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Introduction essay of the bacon rebellion
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Introduction essay of the bacon rebellion
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Bacon’s Rebellion is one of the first uprisings in the American colonies. On 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion against William Berkeley, the governor of Jamestown, Virginia. Settlers were unhappy with Berkeley’s rule because of economic problems such as low prices on tobacco and high taxes. There were also social problems relating to the natives and political problems such as Berkeley putting restrictions on the right to vote. The main problem was the lack of protection Berkeley offered to settlers from Indian attacks. This conflict started when farmers weren’t happy that Indians were in their settlement and demanded that natives are to be sent away and killed, which started conflict between the natives and settlers. The conflict grew …show more content…
as Doeg Indians stole livestock from Thomas Matthew’s farm and in return, Matthew killed many of the Doeg. The militia in retaliation registered an attack on Indians, but instead of killing Doeg, they killed people of the tribe Susquehannocks, who were peaceful and friendly people. This caused more Indians to instigate more raid attacks on their settlement. The rebellion ended when Bacon died due to dysentery.
In result of the rebellion, many innocent Indians were killed, Jamestown was destroyed when Bacon and his followers set fire to it, and Indian’s weren’t kicked out of England. After Bacon’s rebellion, Berkeley stayed governor for a short time before he replaced and in that short time he hanged 23 of Bacon’s leaders and took their property. If I was Bacon, I wouldn’t attack the Indians because even though there are some Indians raiding them, there are innocent Indians who could be killed in this rebellion. What’s interesting about this is that Bacon, to me, is seen as the bad guy in this event. Berkeley was the good guy who just wanted peace between settlers and …show more content…
Indians. Bacon is on one side while Berkeley is on the other. The thing here is that people have an opinion and each differentiate from one another causing people to take sides. Even today, people still take sides. For example, Donald Trump, many people like him, but there are also many that hate him. The people who hate his rule might create a rebellion against him like Bacon did. People are already protesting against him so who knows if this is the start of a rebellion. At the same time, it is also different because people nowadays don’t burn villages or towns where innocent people live. We usually do something called a protest in front of the White House. There hasn’t been a rebellion in a long time, but who knows, this might be the start to one. On March 5, 1770, five colonists were killed by British soldiers in Boston, Massachusetts. They were part of a group of protestors called the Patriots who went to the Customs House in Boston to protest having these British soldiers in their home. The colonists threw objects at the soldiers guarding the building until one soldier was hit and he ended up releasing a shot with his rifle, which then caused the other soldiers to also start shooting. In the end, five colonists were killed and three were injured. Those five men are considered as the first fatalities in the American Revolutionary War. Later, a trial was held, in order to find justice for the death of these colonists. Two of the soldiers were found guilty and were branded with the letter “M” in their arm, which stands for murder. Patriot Paul Revere made an engraving of this incident and distributed it out for the colonists to see. This made colonists realize that the British government wasn’t as great as they thought it was, so the colonists started to develop negative feelings towards them. Many colonists saw the Boston Massacre as a fight for American freedom. The fight to kick out all British soldiers from their home. Today, there is American freedom compared to the time when the Boston Massacre happened. No city in America is being controlled by the British anymore. Although there are many differences from today to back then, finding justice is something we have in common. Justice was found for the colonist who we were killed during that awful day. There are lawyers today that help find justice for innocent people who were killed or are being accused of a crime they did not do. The bad guys are found guilty and the innocent are freed. The interesting thing about this topic is that people like those colonists make people want to fight for their rights. They were protestors who wanted change and after those five colonists’ deaths, other colonists started to realize that the British government is corrupt. The Black Hawk War of 1832 was a war between a group of Native Americans led by Black Hawk and the U.S.
