Colonel Thomas Ballard (1630/31 – March 24, 1689/90) was a prominent colonial Virginia landowner and politician who played a role in Bacon's Rebellion.
He became a close associate of Governor Sir William Berkeley, and was appointed to the Council in June 1670, together with James Bray and Joseph Bridger, who also became important figures in Bacon's Rebellion discussed below.
The following year, as Bacon's public hostility to Berkeley's governorship grew, Ballard attempted to mediate the dispute.
[1] In September, Bacon used Anna Ballard and other councillors' wives as human shields in a clash with Berkeley's forces at Jamestown.
Lieutenant Governor Herbert Jeffreys removed Ballard from the Council and his customs post, citing his oath to Bacon as proof of his "mutinous Spirit".
[1][2] In 1679, instructions from London confirmed that Ballard and Philip Ludwell, two members of the "Green Spring faction" of diehard Berkeley loyalists, were barred from the Council.
He spent his final years pursuing a lawsuit against Nathaniel Bacon's estate, trying to recover the balance due on the 1675 land sale.