Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
We're going to start with King James I and a little background on the world he stepped into when he became the King of England in 1603. We're going to take it, all the way back to the 1500s. Trust me, this is where we need to start in order to understand why England was desperate to gain more land.
So, in the 1500s and everything before then, things were heated, cooked, and built with wood. Stone was used in some cases, but if you weren't living in a castle or building a city wall, your house was made out of wood and a mixture of mud and animal poop. Your day was spent toiling over the land with farm tools made out of wood. And after a long day in the field, you went inside to where your food was cooked using a wood fire. If your kids had toys, those toys were wood. If you went into town, you took your wooden wagon and you went around a bunch of wooden buildings in the town and you purchased items that were displayed on market stands, made out of wood. Okay. I'm saying wood a lot, but basically, wood was everywhere. It was a part of everything. And how society functioned depended on wood.
Basically, wood was life. And life was wood. You couldn't live without it.
So, keeping that in mind, in the 1500s, the population of England was around 2 million people. And the forest covered 9% of the land. But, 500 years before that, in the year 1000, the population of England was around 1.5 million people. And the forest covered 15% of the land. That's almost twice as much. So, there were only half a million people less in the year 1000 than there were in the year 1500. But, the forest had dwindled to half of what it was in those 500 years.
As you can see the forest of England was dwindling. But it was dwindling slowly. I mean, 500 years is a long time. It must have felt like watching the ocean dry up. We got plenty of time, right?
Well, sort of. That's one of the issues that we're going to talk about here. The dwindling forest of England was one of the reasons that went into why England needed to gain more land. We'll get into more of that in a little bit.
England had things like wood, and wool, and food. But, being an island, England had to go elsewhere for most of the things the population needed. They also needed to sell things that they did make to other countries.
So they were selling things in other places outside of England. Money was coming into England. That should be good, right?
So the ideal, just like in everywhere else, and pretty much all throughout time, is that a country makes enough things that people outside of that country buy it and then money pours into your country. Sounds like a nice idea.
The problem for England was that England needed wooden ships to do this. They were on an island and everyone else was on a continent. So, that took a lot of trees too. And being on an island, they couldn't even communicate with the outside world unless they used wooden ships to get that message off of the island.
On top of that, wars were constant. England fought Spain, France, and other countries in Europe over and over again. Just imagine how many ships had to be built to fight the battles over those hundreds of years. And a lot of those ships ended up at the bottom of the ocean. Which meant that they had to cut down more trees to build more ships for more wars.
One of the most famous battles involving England in the 1500s was the battle of the Spanish Armada. England had over 200 ships and Spain had just over 100 ships. Think about all the wood that had to be used in the making of each of those ships. We're talking massive galleons and men-of-war. England completely obliterated Spain in the battle and earned its reputation as a big, bad force not to be messed with.
This was just 15 years before King James I began his reign in England.
And James is where our story begins.
Okay. Let's see how the forest is holding up. In 1603, when James I sat on the English throne for the first time, the forest of England now covered only 8% of the land. 100 years before this, it had covered 9%. It was half of what it was when the Normans conquered England in 1066.
At least he inherited an epic legacy where England destroyed the Spanish in a glorious high seas battle, right? Not really. That legacy didn't mean much by the time James sat on the throne. England was broke. It had involved itself in too many wars. All of the fighting had cost money that Queen Elizabeth didn't have. She had to borrow it from other people to pay her soldiers and the other costs of war. So, James inherited the shiny English throne and Queen Elizabeth's debt. Which was about $119 million in today's money. Or 109 million in today's pounds. That debt was now his.
Okay. So, now that we've sprinkled a little bit more about James I in here, let's go back to England for a second. England had some of its own supplies that it could get from it's soil, and earth, and animals, but it often went to other countries for things like spices, sugar, gunpowder, silk, wine, dyes, and other types of food that didn't grow in England.
When it went to places like Norway and Sweden, sailors had to cross the infamous, very bad, no good, North Sea. If you haven't seen videos of ships in the North Sea, even today with all the technology and strong metals, it's still considered one of the most dangerous places in the world. Seriously, go check out some videos.
Every man who entered that sea was risking his life. He put his life in danger to gain a small reward of materials that he could bring back home. It wasn't enough to go once or twice. It was a constant need to go to dangerous places for these materials. Oh, and don't forget the icebergs.
Unfortunately, even though there were men willing to risk their lives to bring home materials that the English people needed, things like the King of Denmark, who ruled the entrance to those north waters, could stop English ships from coming in whenever he wanted. And if England still tried to get those needed materials, the King of Denmark could sic pirates or warships on them.
Throughout the 1500s and 1600s, England was at war on and off with different countries. If their ships traveled anywhere in enemy territory, they risked the same capture or death. Or worse, being sold into slavery.
Between the 1500s and 1700s, African-based sailors are said to have captured and sold close to 1 million people into slavery. Some estimates put it higher and some put it lower. Eventually, a lot of enslaved people that were captured at sea were Americans. There's some interesting history about how we started our Navy to combat that. But that's not what this podcast is about.
So basically, there were lots of dangers involved in getting basic materials for the people of England.
But, the forest of England was shrinking and it was dangerous to go out and get materials that England couldn't make itself. And England was always at war. Especially with France, like in particular. It's the reason we could count on France in the American Revolution to side with us against England. When a war with France flared up, trade with France became extremely difficult.
An additional threat that was far less dangerous than capture or death. But, it's also been known to cause wars and revolutions all by itself. I'm talking about taxes.
Even outside of the dangers of war with France, in times of peace, France started taxing items that England brought to France to sell. That made it more expensive to even go to France. But, England didn't really have a choice. It had to sell things outside of its own country.
In addition to France, other areas of Europe had their own wars and unrest that made it difficult to trade with those places as well. England needed all these things from other places. And it was basically at the mercy of whether or not war was on or was it off or were these guys stable over here? Are starving in desperate people in an uprising over there? And don't forget the icebergs.
Okay. So now that we've covered England's supply issues, let's hop into England itself and zoom down to the everyday life of the people.
England's population increased dramatically from the mid-1500s to the year 1600. That's only about 50 years or roughly 2 or 3 generations. Think about from your grandparents to you. Not a long time. In those 50 years, the population went from around 2 million people to around 4 million people. Just within those 2 generations. That's a population increase of 100%. It would be like if today's U.S. population went from 350 million to 700 million in just 2 generations. Or, if the U.K. population went from 68 million to 136 million in 2 generations. Or, if you want to think about another way, today's European population going from 742 million to 1.5 billion in 2 generations. That's crazy. It's an enormous increase in mouths to feed, people the house, people who could commit crime, and competition for the small amount of available jobs.
On top of that, not only did you have to compete against a ton more people now, you also had the amount of available jobs getting smaller and smaller. Think of it like this. Think of wool, you know, the hair that farmers shave off the backs and the sides of sheep? Wool was used to make clothes, blankets, drapes, and other cloth material. It was one of England's greatest sources of income because people from all over the world paid to have English wool shipped to them. England didn't even have to clean it or weave it or do anything to it. People bought it raw.
But, that also meant that England then had to turn around and buy back all the shirts, and blankets, and drapes, and whatever else had been cleaned and woven by skilled people in other countries. England had millions of sheep. An endless supply of this wooly gold. No problem, right? If you want to make something that people are guaranteed to buy, go get yourself some sheep and some land for the sheep and you'll be rolling in coin, right?
Sheep farming was a great job to have, if you could get it. Not only could you sell their wool, but they also produced milk and meat that you could sell. Sounds great. Totally fantastic. What's wrong with everyone just getting sheep and handing over these sheep bits for money?
Well, for one thing, sheep require lots of land. So, if you wanted to make more money to keep up with the high cost of things, or if you were just starting out as a strapping young sheep farmer, you needed land. Lots of land.
The more people who raise sheep, the more land was taken up for the reasoning of those sheep. And the more land for said raising of sheep, made it so that there was less land for the farming of food. And I feel like there should be a " savvy" in there somewhere.
But basically, any land that was used for anything other than growing food meant that less land was being used for growing food. It seems obvious.
On top of this, the growing population meant more sheep farmers, more land being used for sheep and more land being used for housing. Oh, and some of the food that you did grow as a sheep farmer, it was used to feed the sheep instead of people. So, okay. Not so good. If everyone becomes a sheep farmer.
On top of that, if you're like me, then when you think of a sheep farmer, or sheep herder, you think of a lonely man with his robes and his staff on a hill overlooking his flock. That's because sheep farming was not like regular farming. With regular farming, you use lots of people to break up the land, plant seeds, cut the food, and everything else that needed doing. Sheep farming uses like 1 or 2 people for the whole thing. That was one way in which things were changing in the job world and making jobs that used to be there disappear.
So, the amount of jobs is shrinking, the population was growing, and the amount of available food wasn't really growing with it.
Not only does that mean that people will starve, it also means that the available food that is going around is going to cost a lot more. A gallon of milk might've cost a penny for your grandparents, but now it costs 10 pennies. Okay, so now you can only afford 1 gallon of milk a week. Those prices are going up, but your wages weren't really increasing with the cost of things. Kind of like today. That gallon of milk costs 10 times as much as it used to. And you're getting paid the same wage. Maybe you're getting a slightly higher wage, but certainly not 10 times the amount you used to make.
So, you have a growing population and less available food. And the food that is available is really pricey. So, take that situation and we're going to just crank it up a notch.
The larger population also meant that more people were roaming around looking for work. Which means that employers could hire the person willing to work for the lowest pay. So now, when you do offer your services, you're getting paid less than you used to make. Not more. Oh, and that apartment you wanted to rent for you and your family? It now costs 4 times what it used to. You can forget about that.
Add to that 4 years of heavy rains and bad farming seasons. And you've got a recipe for total disaster.
The population had been growing so rapidly from the mid-1500s that Parliament started passing laws to deal with the issue of the poor and wandering homeless. It was thought, even back then, that local areas in your town or your village were responsible for the care of everyone who lived there. It was in the best interest of you and your family if the poor had food and shelter. This meant it was less likely that someone would rob you while you're out walking around at night.
This idea has stuck around for centuries and it still applies today. We can find a lot of our current ideas about social welfare coming from the laws of medieval England.
The Poor Act, as it was called, authorized representatives of the government to go around knocking door-to-door in each town and village and "gently asking" for donations for the poor who lived in the area. I seen "gently asking" with a hint of sarcasm because the truth is if a person refused to make a donation to the poor in the area, that person would be summoned to a meeting where very important people from the local church would persuade them to make the donation. Sometimes, even this didn't work and the poor government collectors had to go back to their superiors with their tails between their legs. This long, dragged out way of raising money for the poor lasted only about 11 years.
In 1562, Parliament passed another law designed to help the poor. This one started kept the earlier poor law alive, but added to it that people refusing to make a payment to the poor could be brought before an actual legal judge. And if you held firm and still refused to make a donation to the poor, you could be imprisoned until you changed your mind and handed over some of your money.
Keep in mind, this is while the cost of basic food and other necessary items for daily living was rising. And wages were being paid to those who would work for the least amount of pay. This may seem cruel and medieval, but it's literally the same way with taxes today. You have to pay for the social welfare of the people. And if you don't, you could get thrown in jail. Literally the same.
