Chapter 2

In the summer of 1675 a party of Indians paddled across the Potomac, and after killing several men, made good their escape back to Maryland. Shortly afterwards people returning from church found a man covered with ghastly wounds lying across his threshold, who managed to gasp out, "Doegs, Doegs." Immediately the alarm was sounded, and a party of thirty or more men assembled on the south bank of the river opposite the Indian reservation under the command of Colonel George Mason and Captain George Brent.

At dawn they crossed over to the Maryland side. Here they divided their forces, Mason leading part in one direction through the woods and Brent the other in another. Brent came upon a cabin full of Doegs. Their chief denied knowledge of the murders, but when he started to run Brent shot him. At this the Indians in the cabin made a dash for safety in the face of a volley which brought down ten of them.

In the meanwhile Mason, too, had come upon a cabin full of Indians, and had killed fourteen of them. But when he found out that they were not Doegs but Susquehannocks, he shouted: "For the Lord's sake shoot no more, these are our friends the Susquehannocks." But they now were their friends no longer. They began a series of bloody raids in Stafford County on the Virginia side of the river and Charles County in Maryland. Governor Calvert was quite right in complaining to Berkeley of the invasion of his province by an armed force to turn friendly Indians into mortal enemies.

But since it was now too late to restore peace, the Virginians and Marylanders agreed upon a joint campaign to force the Susquehannocks to leave the region and give hostages for their peaceful conduct. It was late in September when the Maryland troops, under Major Thomas Trueman, arrived on the north bank of the Piscataway Creek, the site of Fort Washington. A few days later a body of Virginians under Colonel John Washington, great-grandfather of George Washington, and Colonel Isaac Allerton, landed from a fleet of sloops.

Across the creek, on a low bit of land, protected by patches of swamp, the Susquehannocks had built a fort. Had it been no more than a round stockade, after the traditional Indian style, it could have been taken with ease. But the Marylanders themselves had taught the Susquehannocks the art of fortification. So they had laid out a large square, raised embankments on all four sides, with an outer defence of palisades, and a ditch between. At each corner was a bastion, from which an attacking force could be enfiladed. Lacking artillery to batter down these works the three commanders decided to invest the fort and starve out the defenders.

In the meanwhile Major Trueman invited the "great men" to a parley. When five of them came out, he charged them with recent murders in Maryland. The Indians placed the blame on prowling bands of Senecas. This was an obvious lie, for Susquehannocks had been seen wearing the clothing of some of the murdered whites, and raiding parties had come directly to the fort, their canoes laden with beef. Seeing himself in imminent danger, one of the Indians produced a medal bearing the image of Lord Baltimore, and a paper which he said was a pledge from a former governor of Maryland to protect the tribe from harm. Despite this, and despite the fact that the "great men" had come under a truce to discuss peace, Trueman ordered his men to knock them on the head.

When word of this outrage reached Governor Berkeley he was furious. "If they had killed my grandfather and my grandmother, my father and mother and all my friends, yet if they had come to treat of peace, they ought to have gone in peace," he blurted out. Major Trueman was impeached in Maryland, fined and sentenced to imprisonment, but this did not undo the wrong or prevent the terrible consequences.

The Indians in the fort put up a desperate resistance. Weeks passed, and they still held out. To every suggestion of parley they asked: "Where are our great men?" At last, when "brought to great distress" through hunger, they broke through the encircling English with their wives and children, and vanished into the forest. Making their way up the Maryland side of the river, they crossed over to Virginia, and began a series of raids upon the frontier plantations on the upper Rappahannock and Mattapony rivers.

Within a few days they had killed sixty persons. The fortunate ones were those who fell at the first volley, for the miserable captives were subjected to tortures that would have baffled the imagination of a Dante. "Some they roast alive, offering their flesh to such English prisoners as they keep languishing by a lingering death, pulling their nails off, making holes and sticking feathers in their flesh. Some they rip open and make run their guts round trees."

For the moment the old spirit which had made him so ardent a fighter in the English Civil War and in the battles against Opechancanough flared anew in Governor Berkeley. Calling together a force of horse and foot, he placed them under the command of Sir Henry Chicheley with orders to pursue the murderers. But when all was ready and Chicheley was expecting the order to march Berkeley changed his mind, withdrew his commission and disbanded his forces.