Army. It started all when representatives of the Sauk and Fox Indians signed a treaty in 1804 that agreed to give away their land east of the Mississippi River to the U.S. Black Hawk was the only one reluctant to sign this treaty, but he ended up signing it anyways to then later say he didn’t understand it meant he would give away his home village of Saukenuk. The next 15 years he became angrier that more U.S. settlers were moving in to their territory. His breaking point was when U.S. started to move into his home village. He refused to have his home village taken over by the U.S., so he prepared for
war. Black Hawk returned to Illinois with a group of Native Americans to take back their land, but were defeated by the U.S. Black Hawk was captured and incarcerated. The last 6 years of his life was spent under the supervision of a Sauk chief. What is interesting about this topic is that the Sauk and Fox Indians didn’t do anything to stop Black Hawk from marching back down to Illinois and engaging in war with the U.S. If it where my choice, I would, with no doubt, sign the treaty to give some of our land to the U.S. and just left it at that so no lives would be lost. This event reminds of what’s happening today in the U.S. North Korea is ready to discharge a missile on the U.S. territory of Guam and if they were to launch it, the U.S. will retaliate back in some type of violent way. Black Hawk and his group of Native Americans attacked the U.S., so the U.S. retaliated back by engaging in war with them. In both events, there is common knowledge or thinking between both of them. If you attack us, we will fight back. But there are also differences between both events, such as Kim Jong-un is attacking U.S territory all the way from North Korea with a missile and Black Hawk is attacking straight up front in U.S. territory with his followers. On January 24, 1848, James Marshall was the first person to discover gold at Sutter’s Mill in a river. Although he wanted to keep it a secret, news got out that there was gold in California, which brought many prospectors from different countries to come searching for gold. These gold prospectors, also called “Forty-niners”, caused California’s population to skyrocket. New methods were developed to dig for more gold, merchants were earning a lot from the increase of need for supplies, and miners would create mining camps, in which, they would camp in whenever they found a new area with gold. When the mining camps would grow large with more people, they would become towns called “Boomtowns”. Once boomtowns were scavenged and dug through, they were left behind as ghost towns. They were left empty and abandoned. Miners would then move onto new areas to scavenge for more gold. Later, they developed new methods to find gold and they were very destructive to the land. In 1853, the search for gold reached its peak and lesser gold was being found after. The most people affected in the aftermath were the native people. They were starved, diseased, abused, and slaughtered. Along with that, their society, infrastructure, and environment was destroyed. This event is called the California Gold Rush. What I find interesting about this topic is that it reminds me of people on Black Friday. People are rushing to stores to be the first ones to get all the good items before they run out. People are fighting, bumping, jumping and trampling over each other as if they’re rushing to find gold, well, in this case, expensive items with reduced prices. These days people aren’t making as great discoveries as we did back in the days, we have already discovered some of the major factors in life, unless we find the cure to cancer and other deadly diseases. Most people in life are driven by money, so I understand why those miners went hunting for the gold, but it doesn’t mean I liked the procedure they used to get it. If I was someone from another country that found out about there being gold in California, I probably wouldn’t have gone searching for it. What is the true story behind the story the movie “The Revenant”? Was Hugh Glass really attacked by a bear? Well, according to the true story, he apparently was attacked by a bear, although there is no record of an eyewitness. He had He was also a frontiersman and a fur tapper, like in the movie. After he was found, his comrades, John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger, were paid to stay behind to wait until he died. Since Glass refused to die, both of his comrades took his weapons and left him behind to die. He then, crawled to Fort Kiowa because of his broken leg from the bear attack. Although there were many similarities between the true story and the movie, there are way more differences between both. For example, the whole theme was of this man named Hugh Glass who went on this quest of vengeance to avenge the death of his son by finding the men who betrayed him and kill them. This was all a lie. There are no sources that suggest that he had a son and a wife. There are little records of his life before being attacked by this bear in 1823. Since he had no son, this vengeance of killing the man who killed his son is not true. He actually went on a quest of vengeance to find the men that had abandoned him and to get his gun back. When he found them, he changed his mind on taking revenge and instead, forgave them. The movie, “The Revenant”, was based on a novel by Michael Punke in 2002. In this novel, the story is portrayed in a different way, since the movie is based on it. The movie had a 50% accuracy to the true story, but the other 50% was completely false. Even the setting of the movie was false. The setting of the movie was in a winter landscape and the actual story takes place in the late summer. Glass eating maggots was a part in the true story, but wasn’t put in the movie because maggots don’t live in a winter landscape. The setting of the movie, prohibited many scenes from the true story from happening. So the scene from the movie where he climbs into the carcass of a horse for warmth is fake because in the summer it’s blazing hot.