Eventually, each town and village was required to register the names of those too old or too disabled to work. Then, they would figure out how much each of those people on the list would cost to take care of for the whole year. Then, they divided that number by the amount of people who lived in the area. And that was the amount each person would pay in donations for the poor each year.
By 1601, a law was in place that made it so the local areas had to provide tools and materials to those who could work. Everybody else who could work, and refused to work, was simply sent to prison.
Begging was specifically illegal. You could actually get into a lot of trouble for begging. Sometimes, there were too many elderly or too many disabled people in an area and the king would issue special licenses to beg. Sometimes, this was for the elderly. Sometimes, it was for the disabled. And sometimes, they gave them out to people when there were just too many people to feed from the welfare taxes.
The license to beg came with a fancy metal badge that people took with them wherever they went. They could show it to an authority and it let them know that the person had the king's permission to beg. If you were caught begging without one of these licenses, your punishment could include being whipped, having a whole burned through your ear, being branded, or in rare cases, enslavement for a number of years.
If that weren't bad enough and you continued to beg without a license, your next appointment just might be at the gallows. If those are my choices, I'll work for next to nothing and like it, thank you very much.
It's safe to say that the number of poor or unemployed people in the 1500s and 1600s was a massive problem. And we haven't even gotten to the worst part of all this - crime.
A growing population, and large parts of that growing population being poor, and a large part of that poor being sick and desperate, a rise in crime was going to happen.
Crime, by the start of the 1600s was rampant. Some estimates put the crime rates at 10 times higher than it is today. It's easy to pass that over. But, really think about that. Just multiply that. For every robber you see in videos on social media, that would be 10 robbers. For every murder, 10 murders. It must have felt like the world really was coming to an end. So what's to be done? What should a government do for its people to ease their suffering?
By the time King James first sat on the English throne in 1603, Europeans had been sailing to and from the Americas for over 100 years. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and spices came back. Tales of vast untouched forest filled the minds of people who were faced with the shrinking forests of England. The new world was a bright possibility. Especially for those who could lose everything if England ran out of wood, or if a king randomly started a war and said they couldn't get what they needed from other parts of the world anymore.
On top of that, France, Spain, and other rival powers were already taking up land in the new world. Why should England sit on the sidelines when there were endless unoccupied lands there for the taking? It would solve all of their problems of being at the mercy of enemy countries, of running out of wood, and of not having their own soil grow enough food. It would even help stop their enemies from gaining some of that unoccupied land and becoming more powerful. Why should they not reach out and take it?
Well, the problem of course, was that the land was not unoccupied. Natives in the Americas had been living there for thousands of years, warring, killing, conquering, and building their own civilizations. England, and the rest of Europe, were well-aware of this. But to them, vast forests with no roads, or buildings, or towns were something the natives, and the Europeans, couldn't resist but take, if they felt they were stronger than those who already lived there.
This isn't a justification for the genocide and brutality that the natives suffered. This is to try and get into the minds of the people who came over. It was out of a sense of personal desperation and survival of the country that English colonists immigrated to the Americas and set up the first permanent English colony in 1607.
This colony was Jamestown and it was named after their king, James. There was also a sense of adventure that had built up in Europe. It was the Age of Discovery and Exploration. But the main reason the immigrants came to Jamestown was the hope of producing wood, iron, and gold for England.
Shiploads of country-saving wealth should be pouring in at any moment, ready to shine a light on the bleak existence they were falling into.
Well, such hopes and dreams were met with bitter disappointment.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss who King James was and his motivations for colonization.
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Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that England was basically a hellscape. Crime, poverty, and overpopulation were major problems.
Now, we're going to zoom in on the King of England at the time - King James I. We're going to go a little in depth to figure out exactly why he was so desperate for the first permanent English colony in the Americas to be successful. Why did he care? He was the King of England, right?
James I was born in Scotland in 1566. His mom and dad were King and queen of Scotland. James I was the great-great-grandson of Henry Tudor. So, he didn't descend from the infamous Henry VIII. But Henry VIII's sister had been forced to marry the King of Scotland and James I was her descendant. She had kids, and they had kids, and then they had James. This meant that he had lots of full-on royal English blood. And lots of royal Scottish blood. He was also Queen Elizabeth's cousin. I know. It's weird. Royals were basically all like this. They kept things in the royal family. Just know that he was a royal with both English and Scottish royal blood.
Let's take a peek into what his childhood was like, so we can see why he became the type of king that he was. His mother and father ruled Scotland. But, they had a really bad relationship and his father was murdered when James was only 8 months old. His mother wasn't liked, like at all, in Scotland. Rumors spread that she had a hand in her husband's murder. Those rumors never came to any actual charges, but it made people hate her even more.
People were nice enough to her while his father was alive because they liked him, but now that he was nice and murdered, the nobles who hated her could finally show her just how little respect they had for her. And they did. They imprisoned her and forced her to give up her claim to the throne and give it to her son, James. Who was still a baby.
She did give up her throne, because I mean, who wouldn't while being forced into prison by people who hate you with no chance of any help?
And if this tale isn't sad enough, here's the dose of terrible. After the Scottish nobles threw her in prison, James never saw his mom again.
She did manage to escape the Scottish prison about a year later and fled to England. She reached Queen Elizabeth's court and Queen Elizabeth greeted her more warmly than the Scottish nobles. And, promptly threw her in prison.
She remained in English prison until she died a famous, gruesome death. Which we'll get to a little bit later in this episode. As a reminder, to really make this point clear, she never saw her son again. And James grew up without ever knowing his mother, or his father, who was murdered when James was a baby.
He was raised by several teachers. The most important teacher in his life beat him on a daily basis and instilled a fear of God into him. Not the Catholic God, the Protestant God.
Because he was only an infant when his father was killed and his mother in prison, someone else who was an adult had to sit on the throne of Scotland and rule until James was an adult himself.
Four people ruled in James' place while he was growing up. Why so many? Why not just 1 guy to rule in his place? Well, it's because they were all murdered. One after another, like some gruesome Halloween movie.
The first person who ruled in his place was assassinated by a gun. He was actually the first head of a government to ever be assassinated with a gun. This was in the year 1570.
The second person who ruled in James's place was his grandfather. His dad's dad. He was killed, also by a gun, in a sudden attack by some of his mother's supporters who didn't like that she was imprisoned and felt she needed to be freed to rule Scotland again.
The third person to rule in James' place, seems to have been poisoned to death at a banquet held by the man who would take over the position next. A little suspicious.
So, the fourth person to rule in James' place was the banquet thrower. And I think poisoner. He managed to stay alive and rule in James' place for about 11 years until he was charged with having a hand in murdering James' father and was beheaded by a rough, early version of the guillotine.
Finally, after this series of murders and accidental poisoning, James was crowned King of Scotland when he was 15 years old. This was considered an adult at the time. Luckily, he wasn't assassinated.
James was the King of Scotland. But, he was also a great writer. He wrote poems, and books, and even wrote some music. He loved the Scottish language and used it in his music and poems instead of using English. He made efforts for teaching how to read to his citizens. And he made laws that spread the teaching of music.
One of the books he wrote while he was King of Scotland was called "The True Law of Free Monarchies". This was decades before he became King of England. It was basically a guide on how to rule as a king. It said that the king was higher than his subjects and that he ruled with God's blessing. God would punish wicked kings and kings who didn't honor and obey God. It also said that Parliament was only there to help the king, not to rule over the king. This is really important because it gives us an idea as to what James thought of Parliament. And this attitude towards Parliament would end up causing a lot of problems for him.
He later gave the book to his son as a gift. So, he could be informed of all these little nuggets of life and wisdom.
On top of that, when he was the King of England, he instructed the Bible to be translated into English, which we know is the King James version. Before this, the Bible was in Latin. Most people couldn't understand it, and they had to rely on church officials reading it to them. And everybody had to just take the church official's word that what he was telling them was actually what was written. And that he knew Latin well enough that he was interpreting it correctly. Tricky stuff. So, making the Bible into English, a language that everybody could read, was a big deal.
A little reminder here that this isn't a podcast about James, the first. Although we could definitely make one and we might one day. This episode is to give an idea into the mind of the man who ruled England when the first permanent English settlement was made in America. I'm talking about Jamestown, which was named after him. We'll get there. We're so close. Just stick with me for a little bit.
So, back to James. Just 3 years after he began to rule Scotland on his own, without anyone holding the throne for him, James was captured in a raid by Scottish nobles who were unhappy with James on the throne. Surprise, surprise. These nobles didn't seem to have anything better to do than capture people they didn't like.
James was held as a prisoner by these nobles for 10 months. While he was their prisoner, these nobles took control of the government. That should work out just fine, right?
James eventually escaped, and the group that was holding him prisoner lost control of the government.
A few years later, he made peace with Queen Elizabeth, basically promising not to fight her, or England, and that he was totally cool with Elizabeth keeping his mother as a prisoner like she had been, by this point, for nearly 20 years.
Keep in mind, he never really knew his mother. The last time he ever saw her was when he was 1 year old. He also had to think about the fact that everyone, including Elizabeth, knew that he would inherit the English throne after Elizabeth died. He was the next in line because Elizabeth had no children and James descended from Henry VIII's sister. So, he was a descendant of the Tudors. Really, there was no point in going to war with England. And if history repeats itself, which it usually he does, Scotland didn't stand a chance against England if he did decide to go to war with England.
Okay. So there's peace between Scotland and England. No need for any aggressive moves, right?
Well, not exactly. A lot of Nobles in England didn't like Queen Elizabeth. Those tricksy nobles. The same everywhere you go. They mostly didn't like her because she wasn't Catholic and Catholics in England at this time were being murdered, and treated pretty badly, all with her consent.
James' mother had a solid claim to the English throne. After all, she was also a descendant of Henry VIII's sister. And best of all, she was Catholic. If these Catholic nobles could assassinate Queen Elizabeth, free James' mother, and place her on the English throne, surely the Catholics in England would finally be safe.
Well, maybe. But this isn't how it played out. The nobles tried to carry out this plan, but it was discovered. And James' mother was accused of being a part of it. She was accused of sending secret messages, telling the nobles, "Yeah, totally. Let's do this," from inside her prison cell in England.
The plot was real. It actually did exist. And there were many attempts to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. But, they all failed and historians debate over whether or not these letters that were found describing this plot were actually from James' mother or were forged to make it look like they were from her.
Anyways, remember that famous, gruesome death I told you about the falling James' mother? Well, 7 months after the peace was agreed to between Queen Elizabeth and James, Queen Elizabeth had his mother beheaded with an ax. One in which the executioner missed, and gashed her head on the first blow, while she was still alive.
James was unhappy with this, but he held to his agreement to not fight England. Again, what would that accomplish? His mother, whom he didn't really ever know, was now dead. He was going to inherit the English throne anyways. And he didn't stand a chance against the English military.
So fast forward, 16 years later. In 1603, Queen Elizabeth died and James became the King of England. Because James was the King of Scotland and now, also the King of England, he brought the Kingdoms of Scotland and England together.
Scotland wasn't happy about this. They had a different religion and wars of religion where all the fashion back then. They were also the smaller and less influential of the 2 kingdoms. For centuries, they resisted England controlling any part of them. Now, they had no choice. They were automatically joined with England because the same guy ruled over both of them.
