The events that led to the enslavement of black people in the Chesapeake tobacco colonies were the catalysts for their beginning as the great majority of laborers in those colonies. These events were affected by the diminishing supply of white indentured servants, preexisting white racial biases, as well as the growing availability of Africans. But the catalyzing event in bringing it about was the rebellion by Nathaniel Bacon in 1676. Bacon was an English aristocrat who had recently moved to Virginia which actually was the cause of his rebellion. In hindsight, the rebellion was really just a disagreement over Indian policy between him and the colony’s royal governor William Berkeley.
Bacon’s followers were predominantly white indentured servants
who resented the control the elite tobacco planters exercised over the colony’s resources and government. But, Bacon had a secret weapon. He also appealed to black slaves to join his rebellion along with the white indentured servants. This suggests that if poor black’s and white’s combined their efforts, they possessed a chance to protest against the tobacco planters. Before Bacon had the chance to realize the possibilities of a multi-race alliance, he died of an infection to his intestines, and without it’s front runner, his rebellion collapsed.
His uprising nevertheless convinced the colony’s important planters that continued reliance on white laborers who eventually could earn the ability to possess guns was highly problematic. So he switched to an enslaved black labor force, hopefully preventing the possibility of another rebellion since they essentially would never become free. Afterwards, white Americans perceived that both their freedom from class conflict and their prosperity rested on denying freedom to black Americans. Following this choice to change their workforce, about a thousand Virginians of all classes rose up in arms against Berkeley, attacking Native Americans, chasing him from Jamestown, and torching the capital. The rebellion was first suppressed by some merchant ships from London whose captains agreed with Berkeley his loyalist followers.
A similar uprising in Maryland actually took place later that year. The alliance between former indentured servants and Africans against bond-servitude disturbed the ruling class, who responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery. While the farmers did not succeed in their initial goal of driving Native Americans from Virginia, the rebellion did result in Berkeley being recalled to England.
