Draft # 1

Bacon’s Rellbellion – Life of Different Classes
It was a big difference between life of rich and poor in the history. Rich people were friends with government, and poors were slaves which worked for the wealthy level. The class level was depended on race or skin color sometimes. People who had lighter skin like white were in a higher society level, and for those who had darker skin like black. Many of arguments or protests in a country often involved society level or racism in the past, and it could still happen today in our society somewhere in this world too.

In 1676, Bacon’s Rebellion started as a dispute over Virginia’s Indian Policy. During this time, more and more Europeans moved into New World since Columbus explored America. As more Europeans came, they needed more lands to build houses and plant foods. The governments had signed a contract with Indians in Virginia which says the Europeans will not cross or take over rest of Native American’s territory. At this point, people who studied about Columbus should have known that a lot of cruel tortures he did to the natives. And I do agree that the government signed a treaty with Native Americans to protect natives’ rights and keep out from their territory, but the protection did work for long.

The time before the policy begun, the Algonquian chief had led Indian to have a surprise attack which killed about 500 Virginia colonists in two days in 1644. So for next few years, there were fightings between Indians and colonists. When government signed a treaty, those colonists felt unfair and mad about “Why can these uneducated Indians to have that much when they do not know how to use the land?” And also for those poor servants who did not have money to buy lands for their own, they wanted to get it from Indians. Of course the houses and environments they lived in looked different depended on your class. There was slavery going on in the society during this time. For the labor, planter and servant, they did not have that much money to spend for their houses. Most of planters would put all their money back into their tobacco crop while people who were wealthier could pay more money for their homes. At main time, a man named Nathaniel Bacon, he started a rebellion with some colonists. They were both against the government and Indians. They were fighting for lands and freedom for the slaves. If I was Bacon I would do the same thing too, because the rich people and colonial rulers had a very close relationship and charged a big number of taxes on the products. So even if I worked hard at that time, I will never able to saving anything by paying high taxes. Just for this reason, more and more colonists came to support Bacon’s Rebellion. Nathaniel Bacon became a hero to many of the poor freemen. He was not a poor man. He was the son of a wealthy English gentleman. Bacon was sent to Virginia with enough money to establish a large tobacco plantation. At first he was welcome by the governor but not till he came up with a rebellion. To me, Bacon was a brave man with strength and good opinions of his own to led a group of mistreated people to get their rights.

The governor at this time was a man named William Berkeley. Bacon had declared war against Berkeley and others on his side. Berkeley called Bacon as a traitor. There was a castle called Bacon’s Castle. It was built in 1665 by Major Arthur Allen and it actually named as Bacon’s Castle in the 19th century, because Bacon was going to use this house as a stronghold during rebellion, but he may not been in this house if he did not have any chance to use it. Once you go in, you can really tell that it is a rich family’s house. During this time period, more money meant more power and higher society level, and less wealthy meant you have less power and more works to do. After Bacon declared a war against Berkeley, his crew and him fought the Indians and sacked the grandees’ plantations, and attacked Jamestown. But Berkeley and his people took the revenge by plundering homes and destroyed the farms of Bacon’s supporters. In this case, I do think it was a smart way for Berkeley and his people destroyed Bacon’s supporters’ houses and farm to stop them from attacking them, but of course Bacon’s supporters were not that easy to be stopped. Bacon and his supporters continued fighting until one day in October that Bacon was unexpectedly died from a disease.