This was a potentially dangerous situation for James. Anyone with enough influence could gather people who didn't like this union of England and Scotland and attack James in an attempt to break the union of England and Scotland. I mean, if they could kill James, then the next King of Scotland wouldn't also be the King of England. He would just be the King of Scotland. Bing. Bang. Bam. Mission accomplished. No more union. All they had to do was kill James.
Again, this isn't a podcast about James I. This is to give an idea of the type of man he was and why he did the things he did. The things he did resulted in a desperate need to establish a colony in America. So, stay with me here and we'll get there soon. I promise.
Okay. So where were we? Right. Assassinating James. To nobody's surprise, 2 years after James became the King of England, a young Catholic man named Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament while James and the members of Parliament were inside. This failed, of course. And he and his buddies who were in on it were executed. And there were no other major attempts on James' life. But, James did have a problem with the English Parliament.
Keep in mind, that England had many, many revolts and uprisings over the issue of whether or not the king could just tax his people whenever he wanted. All of those were revolts and uprisings ended with a law saying that the king could not tax his people whenever he wanted. Only Parliament could do that. So, if the king needed money, he needed Parliament to say, "Yeah, sure. Let's tax people for the things you need money for."
Unfortunately for James, the king's bank account was 600,000 pounds in debt. That's 187 million in today's dollars. Or 147 million in today's pounds. This was his personal debt, not including the debt he inherited from Queen Elizabeth. He needed money, not just to pay off his debt, but also to live off of. All of those servants, food, jewelry, clothing, events, traveling, and everything else he could want required tons of money.
In addition to that, a war between Queen Elizabeth and Ireland just before he inherited the throne had left a 400,000 pound debt in England's bank account. Queen Elizabeth didn't have the money to wage that war. So, she borrowed it from other people. And when James inherited the throne, that debt was now his. And he had to pay it.
Together, with his personal 600,000 pound debt and Queen Elizabeth's 400,000 pound debt, he was 1 million pounds in debt. That's a total of 312 million in today's dollars. Or 245 million in today's pounds. Think about that. Think about if you were in debt that much, how desperate you would be to pay at least some of that off.
So, he went to Parliament, crown in hand, "May I have some tax money, please?" "Sure," they said, "No problem. All you gotta do is sign these laws." Parliament could make laws, sure. But, they weren't actually real laws, that were officially in place, until the king signed them. And the king could refuse. This is still in place today in England. Of course nowadays, the King or Queen of England can't refuse to sign laws, but Parliament still needs that signature. If the Parliament in England were to pass a law today, they would still need King Charles to sign it. Kind of like our governors sign laws in the United States today.
Okay. So back to Parliament in King James' time. He could say no. And Parliament knew this. So, he wanted something from them, and they wanted a signature from the king. Why not make a deal so everyone gets what they want? They even threw in an enticing yearly treasure chest of money that they would just give to him from taxes, forever. Pretty sweet deal for the king, right?
But James refused to sign those laws. It went back and forth like this for a while, until King James kicked Parliament out of the building, and didn't allow them to come back for around 10 years.
Back then, parliament could make laws, yeah. But, they needed the king to agree to let them gather to even make the laws. So, once the king said, "Get out, and stay out," they had to stay out.
England was ruled over by James without any Parliament for that 10 years. But, people didn't really care because at this time, the idea of elected people having the power and the king having almost no power, like it is today, was crazy.
Without Parliament, James had that enormous debt and a high cost of living that was just piling up. He needed money from somewhere else. The colonies were supposed to provide that for him. Anyone bringing items out of the American colonies had to pay a special fee. That fee, wouldn't go to Parliament. It would go right into the king's bank account. Bingo. Yahtzee. Perfect. That's reason enough, right? I mean, I would be looking for money if I were King James.
Well, there's another reason. Never having been at war with Spain, James devoted his efforts to bringing the long Anglo-Spanish War to an end. And a peace treaty was signed between the 2 countries in August of 1604. About a year after James had become King of England.
Even though they were at peace, and not at war, they were still competing against each other for money, power, and land. The Spanish were conquering and colonizing huge swaths of North and South America. If you want to see what true depravity, horror, and terror of colonialism looks like, look no further than what the Spanish did to the natives in the American continent, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. When you learn about Spanish colonialism, it kind of makes England look like the bullies in Spiderman, and Spain look like Thanos himself, destroyer of worlds and universes. Really. Look it up.
On top of that, James' other rivals - France and the Netherlands - were gobbling up territory in America too. Remember in the last episode, we talked about the dire conditions of poverty, starvation, and the need for resources in England. Europe looked at land that was undeveloped as if there were no claims on that land. So, the vast swaths of forest in Virginia, although claimed by 10 to 12,000 natives, was viewed as though it were unoccupied, since there were no houses, buildings, or roads in the area that would become Jamestown.
For some, including the broke king, the future of England rested on whether the Englishman headed to Virginia in 1607 could successfully establish a permanent English colony. Jamestown was what the settlers named the colony. This was of course named after King James. And in that town, were the dreams of the settlers. In that town, were the hopes of England itself.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the type of government that was set up in the Virginia colony and the violence and drama that ensued because of that government.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that King James I was in a desperate situation. He had a debt of about 312 million in today's dollars. Or 245 million in today's pounds. He needed to pay off those debts. Some of it was debt that he inherited from Queen Elizabeth, who had borrowed a ton of money. Some of it was personal debt. He had shut down Parliament and they were the only people who had the power to take tax money from the people of England and give it to the king so he could pay his debts.
So, poor King James sat on the throne of England and Scotland, completely broke. The colony that was going to be set up in Virginia was supposed to find gold, wood, iron, and other supplies that would be brought back to England and sold there. The king would get a share of the profits. And this was a simple way for him to raise money outside of parliament.
So, that brings us to the people who were actually going to set up and pay for the starting costs of the colony in Virginia.
You may have heard about The Virginia Company. Maybe from that Pocahontas song at the beginning of the movie. But, basically a bunch of dudes got together in London and ask people for money to pay for the ships, the crew, and the supplies that would be needed to take care of the colonists on the journey. The colonists were going to find gold, and iron, and wood, and a ton of other things. They would send all of this back to England and people in England would sell it. And if you had given money to the colonists to journey there and set up the colony, you would get a share of the money on everything that was sold. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Why not give the money if you had it?
And people did give money. And once The Virginia Company had money, they got captains, a crew, and colonists together to make the journey. They even got 3 ships. So, let's go, right? Not exactly.
A lot of people had been making journeys like that to the Americas for over 100 years at this point. They were just random groups of people that came and went and sometimes they had the blessing of their king or queen in their country. But, what these guys wanted was to stay there. They wanted to set up a piece of land and say that it was permanently English land. They would get married, have babies, establish towns and cities. They weren't coming back.
But, they didn't want to be there on their own as just a random group of people. So, what they needed was a document from the king saying that they have the full power of England. And that whatever land they settled was, in fact, English. And, that the English government would fight for them and protect them. Anyone harming them would have to answer to the government of England.
This is really important to the American Revolution. This document from the king gave a legal reason for the American Revolution over 160 years later. The document said that every English colonist that set foot in the colony was an English citizen and held the same rights as all English citizens. Just as though they were in England itself. It made the land in Virginia, legally the same as the soil in England.
169 years later, the Virginia colonists would be like, "Hey, uh, so you remember how you said that we were the same as English citizens? And we kept all of our rights as though we were on actual English soil? Well, one of those rights is to have a say in our government elections. And to have a say, in what taxes we pay."
Okay. So back to this time in the early, early 1600s, Spain, and France, and other countries had been doing this for a long time. It wasn't just an English thing. The document that was signed was called a charter. The King and Queen of Spain signed a charter for lands claimed by Spain. The King of France signed a charter for lands claimed by France. And now the King of England signed a charter for lands claimed by England.
The charter also said that the king would select some people in England to be in charge of the colony. Yeah. All the way across the ocean. He set up a council in England that the colonists had to report to. And listen to. That council in England had to answer to the king.
So, the king was still really the one in charge. He just had people beneath him running the day-to-day things and making decisions that he didn't want to deal with.
In addition to the council in England, the charter said that there would be another council in Virginia that would handle things that needed more immediate attention. Still, every decision they made had to be approved by the guys across the ocean - the guys in England.
Those guys in England chose the people that would be on the Virginia council. It was kind of like having 3 bosses. There was a council in Virginia that ran things there. Then, the bigger boss above them in England that was a council. Then, the mega boss on top of everyone, who was the king.
Nobody was elected. The king chose people for a council in England. The people on the English council chose the people for the council in Virginia. I know, saying a lot of things about councils here. But the point is, that the people that were on the council in Virginia, and the people on the council in England, were in no way answerable to the people.
This affected things like crime. The people in Virginia could be tried by the council if they were accused of a crime. And if they wanted to appeal the decision, they had to write to England and wait for a response. It was kind of like a government, but it was owned by a company - The Virginia Company.
So, people couldn't do anything of the council sucked. Only the council could do something if the council sucked. And, unfortunately, as you may already know, people. People in power usually get sick with that power and become monsters. So, the council did suck. Sometimes, the council ruled over the colonists with a cruelty that seemed right out of a horror movie.
The only thing that could stop it was the council itself, or the council in England. If word could even reach them. And imagine all the time it took to send word, for them to debate in England about what to do, and then to send a response to Virginia. That would take forever. And a lot of the things that were happening, didn't get word to England at all. So, only the council in Virginia was really able to stop the council in Virginia. There's an enormous amount of thrilling drama that happened with that. And we'll get to that soon.
So, the council in Virginia was a bunch of dudes chosen by the council in England. They also chose a president to lead the council. The president of the council was basically the same as the other council members, except for in times when there were equal votes for, or against, something and someone needed to cast an extra vote to break the tie. The president could do this. He basically could vote a second time if this ever happened. He also banged the gavel and made sure meetings of the council didn't end up in shouting matches and disorder. Not much of a high position, but that double vote in case of a tie, that was power.
The president of the council was only to serve for 1 year. And, if at the end of that year, the rest of the council didn't like how he was as a president, they could vote to change the president to someone else. If the council didn't like one of the other members of the council that wasn't the president, they could vote them out too. No trial. No specific charges. Just to vote to get this guy we don't like outta here. In this way, there was a little voting going on.
But, just imagine that. These guys out there in the middle of nowhere, able to just be like, "You know what? I don't like you. I'm going to make sure everyone else doesn't like you. And we're going to vote you out." And their parents - the council and king in England - weren't there to stop it. Not unless someone got word to them and they were willing to wait months to see if England approved.
We can imagine the types of cliques and drama on this side and that side that happened in these situations. So, the government that was set up for the new colony wasn't super strong. It had some issues, just like any new government does.
Okay. So these colonists now had a charter from the king. They were going to keep all of their English civil rights when they landed in Virginia and they were ready to go. They set sail at the very end of 1606. On their way to Virginia, they took 3 ships with them. On one of these ships was John Smith.
John Smith was well-known in Europe long before this trip. He was a captain, a soldier, and an adventurer. He had already been to many places around the world and already had relationships with people in different parts of the world. In Pocahontas, where they had John Smith's speaking the native language, it wasn't really real. John Smith didn't speak the native language. But, he would have used gestures and other means of communication. Something he had a lot of practice doing in areas where he didn't speak the language. He was already kind of famous, like a Kardashian of adventure and exploration.
