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Unit Two Exam
Question One
In 1675, in English North America, a backdrop of crises revealed the old tensions in
colonial society. Earlier in the century, English settlers, Native people, and African laborers
lived in a precarious, shifting balance. Land was still available, social lines were, to some
degree, pliant, and imperial supervision was light. By the mid-1670s, however, land
pressures, inequality, and anxieties about native power resulted in two major rebellions;
Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia and King Phillip's War in New England. These upheavals made
1675 a turning point because these examples pushed the colonies to the point of racial
slavery, harsher policies toward Native peoples, and more imperial control (American Yawp,
Lecture Ten, Slide One).
In the decades before 1675, the Chesapeake tobacco economy was luring thousands of
poor English as indentured servants. Many dreamed of serving their time and then charging
off into the wilderness to carve out a parcel of land and join the ranks of the poor farmers.
Falling tobacco prices, a lack of good land, and the Navigation Acts limited those options.
Wealthy planters surrounding Governor William Berkeley secured the best land and offices.
At the same time, former servants flooded the frontier and fought Native communities for
land and hunting grounds (American Yawp, Lecture Ten, Slide Five). Political power still lay
with a handful of men, and settlers on the frontier felt that the government paid no attention
to their plight.
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It was out of this situation that Bacon's Rebellion erupted. After violence on the
frontier with the Doeg and Susquehannock, colonists called for a more aggressive war.
Berkeley instead favored a policy of defense and profitable trade with certain Native groups.
Nathaniel Bacon, a young member of the gentry who insisted he was speaking on behalf of
small farmers and ex-servants, led unauthorized attacks that made no distinction between
friendly and hostile Native peoples. The lecture notes state these campaigns to be a type of
"ethnic cleansing" on the frontier (American Yawp, Lecture Ten, Slide Six). When Berkeley
labeled him a rebel, Bacon and his followers marched on Jamestown, forced concessions, and
eventually burned the capital. Only the sudden death of Bacon and the coming of the English
troops broke off the rising.
The rebellion scandalously alarmed Virginia's ruling class. They had witnessed poor
whites, enslaved Africans, and Native allies cooperate briefly in aggression against the
colonial government. To avoid the same coalition forming again, elites decided to organize
society along racial rather than class lines. The colony made slavery hard for Africans and
their children and descendants, made slavery hereditary, and limited manumission (American
Yawp, Lecture Eleven, Slide Eleven). At the same time, authorities granted poor white men
more ready access to frontier land. They encouraged them with the advantage of identifying
as "white" partners in ruling over Africans in chains. This change made potential class rebels
the defenders of the new racial order.
Relations with Native peoples also had a way to go. Before 1675, there had been
trade, diplomacy, and some shared communities between the English and Native people.
After the rebellion, leaders in Virginia intentionally created what the lecture calls a "race
frontier," separating Native and English societies in law and space (American Yawp, Lecture
Ten, Slide Nine). Treaties required Native groups to relocate to the West. Intermarriage and
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colored joint settlements were discouraged. Violence against Native communities came to be
justified as being necessary for white security.
At the same time, New England was waging King Philip's War. The rapid growth of
the English population and constant purchase of land placed great pressure on Native lands.
Missionary projects such as the "Praying Towns" required Native people to give up
traditional practices and live under English supervision (American Yawp, Lecture Ten, Slide
Six). Metacom (or King Philip, as he was known to the English) feared that his Wampanoag
nation was about to lose its land, as well as their independence. After disputes and the
execution by colonial authorities of three of his men, he forged a Native coalition and war.
As a conflict, it was devastating. Native forces destroyed many of the frontier towns
and threatened the survival of the New England colonies. In response, New Englanders
implemented extirpative warfare: burning villages, destroying food stores, and sending
people into slavery in the Caribbean (American Yawp, Lecture Ten, Slide Seven). By the end
of the war, thousands of Natives were dead or in bondage, and much of southern New
England had been opened for settlement by the English. Colonists concluded that peaceful
coexistence with independent Native nations was an impossibility, and treated remaining
Native communities with deep suspicion.
Imperial authorities, also frightened by the turmoil of 1675-1676, were taking note.
Officials in London feared that weak colonial governments and lax oversight had contributed
to the crises. In the years that followed, the Crown endeavored to assert royal control more
firmly by revising colonial charters, rigorously enforcing the Navigation Acts, and
experimenting with new administrative units such as the Dominion of New England
(American Yawp, Lecture Ten, Slide Nine). The idea was to integrate the colonies better into
a controlled Atlantic empire.
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For all of these reasons, 1675 was also an important year in the development of
English North America. Bacon's Rebellion and King Philip's War made apparent deep
structural tensions in colonial society and compelled the choice of new paths by colonists and
imperial officials. Those choices towards racial slavery, dispossession of Native peoples, and
stronger imperial control established patterns to define British America for the next century
and set the stage for later conflicts, including the American Revolution.