This sudden change has long puzzled historians. Berkeley himself had taken the lead in carrying the war to the enemy following the massacre of 1644; why did he hang back now? It may have been the offer of peace from the new chief of the Susquehannocks, which Sir William was willing to accept but which the Indians themselves ignored. It may have been the fear that Chicheley's men might not discriminate between friend and foe and by attacking some of the allied Indians involve them in the war. He stated later that he would have preserved those Indians so that they could be his "spies and intelligence to find out the more bloody enemies." Certainly in this he was foreshadowing the policy followed by his successors for more than a century. But it did not justify leaving the frontier open to attack, while the murders and torturing continued.

It is not necessary to accept the accusation of Bacon and his followers that Berkeley adopted this policy so as not to interfere with the beaver trade. It might have been effective had not the Pamunkeys, the Appomatox, and other nearby tribes been dissatisfied and resentful. As it was, the governor was soon obliged to abandon it. "As soon as I had the least intelligence that they were our treacherous enemies I have given out commissions to destroy them all," he said. To Colonel Goodrich, when he was about to lead an expedition up the Rappahannock, he wrote: "I believe all the Indians, our neighbors, are engaged with the Susquehannocks, therefore I desire you to spare none ... for they are all our enemies."

Berkeley blamed Bacon and his men for the defection of the allied Indians. It was they, he said, who had driven them out of their towns and forced them "to live remote in the woods." It was only then, when they became desperate through hunger, that they joined in the raids on the English. One can never be certain which side started hostilities. Probably both were to blame. But Berkeley did not stop to consider that the fault was basically his own. Had he not granted all the best lands in the east to his favorites, poor planters would not have had to encroach on the Indian reservations, in which case the Indians might have remained peaceful, and even fought side by side with the English against the Susquehannocks.

After recalling the expedition under Chicheley, Berkeley remained inactive until, in February, he received word that the Indians had made new raids. Then he summoned the Assembly. Several weeks passed before they convened, since it took time to reach the Burgesses who lived in the distant counties, and for them to travel, perhaps by boat, down the Potomac or the Rappahannock, and up the James to Jamestown. At last, on March 7, the session opened.

Berkeley had determined on a defensive war, and the Assembly obediently carried out his wishes. So they declared war on all Indians who were known to have taken part in the murderous raids, provided for the enlistment of friendly Indians, called out a force of 500 men, prohibited trade in firearms with the savages, and ordered the erection of eight forts on the frontiers.

This policy might have been successful had Berkeley made the forts bases for expeditions against the enemy. The Indians seem to have made their raids in small parties, and with rangers spying upon them, forces could have rushed out from the nearest fort to intercept or pursue them. In fact this seems to have been Berkeley's original plan. The spread of hostilities "puts us on an absolute necessity not only of fortifying our frontiers more strongly, but of keeping several considerable parties of both horse and foot still in motion to confront them wherever they shall attack us," he wrote in a report to the English government late in March.

Berkeley stated that the forts served their purpose well. "In April and May we lost not one man," he stated. But this Bacon and his men denied. Even when a garrison received word that Indians were near, they were not permitted to pursue them until they had notified the governor, who might be fifty or sixty miles away, and received his permission. The forts proved useless, they said, for the Indians sneaked in between them and fell upon the outlying plantations, burning, plundering, and killing. This it was easy to do in a country full of "thick woods, swamps, and other covert." So, as houses went up in flames, as men, women, and children were murdered, as miserable captives were led off to await torture, a cry arose for relief. What is needed, people said, is some considerable force in motion to seek out the enemy and destroy them.

So petition after petition came to Berkeley begging him to send them a leader. We have the arms, they said, all we ask is permission to defend ourselves. But they met with peremptory refusal. As one group stood before him, hat in hand, one of them spoke of themselves as his honor's subjects. "Why you are a set of fools and loggerheads. You are the King's subjects, and so am I," Berkeley blurted out. "A pox take you."

The frontier planters were in despair. Many deserted their homes and fled to the more settled parts of the country. Some declared they would plant no more tobacco, since it would be taken from them to pay for the useless forts. And they were deeply angered when it was reported to them that Berkeley had said that if they had no tobacco, "they had cows and feather beds sufficient to discharge their levies." At last, "the cries of their women and children growing grievous and intolerable to them," and hearing that large bodies of Indians were encamped on the upper James ready to descend on them, the people of Charles City County assembled in arms near Merchants Hope.

They found their leader in Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon, despite his youth, was looked up to as one of the Council, and a member of the English gentry. Not only did he sympathize with the people in their fear and hatred of the Indians, but he had a personal grievance, since they had plundered his outer plantation and killed his overseer. So when several of his neighbors urged him to cross the James to visit the men in arms, he readily consented.