There's a firsthand account of a 10-year-old boy who went on the trip to Virginia with him. The 10-year-old boy wrote about how awestruck he was when he first met John Smith. When they set sail for Virginia, John Smith was already a legend. Some of the other men on the trip were well-known too. And there must've been a lot of excitement and nervousness about who, out of all of those men, were chosen to rule once they got there.
The Virginia Company and the council in England knew this. So, they wrote down the names of the people they chose to be on the council in Virginia, and the name of the president they chose to lead the council, and they locked all of those names away in a box. The box was not to be opened until the colonists reached Virginia. That way it would avoid fighting about the choices on the way there. Except, it didn't avoid this entirely.
There was a lot of drama that unfolded between the ships on the way to Virginia. Some of the men started rumors that John Smith was planning on killing the council and making himself king of the colony when they got there. These rumors spread rapidly and enough people believed them that they actually imprisoned John Smith in the decks below. They chained him to a floor and kept him cramped inside a hot, sweltering, tiny room for 13 weeks. The only relief he had was that 10-year-old boy, who served him food, water, and kept him company. When the ship stopped for food, the kid would look out through the portholes and describe Caribbean islands to Smith. He wasn't allowed to even stretch his legs or take in fresh air. Something, the boy was highly distressed about.
But, they finally made it to Virginia where they held a trial to see whether John Smith actually had been planning on killing the council and making himself king of the colony. They decided that, in fact, he had not planned this, and they let them go.
So, the colony started off with tension before they even reached the shores of Virginia. And this tension wasn't about gold, or riches, or who gets what land. It was about how the colony was going to be governed.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week
when we discuss what happened with John Smith, the disorder and chaos brought by the fighting among the council in Virginia, and the path that led to the colony being ruled over by a governor.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that colonists were heading to Virginia on 3 ships to set up the first permanent English colony in the Americas. The Virginia Company paid for the ships, the captains, the crews, and the supplies for the colonists to make the journey there.
The Virginia Company was owned by people in England. They had decided that the colony would be ruled by a council that sat in the colony. The council that sat in the colony would be ruled over by a more powerful council in England. And the more powerful council in England would be ruled over by the king. So, even though the colony of Virginia was owned by a company, it was the king who really ruled over everyone, even in Virginia.
We also talked about how the names of the people who would sit on the council in Virginia had been locked away in a secret box, only to be opened when the colonists arrived in Virginia. This was supposed to keep people from fighting about it on the way there.
However, John Smith was on one of those ships. He was already a famous adventurer and soldier in Europe. Some of the men on the ships were afraid that he was definitely, totally, 100% on the list of people chosen to sit on the council. And some of them didn't like him, and didn't want him to have power over them. So, they spread rumors that John Smith was planning on killing the council members when they reached Virginia and declaring himself king of the colony.
The rumors caused such a panic that they actually imprisoned Smith for the rest of the voyage, which was 13 weeks. So, here you have a bunch of guys who finally arrive in Virginia 4 months later in 1607. The colonists opened the box with the names of those chosen to rule over them. John Smith was one of those people. He was going to be on the council.
Now, they were going to hold the first trial in the new colony. So, they put John Smith on trial and soon learned that he was actually innocent. Everything that the colonists had heard had been started as rumors by people who didn't want Smith to govern them when they arrived. So now, he's free to go and it's time to get down to business.
Where are we going to set up camp? Who's in charge of the cutting, the building, the cooking, the disposal of waste? Who's going to go out to look for gold? Who's going to be in charge of keeping everyone safe? And we also have to actually start doing those things. If you've never chopped down a tree, all you need to know is that it's really hard and it takes a long time for just 1 tree. And they needed a lot of them.
So, the council gathered in meetings to figure all of this out. The meetings were anything but fun. There were 7 people on the council. Six of them are there and one of them was still in England. Everyone shouted and hurled insults, and the meetings were generally stormy and chaotic. People acted more like rebellious teenagers than determined government officials. They didn't think that any of the other council members could tell them what to do. They were going to do things the way they saw fit and not the way a vote told them to act.
As we discussed in last week's episode, the president of the council wasn't able to do anything other than bang his gavel and try to stop the arguing. Or vote to break a tie. If you've ever seen people in an argument, a really heated argument, a gavel banging, or a person telling them to calm down, doesn't really do much to get the arguing to stop. We can imagine the president of the council sitting there trying to yell over the other yelling people, telling them to speak in turn and obey the commands of the council, and however the vote went. It wasn't effective.
Groups formed in the colony on this side or that side of an argument. And less than a month after arriving in Virginia, the colonists were so bitter towards each other, and so unable to come to an agreement on anything, that they had to send word to the council in England who ruled over them. They asked the council in England to decide what to do about certain issues.
The issues among the council members became violent and extreme. One of the members, Captain Kendall, was thought to be one of the troublemakers. It was thought that he was spreading discontent among the rest of the council.
Remember in the last episode, we also discussed how the council could vote to have other council members kicked off of the council? No charges. No trial. They could just vote. And vote they did. They voted the troublemaker, Captain Kendall, out of the council.
We can imagine just how angry Captain Kendall would have been after this. Imagine the trouble he could have caused in the rest of the colony among the colonists. He could have even convinced colonists to turn against the council.
Well, the council knew this. So, they threw him in a prison on one of the ships. The council now had 6 members and one of them was still in England. So, there were 5 members in Virginia. Soon, one of them died from an infection and from scurvy, which is a lack of vitamin C.
Now, there were 4 members left in the colony, including the president of the council. Not much of a government. And the council already had a reputation for not governing very well. Four members could easily turn into a situation ending with all of them pointing guns at each other.
The 3 council members who weren't president decided to turn on the president of the council and kick him out. They didn't like the president at all. They said he was bad at managing the colony and that he was hoarding food from everyone else. And worst of all, that he was an atheist.
They were going to vote to kick him off the council and they pinky promised each other that once they had done this, they would stop kicking members out. They would keep it at the 3 of them. They were totally for serious.
So, they voted the president off of the council and put him in prison along with the other guy they had kicked out. The 2 former council members stayed in prison for several months until a new ship arrived and took them back to England. Everyone can work peacefully now, right? We got rid of the food-hoarding, atheist president, and we can all get to work, right? Not really.
The president hadn't really been the problem. Sure, he probably was hoarding food, but the colony was being poorly managed by everyone. The problems were that the council was fighting each other and the colonists were fighting each other. And everything was generally a terrible thunderdome were colonists fought for the right to live their lives free of anyone telling them what to do. The former president later said that the 3 remaining council members ruled over the colony with a hate-filled cruelty. We can imagine why.
It's easy for 2 people to turn against each other, but it's even easier for 3 people to turn against each other. That could get really tricky, really fast.
In December, 1607, just 7 months after arriving in Virginia, the colonists had run out of food. The mismanagement of the government in the colony had prevented any organized farming or hunting to feed the colony. They were starving and people started dying from hunger.
This podcast isn't about Virginia and how America started, really, even though it might sound like it is. It's about how reasons for the American Revolution had some of it's start right here, at the beginning, in Jamestown. From the failure of government which, as we'll see, led to the establishment of a governor instead of a council, to the idea that everyone in the English colony had the same rights as all other English citizens, the same as though they were standing on English soil.
That right, to be considered a full blown English citizen, is important because it was the legal argument made 169 years later when the revolutionaries said that as Englishman, they had the right to elect their officials and the right to agree to any taxes.
So we're going to skip over a lot of the details about the sickness and the issues with the natives. Our focus is on how things in the colony led to the American Revolution. We're just starting from the beginning.
Okay. So back to the colonists in Jamestown in the year 1608. They were starving. And John Smith was leading a group of colonists into native territory to find food. Now, remember that the council was only 3 people. It was John Smith and 2 other guys. So, while he was gone, the president of the council decided to hold a vote. Really, it was just him in that 1 other guy voting, but also remember that the president of the council had the power to vote twice in the case of a tie.
He wanted to have one of his friends in the colony join the council. The other guy on the council voted no. So, the president cast his second vote and broke the tie with a yes. And his friend was now on the council.
Unfortunately for John Smith, this friend hated Smith. He blamed him for the death of one of his friends by the natives. So, while John Smith was out looking for food to save the colonists from starving to death, this guy who hated him, now had some power and he went around trying to ruin Smith's reputation with the other colonists. And he was pretty successful at this.
The very same day that Smith returned to the colony from his life-saving mission, he was imprisoned and put on trial for mutiny.
This form of government was an absolute disaster. There was no way a colony could survive being ruled by a council.
The council wasted no time in getting to the part where they got to kill John Smith. His enemies were rubbing their hands together and drooling at the thought of it.
He probably would have been executed that day that he returned, if it had not been for the precise arrival of a ship from England carrying new supplies, food, and more colonists.
Most importantly, was that that ship brought it's captain, Captain Newport, who was famous for being able to calm situations down.
Captain Newport convinced the council to let Smith go and drop the charges. Not only did they do this, he also convinced them to restore him to his seat on the council.
The miraculous timing of Captain Newport's ship arriving before they could execute Smith would have immediate effects on the government in the colony.
There was evidence that the council was planning on establishing a parliament that day in the colony, where people would be elected by the colonists. That would have been an enormous improvement over the chaotic council.
However, Captain Newport's arrival also prevented this. He had arrived with those supplies and colonists by order of The Virginia Company who owned the colony.
Remember, that even though the colony was owned by a company, The Virginia Company, and the council in Virginia still had to answer to a powerful council in England. Everyone on that powerful council in England was chosen by the king and had to answer to the king.
So, even though the council in Virginia was planning on starting a parliament where people would be elected by the colonists, the king likely would not have allowed this and would have told them to stop. And they would've had to listen to him. They had no choice. Virginia was owned by the company and the king was the mega boss over the company and all of the colonists.
The colonists didn't really care that much that they wouldn't have elections. They were still very new as a colony and still needed the protection of England. Even now, if we see this as a very small start to American colonists wanting to say in their government, they were still intensely loyal to the king.
It would be like if you went to Antarctica and set up a little colony there. It would take a long time, probably many generations after your death, for your descendants to start thinking of themselves, not as citizens of your country, but as Antarcticans. So, the colonists still thought of themselves as full-blooded Englishman. And nobody thought that the king should have anything other than final say.
So, several months had passed and the council was still the ruling government. John Smith was elected to be the president of the council.
However, the fighting amongst them continued and soon enough, the council dwindled down to be only John Smith and this one other guy. The other council members had either left the colony, been kicked out of the council, or had died.
As president, John Smith had that sneaky second vote. If the other council member voted differently from him, he could just cast a second vote and win the argument. This meant that John Smith was in charge. Nobody could vote against anything he wanted to do. The other guy might as well have not even been there.
Fortunately, this didn't last for a long time. A few weeks later, that captain with a miraculous timing that saved John Smith's life the first time, Captain Newport, he arrived again with another fresh shipment of supplies, food, and colonists. But, there was something else that would bring more changes to the colony.
On that ship, were 2 experienced soldiers who were also considered part of the nobility in England. These 2 soldiers were Richard Waldo and Peter Wynn. These 2 men had been placed on the Virginia council. So, John Smith was no longer able to just vote against the one other guy.
And it wasn't long before Captain Newport turned his ship around and went back to England. On one of those ships, was one of Smith's old enemies - Ratcliffe. Which was a good thing because Smith had said that Ratcliffe was an imposter and that he'd better be sent back to England before the colonists could cut his throat.
