to stop the Bacon's Rebellion. They spent several days chasing feathers, making monkey faces, generally acting like lunatics, and indeed failed at their mission.

There is no link from Bacon's Rebellion back to Datura Stramonium, but I am not sure where to insert it. Somebody, please! [edit] "

Why is this even in the article? Why not put in what color their shoes were or how many people named "Jim" were alive? This has exactly jack and shit to do with the rebellion.

It's in the article because the common name of the plant ("Jimson weed") comes from an incident that occurred during the rebellion, as the article describes. Also, please sign your posts by typing 4 tildes at the end. CodeTalker (talk) 18:26, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Asking, wasnt the settlers breaking the 3 mile rule?

In the treaty no settler was suppose to be at least 3 miles on Indian land, but they all broke it. LAkilly17 (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Implicit bias in this article

This article currently has the following sentence in its first paragraph: "Bacon's grievances against Berkeley stemmed from the governor's dismissive policy toward the political challenges of Virginia's western frontier."

This is the final sentence of the lead section: "While the farmers did not succeed in their initial goal of driving the Native Americans from Virginia…"

I think this, and the rest of the tone imbalance in this article, constitutes serious whitewashing. A person who reads only the lead section is not going to understand that this was a war of colonialism and anti-Indigenous sentiment, not just a power struggle between colonial authorities and the poor oppressed not-quite-as-rich slaveholders. There need to at least be more mentions of settler treaty violations and the intention of pushing out Indigenous people to paint a sufficiently nuanced view of what actually happened. JeanLackE (talk) 23:36, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I think this needs fixed (Message from Wikipedia)

"This article's lead section may be too long for the length of the article. Please help by moving some material from it into the body of the article. Please read the layout guide and lead section guidelines to ensure the section will still be inclusive of all essential details. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (July 2020)" An announcement from Wikipedia on this article, may need to be fixed if possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4REE2Kid0 (talk • contribs) 23:02, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Rewrite of article

The original article was an almost verbatim copy of a copyright article elsewhere, and I was asked to produce a replacement. This I have now done, and have drastically reduced the length of the previous version. The full text is referred to within my article; if other readers wish to make further changes they are of course welcome to do so. The only suggestion I would make is that this event was only one of several such rebellions - I allude to the later North Carolina War of the Regulation which may well have been a much more important event in historical terms. Peter Shearan 19:26, 17 May 2005 (UTC) NB I have not included the suggestion made above!!! [edit]

I'm not sure if the item on which I'm commenting is from Peter's 2005 rewrite or something done since, but currently the section narrating the course of the rebellion is incoherent, and it appears that something important is missing or has been deleted, perhaps by accident. The introduction of the involvement of the Native Americans needs to be introduced at the beginning of this section for the context to make any sense. I don't have time to work on this at the moment. (I only glanced at the article as I was looking for a reference on colonial events during the Restoration era.) But if no one else gets around to fixing it, I'll try to do some surgery later. Also, I would note that I respectfully disagree with Peter above about the relative importance of the War of Regulation, which I personally think has been overstated by historians are confident that it has to mean something important in relation to later events, even though evidence points to Regulation as not a good predictor for political positions in the revolution. Regardless, Regulation and Bacon's Rebellion are a century apart and do not need to be interpreted in relation to one another. The underlying issue in Bacon's Rebellion was the right of colonists advancing into the frontier to defend themselves against what they perceived as aggression by Native Americans, which was not really a factor at all in the Regulation movement. The Regulation movement was also influenced by the religious attitudes of the Great Awakening, which had not taken place at the time of Bacon's Rebellion. The Crown's continued opposition to colonial expansion that might lead to violence on the frontier was a factor again in the 1760s and 1770s to be sure, but that wasn't related to the Regulation in North Carolina, which was primarily in areas far to the east of the colony's only major tribe, the Cherokees -- a very different geographical situation from Virginia in the 1670s. This is due in part to the relative locations of various tribes and colonial settlements during each period. It's also due to the much wider Piedmont region of North Carolina versus Virginia. Ftjrwrites (talk) 03:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Comment

Some hierarchy-lover wrote: Bacon's rebellion was not so much "class warfare" as it was a geographic conflict. The term "class warfare" itself is not a neutral term and I suggest that the article be rewritten in a more neutral manner

What is UNneutral about calling it "class warfare" when it WAS class warfare. What we have here is another dominance hierarchy lover who wants to toady up to the upper class.

Bacon's Rebellion was class warfare. And I will be back with cites and evidence. Of course, for every one of me, there are 10 of you. So I expect to be censored here yet again.