When they saw the slender, black-haired youth, they set up a great cry: "A Bacon! A Bacon! A Bacon!" This was too much for him to resist. It is stated by one of the old chroniclers that he had "a most imperious and dangerous hidden pride of heart." The leadership thus thrust upon him must have pleased him. He was now no longer the erratic youth who had been withdrawn from Cambridge, had caused his father great trouble and anxiety, and had been duped by sharpers. He was the leader of men. But there can be no doubt that he yielded to the pleas of his friends and neighbors in part at least because of his loathing of the Indians and his horror at their cruelty. He yielded also because his spirit revolted at Berkeley's system of government by corruption, because he sympathized with the people in their outcry against the killing burdens placed on them, and because he hoped to redress their grievances. His rough followers listened with approval as he denounced the government as "negligent and wicked, treacherous and incapable, the laws unjust and oppressive," and declared that reform was absolutely necessary. So he listed their names on a huge round-robin, and "enjoined them by an oath to stick fast together and to him." As word spread throughout the colony that at last the people had a champion, almost overnight he became the popular hero, and "the only patron of the country and the preserver of their lives and fortunes."

He first wrote Berkeley asking for a commission to go out to attack the Indians, and then, without waiting for a reply, crossed the Chickahominy into New Kent to overawe or perhaps attack the Pamunkeys. He found the people of this county "ripe for rebellion" and eager to wipe out their treacherous neighbors. But when he heard that the Pamunkeys had fled from their villages to the inaccessible Dragon's Swamp, he turned back to pursue a body of Susquehannocks who had moved south to the Roanoke river.

When the news reached Berkeley that the frontier planters had assembled in arms, chosen Bacon their leader, denounced his administration, and driven the Pamunkeys into hiding, he was furious. But as he had broken up previous mutinies by proclamations, he tried the same expedient now. He declared the action of Bacon and his men illegal and rebellious. But pardon would be granted provided they disperse at once and return to their duty and allegiance.

Bacon had already written the governor to assure him that in taking up arms he was acting only in self-defense and for the country's safety. But now he sent another letter reiterating that he had no evil intentions to him or the government. "I am now going out to seek a more agreeable destiny than you are pleased to design me," he added. As to the money he owed him he enclosed an order for its payment.

He then turned his back on the settlements and plunged into the forests. Although he said he distrusted all Indians, he went out of his way to enlist a few warriors from the allied Nottoways and Meherrins. He then followed a trail used by fur traders and headed for an island in the Roanoke river. Here a friendly tribe, the Occaneechees, had established two forts and a village. They welcomed Bacon, ferried his men over to the island, and went themselves to attack a band of Susquehannocks in a nearby fort. With the aid of some Mannikins, whom the Susquehannocks had forced to accompany them, they took the fort and came back leading a number of captives.

Having accomplished what he had set out to do without the loss of a man, Bacon probably would have started home, had he had provisions enough for the long march through the wilderness. As it was his men faced starvation. So he demanded supplies of food from the Occaneechee chief. Berkeley's friends later accused him of demanding also beaver taken from the Susquehannock fort. The ensuing dispute led to a bloody battle on the island, in which the English rushed up to the palisaded fort, began firing in at the portholes, and set fire to the village. The next day the Indians sallied out, and hiding behind trees, tried to pick off the English. But when many of their warriors had been killed, the chief, with twenty men, tried to circle the English. This too failed, the chief was killed, and the remaining Indians with their wives and children, taking to their canoes, made their escape. Bacon and his men gathered up the spoils, plundered the Occaneechee larder, swam their horses over to the mainland, and started on the return march.

When Berkeley found that his proclamation had had no effect, he gathered a force of about three hundred men, and set out for the falls of the James. But he was too late. When he arrived Bacon and his men had disappeared into the forest on their way to the Roanoke. So the governor had to content himself with issuing another proclamation. Nathaniel Bacon, junior, of Henrico County, with divers rude, dissolute, and tumultuous persons, contrary to the laws of England and their allegiance to the King, had taken up arms without obtaining from him any order or commission. Since this tended to the ruin and overthrow of the government, he declared that Bacon and his aiders were unlawful, mutinous, and rebellious.

At the same time, Lady Berkeley issued a statement of her own. It had been rumored among the people that Bacon would not only be their captain, but provide out of his own pocket for their wives and children. This was a vain hope, she said. His entire estate was bound over, his father had refused to honor his bills of exchange, he owed William Byrd L400 and his cousin Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, senior, L200. "I do accuse him of a worse crime than poverty," she added, "I do accuse him of ingratitude, and that of a deep dye, to return the favorable amity of the governor with casting all kinds of aspersions upon his courage and conduct in the government of this colony."

