They responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.

Like King Charles, Berkeley refused to call for legislative elections for more than a decade during the English Civil Wars (during part of which Puritan-leaning Richard Bennett, Edward Digges and Samuel Mathews had replaced him as the colony's chief executive during the "Long Assembly").

He also issued large land grants to favorites (of 2000, 10,000 or even 30,000 acres) and was extremely wealthy compared to small planters (owning Green Spring Plantation outside Jamestown, as well as 5 houses in the colonial capital which he mostly rented out, 400 cattle and 60 horses, as well as several hundred sheep, valuable household silver and nearly a thousand pounds sterling worth of grain in storage).

[9] Berkeley's favorites often commanded the local militia in various counties, as well as charged quitrents to smaller farmers who cleared and farmed the land on their vast estates.

Nonetheless, after the Restoration of the monarchy, the king granted English-based favorites the Northern Neck Proprietary and the right to 11 years' worth of quitrents in arrears (which seemed like additional taxes).

[10] One set of aggrieved petitioners met at Lawne's Creek parish church across from Jamestown in December 1673,[11] and in 1674 two rebellions in Virginia failed for want of leaders.

Secocowon (then known as Chicacoan), Doeg, Patawomeck and Rappahannock natives began moving into the Northern Neck region as they were displaced from Maryland as well as rapidly settling areas of eastern Virginia, and joined local tribes in defending their land and resources.

The House of Burgesses approved of Berkeley's plan to build and staff eight forts along the frontier with 500 men, provided for the enlistment of friendly natives, and prohibited selling firearms to "savages".

When no militia deaths were reported in April and May, Berkeley proclaimed his plan a success, but Bacon's people complained that garrisons could not pursue raiders without the governor's express permission, and meanwhile outlying plantations were burned, livestock stolen, and settlers killed or taken captive.

Bacon later attributed these actions to Berkeley's desire not to impede the beaver fur trade, but historians also note that militia were often unwilling to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly natives.

[citation needed] Against Berkeley's previous order, and as Bacon sought a commission to go and attack Indians, his armed militiamen crossed the Chickahominy River into New Kent County nominally seeking the Susquehannock warriors responsible for recent raids and so traveled first toward the Pamunkey lands, only to find the people had fled into Dragon Swamp.

After convincing Occaneechi warriors (and their Mannikin allies) to leave their villages and attack the Susquehannock to the west, Bacon and his men refused to pay for those services but instead demanded provisions and beaver pelts.

[25] Upon returning to their lands in Henrico County, Bacon's faction discovered that Berkeley had called for new elections to the House of Burgesses to better address the Native American raids and other matters.

However, by this time Bacon had escaped Jamestown, telling Berkeley that his own wife was ill, but soon placing himself at the head of a volunteer army in Henrico County, where natives had renewed raids and killed 8 settlers, including wiping out families.

[34][35] In late July, Bacon completed preparations for his Indian campaign, including enlisting officers and armed bands from many counties, which were to meet at the falls of the James River.

Bacon and his followers established a camp at Middle Plantation (modern Williamsburg) and issued a proclamation declaring Berkeley, Chicheley, Ludwell, Beverley and others traitors, as well as threatened to confiscate their estates unless they surrendered within four days.

Berkeley then embarked 200 men on two ships and six or seven sloops and returned to the Western Sore, sailing up the James River toward Jamestown, where Bacon's garrison fled without firing a shot.

[42][37][43] After Bacon's followers torched the capital and left their encampment at Berkeley's Green Spring Plantation outside Jamestown, the main body traveled east to Yorktown.

Bacon made his final headquarters at the house of Major Thomas Pate, in Gloucester County a few miles east of West Point, but fell ill of dysentery and after calling in Rev.

[47] Bacon and his rebels never encountered a Crown force consisting of 1,000 English Army troops led by Colonel Herbert Jeffreys transported by a Royal Navy squadron under the command of Thomas Larimore[48] sent to aid Berkeley.

However, he faced daunting problems in feeding his men, as well as the militarily strategic need to cover hundreds of thousands of acres of land with many vulnerable areas.

Thomas Grantham, captain of the ship Concord cruised the York River,[54] despite pleas from Lawrence about the people having been grievously oppressed and requests to remain neutral.

[64] However, despite receiving orders to return to England, Berkeley delayed his departure for several months, during which he presided over additional trials, apparently disregarding the clemency suggested by the royal representatives.

According to one historian, "Because the tobacco trade generated a crown revenue of about £5–£10 per laboring man, King Charles II wanted no rebellion to distract the colonists from raising the crop.

[85][87][88] In October 1677, Jeffreys persuaded the Virginia General Assembly to pass an act of amnesty for all of the participants in Bacon's Rebellion,[89] and levied fines against any citizen of the colony that called another a "traitor" or "rebel.

[94] For example, historian Eric Foner writes, "The fear of civil war among whites frightened Virginia's ruling elite, who took steps to consolidate power and improve their image: for example, restoration of property qualifications for voting, reducing taxes, and adoption of a more aggressive American Indian policy.

Rather than singing Bacon's praises and chastising Berkeley's tyranny, Washburn found the roots of the rebellion in the colonists' intolerable demand to "authorize the slaughter and dispossession of the innocent as well as the guilty.

"[98] More nuanced approaches on Berkeley's supposed tyranny or mismanagement entertained specialist historians throughout the middle of the twentieth century, leading to a diversification of factors responsible for Virginia's contemporary instability.

However, in the past few decades, based on findings from a more distant viewpoint, historians have come to understand Bacon's Rebellion as a power struggle between two stubborn, selfish leaders rather than a glorious fight against tyranny.

[107] Robert Beverley reported, in his 1705 book on the history of Virginia, that some soldiers who had been dispatched to Jamestown to quell Bacon's Rebellion gathered and ate leaves of Datura stramonium and spent eleven days acting in bizarre and foolish ways before recovering.