A few months after that, one of the soldiers Newport had brought with him, and that one guy that Smith was able to vote against, got caught in a storm on the James River and drowned. Soon after that, the other soldier Newport had brought with him, died from disease. So now, John Smith was the only surviving council member. He once again ruled, unopposed, over the colony.
At this time, back in England, Newport, Ratcliffe, and the other former members who had been sent back to England were making reports about the issues going on in the colony. They told everything they could to the council in England about the bad conditions, the starving, the sickness, and how bad John Smith was as a ruler.
The council in England had been aware of the problems for a while. But now, after hearing these new reports, they created a new document that would end the current government in the colony and establish a different type of government. One that was less like a high school fight in the back alley of prom night and more like the royal, dignified, everything-in-its-place type of government in England.
This new type of government in the colony would be ruled over by a governor. The governor would be chosen by the king.
So now, Captain Newport set sail again. This time, with 9 ships and 500 passengers to Virginia. One of the ships carried the new governor and they brought with them the official documents signed by the king, telling John Smith that he had no power and there would be no more council and no more president. This was in 1609. Less than 2 years after the colony started.
Unfortunately, on the way there, a storm wrecked Captain Newport's ship and landed them on an island in the Bermudas. The other ships found each other after the storm passed and they were able to make it the rest of the way to Virginia.
Captain Newport and the shipwrecked people spent months rebuilding their ship and they didn't make it to Jamestown until 10 months after they were wrecked. No problem though, right?
The colonists who made it to Virginia could just tell John Smith and the other colonists that the council was no more. John Smith was to step down from power.
Well, they did tell him. And he didn't take it well. No way was he going to give up power. And he was going to use whatever excuse he had to hold on to it. The excuse he settled on was that they didn't have the papers with the king's signature on it. Those papers were with Captain Newport and his wrecked ship. For all they knew, Captain Newport and the others had drowned and the ship destroyed along with the important papers.
This angered the people who had been sent over. But, John Smith was right. It was a well-established rule that things involving who was in charge of a place didn't change anywhere unless you could produce the official, royal signature of the king or queen saying it had to change.
So, everyone agreed that Smith would remain the ruler of the colony until the papers carrying the king's signature said otherwise.
This logic may have seemed like a good idea to Smith at the time, and maybe it was. But, it would come back to bite him and just a few months.
In the meantime, things didn't go as smoothly as planned for Smith. The guy that was supposed to be governor had been on the ship that was shipwrecked and the Bermudas. He was presumed to be dead. And now the colonists needed to wait for England to send them a new governor.
While they waited, they chose one other guy to be in charge. Not John Smith. And this new guy, Francis West, took every opportunity to ignore Smith's ideas.
Tensions were rising again. And we all remember the death, imprisonment, and violent arguments that broke out in the before time, when people in the colony fought over who had power.
The new guy in charge ignoring his commands angered John Smith to no end. He was furious. Some even said that Smith was so angry that he went off to meet with the natives where they plotted together to kill the new guy in charge.
The old times of warring and fighting amongst the rulers was returning.
But, before any killing could take place, John Smith was seriously injured. He was sleeping in a boat when the gunpowder in his pocket caught fire and exploded next to him. The explosion blasted off a chunk of his leg and he had to jump into the water to put the fire out. This injury left him in such a bad state that he had to sail for England to find proper medical care.
It's funny. When you think about the movie Pocahontas, there really was a Ratcliffe that John Smith hated. John Smith really was almost executed. But, he was saved by the arrival of Captain Newport, not Pocahontas. And he really was injured and had to return to England.
There was also a love relationship between Pocahontas and one of the colonists. But, it wasn't John Smith. More details on that in the next episode.
So, back to that decision that John Smith had made. He had claimed that because the papers saying the council was no longer in charge had not yet arrived, this meant that he was, in fact, still in charge. Nothing could, or would, change about how the colony was governed until those papers got there.
Remember how I said that it would come back to bite him? Well, this is where it gets a little interesting.
A couple of the former council members had been on the ships that made it out of the storm on their way to Virginia. And one of those former members was Smith's old enemy Ratcliffe.
So now, the old members of the council got back together and they said, "Fine. If you're going to say that the council still exists because we don't have the signature from the king, then so be it. We're all still council members then. We were never actually voted out of the council. We just left Virginia. So, since we're still council members, we're going to vote John Smith out of the council." And that's exactly what they did.
You'd think that after all of this, they would say, "Great. We know there's supposed to be no more council." But, that's not what they did.
They ignored the order to get rid of the council. They allowed this new guy, Francis West, to be the president of the council. But, they didn't want him to have complete power. Probably because they thought he was too inexperienced to run the place. Plus, if they got rid of the council, then they would lose all of their power.
So, the former council members decided to keep the council alive. And the guy in charge eventually went back to England. Now, they needed a new president for the council.
For this, they chose a man named George Percy. There's another one from the movie. There really was a Percy and he really was close to Ratcliffe. But he wasn't a dog. Percy was the president of the council until documents from the king could arrive and order otherwise.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how sickness and starvation nearly wiped out the entire colony and how the Englishman and natives finally made peace with the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Jamestown was now the first permanent English settlement. The king in England ruled over council in England. And that council in England ruled over council in Virginia.
Sadly, the council in Virginia was like Lord of the Flies and everyone was so busy fighting for power and kicking each other up the council, that England eventually was like, "Hey, okay uh, so a council in Virginia was a bad idea. We're going to cancel the documents giving Virginia council members power, and we're going to write a new document setting you up with the governor."
Okay. So we have a governor now, one man to rule them all. No more fighting, right? Well, not exactly.
The drama caused by the council being able to kick people out and fight each other for power was over. But, the problems in Jamestown weren't all caused by the council's drama.
One of the things that early Jamestown is famous for is a period at this time called "the starving time". Again, this isn't a podcast about Virginia. It's about how things that went down in Virginia eventually led to the rebellion against England. So, we're going to kind of skim over it a little bit here. But basically, there were diseases caused by viruses and bacteria, but also from a lack of proper nutrients. Scurvy, which comes from the lack of vitamin C, being the worst.
The other thing was a lack of food. Within the first 6 months, over 60%, or 2 out of every 3 colonists, had starved to death or died from disease.
The 10-year old boy who came over as John Smith's servant wrote in his diary that the houses were muddy and cave-like, and that they had severe want for cleanliness. Everyone was a pig. Except for him and his friend who was also the same age. They shared a house with John Smith and they worked all day to cook and clean for the 3 of them.
A major reason for the starvation, and sickness, and general pigsty was that a lot of the people who came over thought that they were too high in rank to work. They were noble, or gentlemen, and couldn't be bothered getting dirty. But, they still expected those who did work to build houses for them and provide food for them.
The greatest thing that ever happened was John Smith taking complete control of the council as basically a one-man ruler and forcing those gentlemen to work.
One of the many new rules he made was that if you didn't work, you didn't eat. When Smith published the law that you had to work and speak without swearing, a group of men gathered in the town and began swearing, in what the 10-year old boy said was worse than anything he had ever quote, "Heard during a drunken brawl in the streets of London."
John Smith came out of the fort with 6 burly men behind him. They grabbed the men who had been shouting swear words and held them down on the ground, where one-by-one, each of the foul-mouth settlers got an entire can full of cold water poured down their sleeves.
This may not seem harsh, but the boy goes on to say that each of those men had later said that they would rather be whipped than have water poured down their sleeves again.
So, that was that. You couldn't swear. You had to clean up after yourself. And you couldn't sit around all day doing nothing, unless sickness or disability prevented you from working. This helped whip the colony into shape.
However, food takes a long time to grow. And while they were waiting for their food to grow, they had to leave the safety of the colony and venture into the woods, into native territory.
At this time, some of the natives were quick to kill anyone leaving Jamestown. But, starvation drove the colonists to desperation. They had to eat. They had to leave Jamestown.
On top of this, the natives often destroyed any crops the colonists could grow. One immigrant of Virginia called the colony quote, "A misery, a rune, a death, a hell."
People dug up graves to eat the dead. They also boiled clothes, and shoes, and belts. Some of them even dug their own graves and laid down in them, waiting to die.
Thomas Gates was the man that had been chosen to be the governor. And he had been on the ship that was shipwrecked in the Bermudas. England had believed him to be dead and so did the colonists that made it to Virginia.
But, the shipwrecked crew had spent months rebuilding their ship on the island. When their ship was rebuilt, they continued their journey to Jamestown. When they finally reached Jamestown, 10 months later, Governor Gates arrived and looked around for the settlers.
What he found, was that almost everyone had died from starvation. And those who had survived, had starved to the point of looking like skeletons. Percy, the man who had been left in charge, was blamed.
So now that Gates was here, what was he to do to turn the situation around? Governor Gates decided that they should finally abandon the colony and return to England. So, the starving colonists packed up what little was left in the colony and loaded themselves on the ship. The small joy this brought must've felt indescribable.
They sailed down the James River, headed towards hope at last. Away from the misery. Back to England. But, another miraculous timing of an event happened at just that moment.
That guy, the one who was sent to replace Governor Gates when England thought that Gates had died at sea, well, at that moment, he was heading up the James River and stopped Gates and the colonists in their tracks. This new guy was Lord De La Warr. Yes, the state of Delaware was later named after him.
Okay. So this guy was the guy who had the real control of the colony because the new orders from England said that he was the governor for life. Thomas Gates was no longer officially in charge. Gates would continue under him though, serving as his Deputy Governor after this.
Lord De La Warr, now in charge as the governor, ordered the colonists to turn back and stay in Jamestown. They must have felt tremendous disappointment, to say the least. But, turn back they did. 150 new immigrants, along with fresh food and supplies from Lord De La Warr's ship, joined them.
The colony seemed to fall into line under the new governor. He was granted the power to rule with a military strictness and come up with his own laws that he thought were necessary. Before long, the colonists started to build actual houses and fix parts of the protective wall surrounding Jamestown.
However, within a month or 2, the sickness and disease set in again and started killing people one-by-one. Jamestown was also still at war with the natives, which kept everyone packed inside, still unable to go out safely for food.
Gates had already left for England, where he would use his stories of success, and keep the failures to himself, in order to encourage more immigration and money to come to Virginia. Lord De La Warr himself came down with a horrible sickness. He was on death's door and was forced to leave the colony to seek medical treatment elsewhere.
Since Thomas Gates had already left when Nora De La Warr left, his Deputy Governor, good old Percy, was back in charge again. Great. What could go wrong?
Okay. Let's go to England for a moment. New immigrants were being gathered to come to Virginia. Several hundred people were chosen from the working class to come along. They chose working men because Virginia needed a lot of work and people who weren't afraid to get dirty. So, in March 1611, they set sail and headed to Jamestown.
When they arrived, Percy handed control of the government to Thomas Dale. This, of course, was the wishes of the council in England and of the king.
So now, this guy Thomas Dale was in charge. Lord De La Warr was really in charge, but since he was nowhere to be found and off trying to heal from the terrible sickness, Dale acted as the governor.
Governor deal soon realized that a huge obvious problem was that Jamestown was built on a swamp. The sinking ground, soil that can't grow any food, mosquitoes carrying diseases. All of it was because they were on a friggin' swamp.
Five months later, our old friend Thomas Gates returned to Virginia and he loved the idea of a new colony on better land. Land that wasn't a swamp. So, a second colony was created 60 miles away from Jamestown, and a fancy 2-mile-long protective wall was built around it.