In the meanwhile, awaiting Bacon's return, the governor turned his attention to the defences on the upper James. He commanded the queen of the Pamunkeys to return to her reservation, and when she refused, prepared to drive her out of the Dragon Swamp. But at this moment word reached him that the people in all parts of the colony were rising against him. Now that they had a leader to redress their wrongs, in many an humble cabin men seized their fusils, swords, and halberds, and waited for him to call them to his side. They expected him to end corruption and favoritism in the government, to lower taxes, to correct private injustices, to give them a really representative Assembly.

Berkeley was astonished. Hastening back to Green Spring he questioned his Council. What do they want? What have I done in all the years I have been governor to turn so many thousands against me? What do you advise me to do? The Council replied that his keeping the Assembly for so many years was one of the chief grievances and advised him to have a new election. Later he stated that it was Bacon who made "the rabble cry out for a new Assembly." Reluctantly he complied. He had every reason to expect that the new House of Burgesses would be overwhelmingly hostile to him, and as the returns came in he saw that his worst fears would be realized. The final count showed that one after another the old Burgesses were defeated at the polls until in the end all but eight of the new House were of "Bacon's faction."

When Bacon returned from the Occaneechee fight, he was elated with the acclaim of the people, not only on the frontier but in all parts of the colony, but he was aggrieved that the governor had proclaimed him a rebel and threatened his life. On May 25, he wrote to Berkeley: "I am sorry to find that for the expence of our estates and hazard of our lives in the country's service we should by misinformers have our true intentions so falsely represented to you.... We have all along manifested our abhorrence of mutiny and rebellion.... If your honor were in person to lead or command I would follow and obey." But then he continued with a veiled threat. If he sought to revenge himself he had only to listen to all the stories of "your honor's falsehood, cowardice, treachery, receiving bribes." He had heard that Lady Berkeley had raised "several scandalous and false reports" against him, that he was not worth a groat and that his notes had been protested. He could hear enough about her, he retorted, if he would permit himself to listen.

When Berkeley showed this letter to the Council, they wrote Bacon: "Our advice to you is that the most honorable, the most secure, and most safe way for yourself [is for] you forthwith in the most humble manner present yourself to the governor and, acknowledging your errors, humbly crave his pardon." If he preferred to justify his conduct, they promised him a fair trial either in Virginia or in England.

But with the plaudits of the people ringing in his ears, Bacon was unwilling to humble himself. "My submissions are unacceptable, my real intentions misunderstood," he wrote Berkeley. "I am sorry that your honor's resentments are of such violence and growth as to command my appearance with all contempt and disgrace and my disowning and belying so glorious a cause as the country's defence. I know my person safe in your honor's word, but only beg what pledge or warranty I shall have for my reputation."

So, when the sheriff of Henrico rose in court to read Berkeley's proclamation, he was interrupted by Bacon, who was there with thirty or forty of his men. "If you dare read a line of that proclamation, I will make you regret it," he said. Then, as though to show their defiance of the governor, the people elected Bacon and his ardent friend, Captain James Crews, to represent them in the House of Burgesses.

It would have been well for Bacon had he chosen to ride down to Jamestown with a heavy escort. Instead he decided on the easier and usual method of travel by boat, and so set out in his sloop with forty armed men. On June 6, when they came abreast Jamestown, they were fired on by the guns of the fort. So they turned about and sailed further up the river. With the coming of darkness Bacon, with twenty of his men, rowed ashore, and held a long conference with Richard Lawrence and William Drummond, Berkeley's inveterate enemies. It is obvious that Bacon had known these men before. It is even possible that he had boarded at Mrs. Lawrence's tavern while a member of the Council, and that her husband had done his best to turn him against Sir William with charges of arbitrary and corrupt government.

One wishes that one might have sat in on that night meeting. What did the young popular leader discuss with these two embittered men? The Indian war beyond doubt. But also Berkeley's "French despotism," and how best to curb it. With an Assembly hostile to Berkeley in session, Lawrence and Drummond must have recognized their chance. In fact Berkeley had warned the Burgesses not to be misled by these "two rogues." So it seems extremely probable that they drilled Bacon on what measures to propose when he took his seat in the House.

At early dawn, when Bacon was returning, he was discovered and chased up the river by several armed boats. He seems to have reached his sloop, but when he tried to escape up the river, he was forced under the guns of the _Adam and Eve_, a warship commanded by Captain Thomas Gardiner, and forced to surrender.

When Bacon was led before the governor, the old man exclaimed: "Now I behold the greatest rebel that ever was in Virginia."

Then, after a pause, he asked: "Mr. Bacon, have you forgot to be a gentleman?"

"No, may it please your honor."

"Then, I'll take your parole."