They say; Bacon's Rebellion

The first known rebellion of the English Colonies was an uprising called Bacon's Rebellion of 1676. This rebellion all began when Virginians disagreed over the Indian policy in Virginia. Many colonists weren't satisfied with how the Indians were handled so they decided to do something about it. Nathaniel Bacon was the leader who stepped up to the job when no one else would even though "he probably cared more about fighting Indians than about helping the poor"(37, Zinn). First, he went with the formal way of getting things done and went to the government for help. He asked Governor Berkeley to provide commission for a frontier army that Bacon would lead against the Indians. When Berkeley discovered this army would be used to drive the Indians away, he immediately refused to provide for Bacon and his soldiers. So, with Bacon's idea rejected by the government, he went with the next way of getting things done which seemed like the only way to get this particular job done the way Bacon wanted it done. Soon after the plan was rejected by the governor, Bacon started to round up his army to be ready to start the rebellion against the Indians. Many of the men who decided to work with Bacon in the rebellion were poor colonists who were tired of the Indians taking more and more of what little land they had. Once Bacon had his men, he "was ready to send armed militias, or armed groups of citizens, to fight the Indians" (37, Zinn). The rebellion didn't last long because Bacon died of an illness, unknown specifically of what it was, and when he died the army basically fell apart.

After the rebellion, a ship was sent from England to restore order in Virginia. The captain of the ship, Thomas Grantham, who "found four hundred armed whites and blacks- freemen, servents, and slaves"(38, Zinn) who "he promised to pardon them and to free [them]"(38, Zinn), but instead his ships attacked them. After that, "twenty-three rebel leaders were hanged" (38, Zinn) just for rebelling. Many of the other rebels were extremely upset with this and the fact that "the whole colony, rich and poor, was being used by England" (39, Zinn). Once the colonists realized they were being controlled by England they wanted "to take control out of the king's hands and into their own" (39, Zinn).

Many people were bound for America, little did they know what they were getting into. Most of them "came to North America as servants"(41, Zinn), and were coming because they heard life in America was better than in England for poorer people. Their decision to come America turned out to be a bad one because they "signed an agreement called an indenture that said that they would [have to] repay the cost of their journey to America by working for a master for five or seven years" (40, Zinn). The voyage over wasn't easy either. They were kept in the most inhumane conditions imaginable. Once they were taken in by an American they were not treated any better than on the ship. "Beatings and whippings were common" (42, Zinn) amongst the indentured servants. If the servants tried to escape they were to be returned to their rightful owner and then the owner could do whatever they wanted with them because they were their 'property'. Numerous amounts of slaves did run off because of the lack of food and personal time allowed to them by their 'owners'.

Bacon's rebellion may have seemed like a good idea at the time but in the end nothing worked out like it was planned. The government eventually got a handle on all the disruptions and everything went back to 'normal' for a while, if beating, starving, and forcing innocent people to work as personal property to others socially and politically higher than them is normal. No human being deserves to be treated as property and Bacon's rebellion didn't help prevent that from happening, if anything, it added to the number of innocent people being forced into work as slaves.