The new colony was named Henrico. The name, of course, was after King James' son, Henry, who was supposed to be king after James, but he died before he could inherit the throne.
England even dusted off the old armor from the 1300s that had been sitting in the Tower of London for hundreds of years, rusting and getting out of fashion. They send it to Virginia. So, you can imagine these guys who, months before, were starving skeletons of men. They were now sporting around the forts of this new colony, sometimes looking like a medieval knight from the 14th century.
People still got sick in this new colony, Henrico, but it wasn't as bad as if you lived on a swamp, where disease bread in the waters, and nothing grew that you could eat. Now, the 2 English colonies were strong enough to survive and get to the business of building an English society.
This is where the dark cloud of government started rearing its ugly head.
The colonists in Henrico started farming and growing corn enough to supply everyone. This gave them a little independence from England because they were no longer relying on ships from England to bring them food, to eat. A tiny, tiny sliver of independence.
Thomas Gates not only brought over 300 new immigrants to Virginia, he also brought with him instructions saying that he was supposed to lay out the harshest laws possible to make sure that people weren't lazy and endangering the colony by refusing to work or committing crimes.
Gates had been a soldier in the war against Spain and he hated sloppiness and disrespect for those in charge. He was perfect for this job.
Gates posted laws in Jamestown and Henrico, commanding people to obey, and listing the punishments if they failed. For example, every colonist had to go to church 2 times every day. You've heard that right. Two times every day. If you were caught not going to church one of those times, you lost your share of food for the day. If you were caught a second time, you were whipped. And if you were caught a third time, you were in prison for 6 months. Harsh.
Another law said that you couldn't be a jerk. Basically, you couldn't go around saying bad things about someone or doing things that caused anyone disgrace. And if you did, your head would be tied to your feet for a month, where you'd be guarded every night to make sure that you didn't get a moment to stretch or relax. If you killed another man's farm animals, the punishment was death. If you wash dirty clothes and dishes inside the walls of the colony, you'd be whipped. Even if you were a woman. This was to keep rats, bugs, and disease out of the houses and town.
It was said that Thomas Gates did post these laws around the colonies, but he didn't really enforce them. However, when Gates left again, and Lord De La Warr was still nowhere to be found in the colony, Thomas Dale took over again. He chose one of his buddies there to help him rule the 2 colonies. And together, they enforced the laws with brutal impatience for anyone who broke them.
They also added new laws, just as harsh, to ensure the colony operated in a way that would survive.
Historians, and people at the time, had no doubt that these merciless laws were what kept the colony alive and helped it bring fortune and growth that otherwise wouldn't have been possible.
This may have been good for the colony, but free Englishman couldn't bear this situation for long. The people enjoyed a pretty good sense of freedom in England, and this is what they expected in the colony. After all, the colonists had been promised that they had the same civil rights and freedom that they would expect as though they were on English soil itself. The documents granting Virginia to the colonists said so in plain ink. So, what were the colonists to do when the government had turned against them so viciously?
Well, some of them fled and tried to find refuge with the natives. Some of those who fled were recaptured and then taken back to the colony where they were put to death using violent means like hanging, being shot, or worse, being broken upon the wheel. Which is one of the worst deaths a person could possibly suffer.
Several men even tried to escape to England, but were discovered and shot and then broken upon the wheel. Don't look that punishment up. Really.
Some of the colonists felt like they were slaves being forced to work or being allowed to starve or punished severely if they didn't work. And being hunted down and killed if they tried to escape. Complaints eventually reached England and a bit of an uproar was caused there. But, nothing came of it. There was no relief for the poor immigrants. At least not from England, and not from their government, and not from The Virginia Company.
There was, however, something in the colony that would bring them a little relief. A romance had been blooming between one of the colonists, John Rolfe, and Pocahontas. They married in 1614, and peace was finally brought between the colonists and the natives in the area. This peace would last for 8 years.
Now, the settlers could grow food and hunt without fear of being killed by the natives. They didn't have to worry about their farm animals being taken or killed by the natives either.
At this time, around 2 years before this, that same colonist that married Pocahontas, John Rolfe, he had been experimenting with the native plant tobacco. Natives had been using tobacco for generations in ceremonies and had shared it with the Europeans.
Queen Elizabeth didn't really like the stuff, but it was very popular among the upper classes of society. By the year 1600, everyone, not just the upper class, was smoking it. However, the tobacco they used was bitter and it tasted kind of bad. So, John Rolfe tried to make it taste better by growing it in different ways.
He discovered a way to make it sweeter, and he sent some of it to England. Then, the race for selling tobacco was on.
In just a few years, a ship with 20,000 pounds of tobacco sailed for England, and sold 5 shillings and 3 pence a pound. Which is roughly 78 dollars in today's money or 61 pounds in today's money. That's how much the tobacco was selling per pound. And they had 20,000 pounds of it.
The life-changing money that the colonists had hoped to find in gold could finally be found in tobacco. Soon, the streets of Jamestown were lined with tobacco. The governor even had to pass a law saying that every person was to plant 2 acres of corn. Otherwise, the new craze for growing tobacco would lead to nobody planting food and everybody's starving again.
Even though Thomas Gates and Thomas Dale had been cruel to the people, they were credited with saving them at the same time. They had found the people in the shadows of death, sickness, and war with the natives, and had taught them how to fight the sickness, made peace with the natives, and brought prosperity to those who lived in the colonies.
In the year 1614, Thomas Gates left for England again. And 2 years later, Thomas Dale followed behind him. Now, a man named George Yeardley was in charge as the new governor.
So, there were many reasons for colonization. In earlier episodes, we covered the desperation of a poverty-stricken England that had been running out of resources. We covered James' massive debt and the need for a colony to produce items that could be sold so James could get a cut of each sale and pay off his debts.
There was also another reason that wasn't one of the main reasons, but it was still important to people.
There was a desire to bring the English religion and culture to other parts of the world before the Catholic religion could spread.
But, the biggest reason of all was profit. The charters themselves said that the company would get a share of all sales made by the colonists and that they had to at least make a convincing argument to anyone who gave money to the company, that they would get their money back from those sales. And some of the money from the sales would go to the king.
The promise of tobacco was shining brightly on the company and the world of fortune was at their fingertips.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the colonists tried to make things other than tobacco, but utterly failed. And how tobacco became the center of Virginia's economy and how the king came to depend on it for money.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Jamestown was now ruled over by an all-powerful governor. Well, several governors who came and went. Each of them was brutal and whipped the colony into shape with military-like laws.
Their cruelty saved the lives of the colonists who had been in such chaos and sloppy disorder when the governors arrived, that nearly all of them had starved to death or had been killed off by sickness.
Now, the colony was thriving and there was even a second colony nearby.
The second colony was on better soil, not a swamp like Jamestown, and the colonists could now grow things. On top of that, the governor had made peace with the natives. One of the colonists, John Rolfe, had even married Pocahontas.
Okay. So now the colonists can leave the protective walls of the colonies and can venture out and plant food and tobacco. They can raise their farm animals outside the colony, do their washing outside of the colony, and they're not going to get hit with an arrow or Tomahawk.
Remember when poor old poverty-stricken England was worried about being able to produce things from its own land for its own people.? They had to take ships everywhere to get spices, certain food, wood, and other things. They had their own wood, but their forest was shrinking and eventually they'd run out. We discussed this in the first couple of episodes.
And we also discussed how the population of England was growing so fast that they couldn't provide jobs for everyone or feed everyone. And there weren't enough houses for everyone. The crime was also 10 times what it is today.
So now, we're going to zoom in on one of the reasons they colonized the Americas. That was the desperate need for raw materials. Things like iron and gold, which come from the ground and glass, which comes from basically melting sand. The English dream was that they were building a colony that would find these items and ship them back to Europe and the rest of the world where they would sell them.
This sort of put a lot of money into England's bank account and also into the personal bank account of King James, who was flat broke. Not only was he broke, he was about 1 million pounds in debt. Which again, is about 312 million in today's dollars and 245 million in today's pounds.
In last week's episode, we talked about how a colonist named John Rolfe, who also happens to be the man who married Pocahontas, was experimenting with tobacco. He was planting it in all sorts of ways and trying to make it taste better. He figured out a way and that type of tobacco happened to grow very well in the soil of Virginia. So, he sent some to England and everybody realized they could sell a ton of this to the world and make a lot of money. So, the tobacco craze started.
Everywhere you went in the colonies, you'd see tobacco planted everywhere could be planted. The streets of Jamestown were lined with the plant and a law had to be passed, ordering every person to also plant some corn. Otherwise, nobody would bother planting food and they'd just have a bunch of tobacco growing. I guess they didn't learn from the previous years when all of them had almost starved to death.
But, this must have been really exciting to finally see money after everything they spent getting the colonists to Virginia in the first place. For years, the colonists tried to find gold and had failed. For years, the people who had paid for the colonists to immigrate to the Americas, hadn't seen any real money back. The planting and selling of tobacco was great news for The Virginia Company, who owned the colony, with the king's permission.
They were going to make a huge amount of money. All of the money being made, had to pass through them since they owned all of the colony. It was like the colonists were employee worker bees and The Virginia Company where the bears eating all the honey. This was fine for the colonist though, since they benefited too. Most of them had immigrated to the Americas because they weren't doing so well in England. They wanted to make a better life for themselves and selling tobacco gave them more riches than they could ever have imagined had they stayed in England. Plus, they still needed the protection of England against Spain, and France, and the Netherlands, who also had territory in the Americas and might attack the English colonies if England hadn't been sworn to protect them.
The planting and selling of tobacco to Europe was also good news for England and the king. They were making money from it too. Even though this was making more money than they had previously seen, it's still wasn't one of the purposes they had established the colony for. The charter of Virginia stated that one of the goals was to find raw materials to support England's population. And this was a very real problem they had to attend to.
Iron was a big one. Iron was used for weapons, bolts, nails, saddles, ship parts, and a million other things. England didn't have much of that in its soil. So, it needed the colony to find some. Iron is usually found in the ground mixed in with rock. And to get the iron out of the rock, you have to melt it until both the iron and the rock are liquid.
In 1609, a huge supply of iron weighing 16 tons, which is 32,000 pounds, was shipped to England. This was still in its iron and rock form, without having been melted yet. When it got to England, they were able to melt it and sell the iron for a large amount of money. However, the work required to find, dig up, and ship this iron and rock over to England was too much work. And so, not a lot of it was done. That was until 10 years later. Someone had discovered iron in the ground near one of the colonies - Henrico.
This time, they wanted the iron melted away from the rock before it got on the ships to England. So, The Virginia Company found people in England who specifically knew how to get iron out of the ground and melted. More than 100 men were brought over from England to dig out the iron in that area. Then, they built a fancy fireplace designed to melt the iron and rock. It seems logical, right?
Maybe it would have been if they had set up more protections. At that time, the English colonists in Virginia were at peace with the natives. The peace had been in place for 8 years. Many of the natives had become good friends with the colonists and the colonists with the natives. There was no reason to think that they would be attacked.
However, the chief of the tribe in the area had been secretly planning on ridding the land of all Englishman in one swoop. This was known as the massacre of 1622. And we'll get into how that changed the government of Virginia in a future episode.
But for now, we'll talk about the immediate effects that had on the colony. Before the iron workers could find much of anything, they were attacked by the natives. Their equipment was thrown into the river and all of the Englishman were slaughtered like animals.