--Cryofan march 19, 2006

What you need is to cite opinions from reliable sources that agree with you. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The settlers broke the "3 mile rule" of the previous treaty for years. The Indians had every right to attack. The rebellion is overrated and should be discussed with all facts LAkilly17 (talk) 00:30, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

And yet it is currently written to suggest that Bacon was rebellion against the Virginia government due to… oppression in various forms. This article is in need of a serious hose-down to get rid of all this whitewashing. JeanLackE (talk) 23:27, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Appalled by the absurdity of the class warfare debate. Like most conflicts, class tensions were a factor. It was far from the only factor. Race was also an important factor. So was the conflict between royal authority, royal gubernatorial authority and frontier leader authority. There was a perceived security crisis on the frontier due to a power vacuum there, as perceived by colonists on the frontier. This had important class and racial implications with Native American, free or slave Black American, free or servile English colonist, and English government authority forming distinct groups between and among races. There are also emergent gender implications, as Ballard's brutality was likely prompted by the mistreatment of his female family members, which seemed to cross a line of propriety. So the article ought to address class, but should not imply that this conflict was exclusively about class. Ftjrwrites (talk) 03:53, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Aggressive?

The sentence at the end of the first paragraph is:

"Nathaniel Bacon demanded aggressive Native American policy."

This is meaningless unless the terms used are defined. For example, was it aggressively for Native American policy or against it? Either way, what was that policy? I suspect the author is using a euphemism too subtle for the rest of us. Please rewrite this. --Kjb (talk) 22:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

This gets to a continued problem with the article, which I suspect has been butchered since the last discussions here. Bacon and others on the frontier perceived conflict with Native Americans and resented the government policy refusing to allow them to take matters into their own hands. That was the genesis of the rebellion, but you'd never know from the article as written today. Ftjrwrites (talk) 03:57, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Unclear Wording

Some of the writing in this article is not very clear. For example:

After months of conflict, Bacon's forces, numbering 300–500 men, moved on Jamestown, which was occupied by Berkeley's forces, besieging the town. Bacon's men captured and burned to the ground the colonial capital on September 19. Outnumbered, Berkeley retreated across the river.[14][16] His group encamped at Warner Hall, home of the speaker of the House of Burgesses, Augustine Warner Jr., and caused considerable damage[clarification needed], although the house was left standing.[17]

Was the "his group" Bacon's or Berkeley's? It reads as if it were Berkeley, but in context it seems almost certain it was Bacon (as is confirmed by the Wikipedia article on Warner Hall). Also, it claims Berkeley crossed "the river" (without ever mentioning a river previously, making it rather confusing in a region with as many rivers as Virginia), but then has him raiding across the Chesapeake Bay, which is certainly not a river. Either some events are missing here, or someone got some details wrong. 2601:140:C000:2700:81E4:9AA4:91C:E886 (talk) 07:07, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Two Phase Rebellion?

I feel it is useful to divide the events of Bacon's Rebellion into two phases: 1) anti-Indian phase (Sept. 1675 - April 1676), 2) civil war phase (April 1676 - Jan. 1677). Theodore W. Allen makes (1994) this distinction in recognition of the fact that different forces were at play in these different periods. In the latter, a cleavage between sections of the ruling elite - to be more precise, between the 'Green Spring' faction (inner circle of Governor and Colony Council) and the county magnates - finally erupts and leads to social upheaval (1994: pg. 206). This had a different set of actors and sources of conflict than the anti-Indian campaign, so I suggest adding a clearer timeline. undergroundman 23:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikem1234 (talk • contribs)

I agree, this might be helpful. As it is currently written, this article paints Bacon in an excessively positive light as a figure of class struggle and anti-governmental sentiment, when in fact the original catalyst of the war was settler-colonialism. JeanLackE (talk) 23:31, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

There isn't necessarily a contradiction between "settler-colonialism" and "class struggle and anti-governmental sentiment" though, given that one of the reasons for the American Revolution was the British government placing restrictions on westward settlement. An individual settler could be anything from a capitalist or slaveowner to a worker or small farmer. Implying that "class struggle and anti-governmental sentiment" are only carried out by "good" people for "good" purposes is as much a distortion as the notion that Bacon's Rebellion was a conflict between saints and mustache-twirling evildoers. --Ismail (talk) 11:56, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIST 2010 Early U.S. History

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kenziewilburn14 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Brooklyncox22 (talk) 18:24, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

@Kenziewilburn14: I am glad this article has been selected for improvement. I notice that Bacon's Rebellion#Motives has 4 {{Explain}} invocations and 3 {{Clarify}} invocations. Given that there's also a {{Confusing}} invocation at the top of that section, I suggest it's more appropriate to use the talk page to elaborate on each of the problems in that section (see the Unclear Wording section on this talk page) so that we have a record of the various objections. Fabrickator (talk) 07:38, 4 October 2022 (UTC)