In 1776, British colonists in the Americas were provoked to rebel by the parliamentary revenue system, British military actions toward the colonies, and the legacy of colonial beliefs and governmental philosophies.
Bacon’s Rebellion, King Phillip’s War and the Pequot War were similar in that there were conflicts with Natives over land, however they differed in the ways the wars were carried out and the results of the wars. Bacon’s rebellion was a result of the poorer classes moving west to cultivate land, however they encountered natives and the governor refused to protect them. Likewise the Pequot war was a direct effect of puritans moving westward, additionally all three wars resulted in the colonists as victors. During King Phillip’s war the natives destroyed a fifth of the towns in Masseuses and Rhode Island in contrast to the other wars where the natives did not cause as much damage to the colonists. Bacon’s Rebellion was significant because afterwards
Bacon was a man of opportunity and when a farmer that tried to trade with Native Americans was killed, it became his ticket to making it big in the New World. Only the governor, William Berkley, was allowed to trade with the Native Americans and nobody else. When the farmer was killed, William Berkley denied the upset colonists their desire to fight back. In doing so, it led Bacon to challenge his authority. He began to rally up colonists living in the backcountry where the colonists had no representation, no opportunity to achieve a fortune, and lived in a hostile environment. Everything those colonists did not have would be Bacon’s leverage in convincing them to support him and his cause. He had led 1,000 men to fight with him in hopes to rule the colony and would make changes to their benefit. William Berkley then branded Bacon as a rebel and sent for British troops. Bacon and his supporters then went into the backcountry where he eventually died of
Things in Jamestown were good. The people were fed, cared for, and happy. They created their own working government order, but, in a place where everything seems perfect, there is always one man to disagree. In this case, his name was Nathaniel Bacon.
In the Chesapeake region, Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 led to major changes. This rebellion involved indentured servants revolting against the system, which put an end to indentured servitude and nearly annihilated the city of Jamestown. The servants believed their natural rights had been violated, so they rose up in revolution. As landowners began to fear mutinous servants, the plantation system expanded significantly. This relied heavily on the use of slaves from Africa, and greatly sped up the production of cash crops in the region.
“So many therefore of these professors as saw the evil of these things, in these parts, and whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for his truth, they shook off this yoke of anti-Christian bondage..” (123). Also, even though the leaders of the colony of Jamestown and Plymouth were both Englishmen, they had different goals. William Bradford was dedicated to his cause of finding a safe haven where they could find religious freedom, while John Smith was more interested in finding land, natural resources for his
James D. Rice’s Tales From a Revolution is perhaps one of the most important works on early Colonial America. This concise and informative narrative focuses on an important event in American History that has simply been overlooked by many Americans and historians, Bacon’s Rebellion, which occurred in 1676. This revolt played a significant role in the course of history at a pivotal time in early America. Rice focuses on much more than the actual revolt, giving a very vivid and easy to comprehend overview of the occurrences that took place before, during, and after this climactic and transformative event in history that would be one of the first of many rebellions and revolutions that would gradually pave the way for the foundation of America.
...able behavior far different from that of rebellion.” The colonists held their tongues as long as they could, but in 1676, their frustration grew too strong. Bacon and a thousand Virginians rebelled and overthrew the governor, in what is known as Bacon’s Rebellion. Shortly after the rebellion, Bacon died, and Governor Berkeley returned and viciously crushed the brigands.