After everything was said and done, the only thing The Virginia Company saw in iron from this location, was a pair of tongs and 1 bar of iron.
Some attempts were made to set the fireplace up again with new workers, but it never really worked out and that dream, at that location, was dead.
Glass was also a major issue in England. They needed more and more of it. And besides not having enough, there weren't many Englishman who knew how to make it. So, they had to build factories in Europe and hire foreigners to make it for them.
Naturally, The Virginia Company tried to produce it in Virginia. It wasn't just English colonists who tried this. Men from the Netherlands and Poland were sent to Jamestown to try and melt the sand and make their glass.
There was also a group of four skilled Italians who sailed over to make the glass in Virginia. The whole thing was full of disaster.
First, the house they built to make the glass in blew down from the wind.
Second, the sickness that came around Virginia every year reared its head again. Colonists who had been there in previous years had built up an immunity to the diseases. But the new workers, like those working in the glass houses, they didn't have that protection. In 1620, the Governor of Virginia wrote that 300 people had died from the sickness in just that year. The next year, 1,200 people died from the sickness. So even though hundreds of people had immigrated to the colonies in Virginia, The population was actually decreasing.
Data shows that somewhere between 75 and 85% of newcomers to Virginia died within the first year. This eventually lessened, as people became immune to diseases and the diseases, therefore, spread less. But, it was pretty brutal for a while.
Within the 5 Years from 1619 to 1624, 5,000 immigrants had come over to Virginia. But, the sickness was so severe that by the end of those 5 years, the population had only increased by about 200 people. It wasn't until a couple of years later, in 1624, that the population started to survive the illness in larger numbers. The Italian glass workers themselves came down with severe illness and their captain died from the sickness.
Finally, a third reason the glass makers were doomed to failure, was the massacre of 1622. It put all of their work to a stop. They weren't killed, but it wasn't safe to work and it wasn't safe to stay. They turned mutinous and wanted to leave Virginia. The Virginia Company desperately tried to save the glass-making operation, and even sent sand from England over to them. But, it was no use. The men refused to stay. They cracked the furnace open with a crowbar and returned to Europe.
The men who had sent them the sand from The Virginia Company later said that quote, " A more damned crew hell never vomited."
So, tobacco it was then. Tobacco would be what Virginia made and what Virginia sold.
The only problem now, was that they weren't the only ones growing and selling it. Tobacco had been making its way around the world for over 100 years by this time. The Spanish grew tobacco in their American territories and sold it around the world as well.
Remember, that the English colonist John Rolf had found a way to make it taste better than what was being sold. His version was sweeter. And it was his version that was grown in Virginia. So, Virginia tobacco had a better chance at selling than the other, more bitter types.
This might've been enough on its own to sell more than the Spanish were selling. However, The Virginia Company wanted King James to ban the Spanish from selling in England. Why should they let a rival company onto their shores to compete with them? Didn't they need Virginia to be successful?
And let's not forget that for every sale of Virginia colonists made, some of the money would go directly to England's bank account, and some of the money would go directly to the king's bank account. Seems reasonable to stop Spain from competing with them.
Well, we also have to recall that England had been at war with Spain for generations. And it was King James who had finally made peace with Spain. There were even instances where king James held his own people back because it meant that it would maintain the peace between England and Spain. So naturally, when The Virginia Company asked King James to ban Spain from selling tobacco in England, he refused. He didn't want to offend Spain's king.
If that weren't bad enough, James decided to issue an order saying that Virginia couldn't ship more than 55,000 pounds of tobacco each year. 55,000 pounds was the limit that The Virginia Company and the colonists could make as a collective group each year. This may seem harsh, but Virginia had only brought 40,000 pounds of tobacco to England in the year before that. So to James, he wasn't really stopping them. And he was even giving them a little wiggle room.
But, the colonists of Virginia had a lot more than 40,000 pounds to bring now. We can see evidence of this and the records 6 years later, showing that Virginia had around half a million pounds of tobacco to sell. This was just 6 years later. A limit of 55,000 pounds was not going to be taken well by the colonists, or The Virginia Company, who would make money when the tobacco was sold. And they had to sell it somewhere.
Obviously, The Virginia Company was outraged. But, the king had his reasons to limit the amount Virginia could bring and for refusing to kick Spain's tobacco out of England. No matter how hard they tried to convince them that this was a terrible idea, he wouldn't change his mind.
Maybe this is because James hated that his subjects smoked it. In fact, years before this in 1604, when he was newly sat on the English throne, he published a mini book called "A Counterblaste to Tobacco," in which he called it a quote, "vial custom," and talked about how much he hated it.
He tried to discourage anyone from bringing tobacco into England. And he did this by charging those who brought it in a high tax. A super high tax. So high that it was 4,000 times the cost of what it was under Queen Elizabeth.
The high taxes wasn't really to keep people from smoking it. It was to keep people from competing with Spain. Spain could pay the taxes because it was already rolling in money from selling tobacco. The colonists were just trying to get started. Not really fair.
The more likely reason for James refusing to ban Spain from selling tobacco in England, was that James wasn't only looking out for the health of his people's lungs. He was also looking out for their lives and trying to prevent another war with Spain.
At the time, Spain was the largest seller of tobacco in England. If one of England's colonies started pushing Spain out and selling their own tobacco, that could make Spain angry.
It was probably a small comfort to Spain to sell so much tobacco in England because what Spain really wanted, was Virginia itself. It had claimed that Virginia was part of its Spanish territory in the Caribbean. And that England shouldn't have colonized it.
Spain also had to deal with English pirates constantly capturing their ships and taking gold that was headed to Spain.
So, Spain had to deal with all of this nonsense from Englishman and settled for selling things in England.
James didn't really want to push them out of England. I mean, Spain could only take so much.
Consider for a moment that Spain didn't even allow England to sell tobacco in any of their territories. So, tobacco selling was a little one-sided here.
But, things were very dangerous and peace could be blown up into war by one wrong move.
Not only did he want to keep Spain from being angry and a war from breaking out, he was also still flat broke. And England itself needed a lot of money or it would slide back into the poverty stricken hell hole that it was in a decade earlier.
One of the solutions to England's money problems, was for James' his son to marry the King of Spain's daughter. They weren't engaged yet. But, James was trying to convince the King of Spain to let his daughter marry his son. So, it wasn't just war that was at risk. If he angered Spain. It was also a possible marriage that could fall apart. If Spain decided to drop out of the marriage talks.
Okay. So bring in the Spanish tobacco to keep Spain happy. All of James's war problems would be solved. Then maybe Spain will agree to have their princess Mary, his prince.
Spain has extreme amounts of money. So, all of his money problems would be solved too. And maybe those colonists will finally produce things other than tobacco. After all, we did send them over there with the idea of producing iron, glass, wood, and anything else England needed. So come on, don't give up on that. Put down the tobacco and let's keep trying for that iron. Well, not really.
The Virginia colonists told James that if he didn't change his mind and allow them to sell as much tobacco as they could, they would have to abandon the colony of Virginia or die. They had tried making other things to sell, and tobacco was the only thing keeping the colony alive.
Still, the king refused to allow them to sell as much as they wanted in England, and refused to ban Spain from selling their tobacco in England. So, the colonists turned to another country. They sold Virginia tobacco to Holland. And Holland, was delighted to have them.
Warehouses were built in Holland so that the tobacco coming from Virginia could be packaged and sold.
The Virginia Company didn't really have a choice. The king was limiting the money they could make. Imagine how we'd feel if the president or prime minister of your country declared that you could only sell 1000 cupcakes a year in your cupcake business. Or that you could only fix 100 cars a year in your mechanic shop. That would be outrageous. We would turn to other places outside of the U.S. Where we could sell and offer our services, and not be driven into poverty by a random rule from our leader. So, that was what the colonists and The Virginia Company did. It seems super reasonable.
However, that didn't stop the powerful council in England from protesting. And protest they did. They protested so fiercely that they convinced the king to do something that would entirely change the course of history.
They convinced the king to issue an order saying that all tobacco coming from Virginia had to go to England first. Like, come on. Give the colonists a break. This is crazy.
This order was ignored at first, but 100 years later, it would become a major part of the American Revolution and the colonists' anger with England.
Okay. So back to this time. The king made an order saying all of Virginia's tobacco had to go to England first, not to other countries. And when it got to England, the colonists had to pay a tax on that tobacco to the king. Again, sweet deal for the king. Not so much for the colonists, or for The Virginia Company.
But, luckily for the colonists and the company, the American spirit of "don't tell me what to do," had already begun. They ignored the order completely.
They had the same rights as all Englishman. And as Englishman, they have the right to sell their products and services to the highest payer. The king's interference and unfair laws were a violation of their civil rights.
So, they kept bringing ships full of tobacco to Holland. And the powerful council in England started ordering British officers in Virginia to fine any ship headed to Holland with tobacco. But, this didn't really stop anything. The ships of tobacco kept leaving Virginia and kept heading right into the warehouses they had built in Holland.
Eventually, King James did change his mind. The limit on the amount of tobacco that Virginia could sell was damaging England's bank account. And his own personal bank account. So, he made a compromise with The Virginia Company.
He wasn't going to full-on ban Spain from selling tobacco in England. Not at first. Instead, he was going to restrict them and not allow Spain to sell more than 60,000 pounds of tobacco in England each year.
On top of this, after 2 years, Spain would be banned completely from selling any tobacco in England. Yeah, that's a pretty sweet deal. And on top of that sweet deal, all of the Virginia tobacco was going to be allowed. As much as Virginia wanted to sell in England.
They also got the king to issue an order saying that it was illegal to grow tobacco in England and Ireland. That way, the colonists wouldn't have to compete, and English and Irishmen would have to get their tobacco from Virginia.
At this time, there had already been little books circulating in England and Ireland showing people how to plant tobacco in their own soil. So, people had been growing it for years. But now, it was illegal.
Some people continued to grow tobacco in England and Ireland. But, it was in private. Kind of like growing marijuana before it became legal in some of the states. The Virginia Company even hired spies to report on people who were growing tobacco anywhere within 5 miles of London. The grower would be fined and the spy would be paid a nice sum of money.
So, here's where The Virginia Company had to give something to the king. The king was to receive 1/3 of all tobacco coming from Virginia. He could sell that tobacco and keep whatever money was made from it. As for the other 2/3 of tobacco, the colonists could sell it and keep the money, but they had to pay him a tax. This would go directly to his personal bank account. And remember, he was in a ton of debt. This pretty sweet deal was definitely pretty sweet for the king.
But the deal wouldn't last long. Within a year, it fell apart. Within 2 years, The Virginia Company would be permanently shut down and the king would take over Virginia as a royal colony, rather than a colony owned by a business. Which we'll discuss in a future episode.
Even though there was money to be made, the terrible start of the colony still cast a shadow over Virginia's reputation. I mean, people had starved to death. They were being slaughtered by the natives. Diseases were rampant.
The Virginia Company had to do something about its bad reputation. It had to make Virginia more appealing to people. They had to make it seem like a promise to those who immigrated there.
And this brings us to a fateful change the company made - the establishment of democracy in Virginia.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the democracy in Virginia and the push and pull for power that it created.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the colony of Virginia was at peace with the natives. The colonists were now free to leave the protective walls of their towns to plant food and tobacco without the fear of attack. The colony had tried to make other things like iron, and glass, and other supplies that England desperately needed. But, it ended in failure every time.