The Stono Rebellion and Bacon’s Rebellion both thoroughly demonstrated the determination of the American people in the British colonies. Despite the brutal treatment that slaves received and the inadequate policies for protecting the farmers of Virginia, both groups of people rose up in distinguished acts of defiance. These revolutionaries both had the goal to make a point to the British government that they are to be feared and not trampled upon. The Virginian farmers did not accept the policies of William Berkley and instead of living under his power, they rose up to fight
The most important issue prompting Americans to rebel in 1776 is clearly parliamentary taxation. The first time a Parliamentary imposed tax threatened the livelihood of the colonies was in 1733 with the Molasses Act, stemmed from the loss of profit for the British West Indies under the Navigation Act. However, this act was avoidable and rarely paid. Following the long and harrowing French and Indian War, Britain was deep in debt and George Grenville was appointed British Chancellor. He was determined to pay off the debt by brutally taxing the colonies. He not only reinforced the ignored Navigation Acts, but he placed the new Sugar Act which was similar to the Molasses Act which put a tax on rum and molasses imported from West Indies, but this Act would be enforced. Needless to say, the colonists were not used to this intrusion of Parliament and felt that it was wrong because there were no members in Parliament to represent the colonies. They felt it was a direct violation of their civil liberties and the first whiff of resentment was beginning to spawn. Next was the Currency Act which disregarded the colonies paper money, forcing the colonist to pay in only silver and sending their economy into chaos. Perhaps the most important and controversial acts were the Stamps Acts that placed a tax on legal documents, almanacs, newspaper, pamphlets, playing cards and dice.
Nathaniel Bacon and William Berkley, the governor of Pennsylvania had many differences that stopped them from getting along one of them was their opinion on the Indians in Pennsylvania. Bacon started the rebellion because Berkley did things with out consulting Bacon, which undermined his military authority. It caused King Charles II to send 1,100 troops to Virginia and appoint a commission to determine its causes. The British rule had to get involved and put it in stricter rules, which made it harder for people to get power. Bacons Rebellion promoted people to fight for what they believe in despite its view as non-democratic. Bacons rebellion was seen as putting down democracy because it looked like a quicker way to get to slavery even though it was looked at this way it was the first of many revolutions against the government so it could be seen as a starting point of the American Revolution. Bacons Rebellion showed what seemed to be a separation from English rule.
With every piece of history, behind them were tensions. Bacon’s Rebellion took place in Jamestown, Virginia in 1676, led by Nathaniel Bacon. Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of Virginia, adopted policies that favored the large planters. He also angered farmers on Virginia's western frontier because he failed to protect their settlements from Indian attacks. Nathaniel Bacon was upset due to how Berkeley was leading colony and led a rebellion against Berkeley's government. He raised an army of volunteers and conducted a series of raids against Indian villages a...
People in the Chesapeake colonies were unhappy with the rich aristocrats running the show. Francis Bacon led a revolt in Virginia against Governor Berkeley. He felt that the lack of unity among all citizens was apparent and needed to change. He felt that the government at the time was doing an inadequate job at public work i.e. safety, defense, advancement of trade (Document H). This problem was not present among the citizens of the New England colonies as the goals of the New England citizens were different (Document A).
During the years of 1675 and 1676 the North American colonies experienced conflicts that shaped the dynamics of their colonial life. King Phillip's War would effectively end relations between the New England colonists and the Indians. Also, the rebellion in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon stressed the growing discontent of poor frontier farmers for British rule. The consequences of these two events clearly had an impact on different levels that would extend well beyond their time. Therefore, the years 1675 and 1676 played a very significant role in the Northern American colonies.
The clash between the Native Americans and the colonists did not start off tumultuous. In the early days of the exploration and settlement of the New World they lived in peace. The Indians taught them how to farm and live off the land. In a strange land the colonists made an ally. However, the subsequent turn of events was inevitable. Perhaps the chaos that ensued could have been postponed but there was never going to be a peaceful cohabitation between the colonists and the indigenous people. There were so many vast differences between the religious views and ultimate goals of the two groups. The Native Americans had established trade relationships with various tribes, they had their own religions, and their way of life was a stark contrast to that of the colonists. The worldview of the respective peoples was foreign to the other and the idea of a holistic and unbiased approach to the life of others was foreign.