The one thing that was able to be made was tobacco. It was growing everywhere. It became the largest source of income for the colonists and one of the largest sources of income for England. There was all sorts of drama between the king trying to limit how much tobacco the colonists could bring to England and the colonists deciding that they were going to sell their tobacco to England's rival - Holland. Which the king wasn't very happy about.
Meanwhile, while all of this was happening, James had canceled the second charter of Virginia, and in 1612, he granted a third charter. The third charter had a lot of the same things as the other charters. But, this one declared even more land for The Virginia Company and allowed the company to hold a lottery to raise money in England.
News of the drama and cruelty in Virginia reached the people in England and it made the colony seem like a terrible place. It also made The Virginia Company look pretty bad.
This meant that the company had a hard time getting people to give them money. They needed money to send more colonists and more supplies to Virginia. But by this time, Virginia seemed like such a bad idea that the company even had a hard time collecting money from people who already owed it to them.
So, a few years later, in 1619, they sent a new governor over to Virginia with instructions, giving the colonists the right to create a government where they would elect representatives. The idea of establishing democracy like this in Virginia was so they could try and reverse the bad image that people in England had of them.
The instructions that gave the colonists this right to elect people is sometimes called the "Magna Charta," or the Great Charter.
It's a joke that references the Magna Carta in England.
The Magna Carta was written in the 1200s and took power from the king and sorta, kinda gave it to the people. So, that's the joke.
People really did see this document as a kind of 1600s Magna Carta, since it gave them rights to elect representatives.
The group of people elected as representatives would be called the House. Another smaller group of people would be chosen by the king. This smaller group was called the Governor's Council, or sometimes, just council. Usually, the king was too busy to get involved with choosing this or that person and he was a whole ocean away. So, the governor was the one who often chose the members for the Governor's Council. Together, the House and the Council were called the Assembly.
So, part of the Assembly was elected and part of the Assembly was chosen by the governor. The governor sat at the top. He had the power to say no to any laws the Assembly wanted to pass. Just like our governors in the United States do today.
This is very similar to what they had in England with England's Parliament at the time. So, it wasn't that crazy. But, it was super important because now the colonists could vote. They had a small say in their government. No longer would presidents of the council or cruel governors rule over them with an iron rod.
It could also create laws, so long as the laws they created didn't break the law in England. Remember, they were considered full-on Englishman. The same as though they were in England itself. This is important to the American Revolution because it's the basis on which the colonists said the king was depriving them of the rights that they had as Englishman. And we'll get to that.
The document allowing elections didn't come from the king. It came from The Virginia Company itself. We can imagine that with all of the problems King James was having with Parliament, he in no way wanted another Parliament in America.
Remember, that James had literally written the book on the power of kings. It said that the kings ruled over its people and Parliament had to bow down to him. This was such a strongly held belief that when James felt Parliament wasn't bowing down to him, he had a habit of dismissing them entirely and ruling without them.
James wanted the colony to depend on him and send money to him. Now, the colonists were going to have to pay salaries to the elected representatives instead of sending that money to England, or to the king.
But, even though The Virginia Company had to answer to a powerful council in England, and to the king, the company had the power to control rules, laws, and how the colony was governed. Just so long as they didn't break English laws.
James didn't like all of this democracy one bit. He even said that the meetings of The Virginia Company were basically schools where they taught Parliament how to commit treason. But, he didn't have a choice. The charters clearly stated in black and white, that the king had granted this power to the company. No take backsies.
One of the things the third charter also gave to The Virginia Company, was the power to hold meetings 4 times a year where everything having to do with Virginia would be discussed. The leader of The Virginia Company was a man named Edwin Sandys. He strongly, and loudly, advocated for civil rights and democracy wherever he went. This was widely known about him. James was well-aware of Edwin Sandys. He thought Sandys was worse than the devil and called him his quote, "greatest enemy".
So. Back to the colony for a moment. The instructions for the new Governor of Virginia contained some other things that he was supposed to do. A few weeks after the new governor's arrival in the colony, he got to work on doing all of those things. The new governor issued proclamations for everyone to see that every colonist who had been suffering under the punishments of the former cruel government, was now free of that punishment. And all of the cruel laws enacted by that former governor were now canceled. Every colonist was to be governed by the laws of England. And we're basically going to hold elections and get a better society set up here.
These instructions can hardly be over-hyped in their importance. They were so important because it established the first form of democracy in the new world. It also created a government that would eventually be strong enough to resist the English Parliament and the English throne. The colonists weren't there yet, but it would get there.
It's also important to our podcast because, despite what it may sound like, this isn't a podcast about Virginia. It's about the things that led to the American Revolution. And right now, we're just focusing on Virginia.
So, these instructions are important to the American Revolution because in just a few years after this, Virginia was pulled from The Virginia Company and the company was shut down forever. Control was given to the English government.
When this happened, it became an official royal colony, and not a colony owned by a company. When the colonists needed to come up with the government that would now be in place as a royal colony, the system of elected representatives was already well-established and strong in Virginia. It made sense that this type of government would be the government that would continue.
If those instructions hadn't told the colonists that they could elect people, and if there hadn't been any elections, it might've remained that there were no elections when Virginia changed to a royal colony. England might've just continued letting the governor, and his chosen assistants, rule over them.
Even though the Virginia government wasn't at the point of resistance yet, they immediately got to work asserting their power.
One of the ways they showed their new power was in a famous story. At least among Virginia historians. Remember that old council that was the first form of government that Virginia had? They descended into Lord of the Flies and nearly everyone starved to death because the council was so bad at managing Jamestown?
Well, one of those council members was a man named John Martin. When he left the council, he was given 80,000 acres of land as a kind of, "Thank you for your service." When he was given this land, he also got an extra special, super cool thing with it. He was granted the ability to not have any of the laws of Virginia apply to him, or anyone else who lived on the 80,000 acres. Pretty cool, huh? Maybe at first. But, it came back to bite him.
Now, elections were being held where representatives were elected from each area of land in Virginia. Just like today. So, in strolls John Martin with his big piece of land and 2 people elected from that land and he says, "Hello, fellow colonists. These are my representatives. Show them to their seats, please." And the Assembly said, "Sure. No big deal. All you have to do is give up that little tiny thing that says you don't have to follow any of Virginia's laws. I mean, it's not really fair if you vote on laws that you don't have to follow, right? Am I right, John?" That would be ridiculous and a complete mockery of this whole thing.
Well, John Martin refused to give up the right to not follow those laws. The Assembly wasn't about to let this kind of thing happen. Especially not while they're just getting started. So, they refused to let his representatives be part of the Assembly. And that's the end of the story. Not much of a dramatic piece. But, it just goes to show that the Assembly knew that it had power and they wanted to make sure things were done right.
The elections had begun in 1619. And Virginia became a royal colony 6 years later, in 1624. We'll get to how that happened in a later episode. That's 6 years of experience that the colonists gained in how to run an elected government.
The Assembly passed all sorts of laws. They passed laws about how to interact with the natives, how to deal with public drunkenness, and laws stating that every family had to plant 6 Mulberry trees and corn enough to feed themselves. Plus, an extra barrel of corn each year.
One of their laws said that you couldn't be idle. Meaning that you couldn't sit around, not contributing anything to the colony. That may seem like it has its roots in Puritan Christianity. And maybe it does to a small degree. But, we have to remember that most of the colonists making these laws had been there when the colony nearly starved to death.
One of the reasons that, just a few years before this, people had been literally digging their own graves and laying down in them to die, and boiling shoes to eat ,and almost everybody starved to death, was because some early colonists thought that their position in society put them above physical work, like farming and hunting. They sat around and let other people work.
That was just one of the reasons. We discussed some of the other reasons in earlier episodes. But, that gives us an idea as to why a law saying you couldn't just sit around and not work was so important to the Assembly.
There's one story about this guy who was just hanging around, not working, and just being idle. Big no-no. So, they rounded him up and gave him to a master. This guy, servant, we'll call him, tried to start a love relationship with a female servant in his master's house. And it was causing all sorts of problems for the master and his wife. Then, this guy, servant, starts spreading a bunch of rumors about his master, basically trying to ruin his reputation, ruin his life, and falsely accusing him of a bunch of things. So the master goes to the Assembly and we can actually read about what happened because they wrote everything down that was decided.
The Assembly found that the servant was a liar and everything the master complained about the servant doing wrong was true. As punishment, the Assembly decided that the servant was to be placed in stocks and his ears nailed to a wooden board behind him for 4 days. And he was to be publicly whipped for 7 days. Pretty freakin' brutal.
But the Assembly wasn't messing around. They were in charge and everybody was gonna know it.
The only thing the Assembly couldn't do, was pass any laws that broke laws in England, broke the rules given to them in the charter by the king, or broke the rules of the instructions given to them by The Virginia Company. That was it. Everything else was wide open for them to control.
Even though the Assembly and the governor ran the colony, it was still very much owned by The Virginia Company. The Virginia Company could tell them to stop doing something and they'd have to listen. They could also tell them to do something and the Assembly would have to do that as well. The other thing The Virginia Company could do was that it could cancel any laws the colony passed. Even ones that the Assembly and the governor had both approved.
All of this is good and fine, but we're about to get into the most important power the Assembly had. The one thing that remained at the center of the issues with Britain 157 years later - taxes.
The Assembly had the power to charge taxes. The text money would be used to pay for public things like roads jails and The. salaries of government officials.
The Assembly was the only group that could tax people. Sometimes, the governor tried to take this power into his own hands. But, he was never successful.
One way he did this, was by trying to charge fees for things. He did this without the approval of the Assembly. But, the fees gave him such a small amount of money and the Assembly protested so strongly against this, that he dropped the whole thing and stopped trying to charge fees.
So, right from the start, there was a push and pull for power between the Assembly and the governor.
However, remember that the Assembly was 2 parts. One was the elected representatives and the other was a group of people chosen by the governor, or sometimes by the king. That group was called the Governor's Council.
The governor was usually born and raised in England. He didn't always know the complicated ways of life and how things worked in Virginia. So, when a governor was appointed by the king and sent over from England, he arrived and usually relied on advice from the governor's council.
The governor still controlled the military in the colony and he could still cancel laws. He had complete control over which laws could pass and which laws couldn't pass. Just so long as they didn't break the law in England and The Virginia Company, or the king, didn't tell him no.
He also decided who could be the judges, the police, and council members themselves. So, he may not have arrived in the colony knowing a lot about it. But, he certainly had a lot of power over it.
And remember, that the governor was chosen by the king. So, the people that governor chose to sit on the Governor's Council were loyal to him and intensely loyal to the king. They were members of the upper class and usually had tremendous wealth. Very different from the elected side of the Assembly who represented farmers and the lower classes.
This made it really hard for the elected side of the assembly to get laws passed that might anger the king, or might go against the governor.
On the bright side of this, it also made it hard for the people to completely overrule the government. The colony of Virginia had already seen Lord of the Flies and what happens when people too easily can kick people out of power. It became mob rule and everything descended into death and starvation.
This was a balance. A push and pull of power where the lower class has had some, and the king and governor had some.
Eventually, the council would become much more powerful than the elected side. This became a more intense struggle between the people and what the people were beginning to see as a colonial government, almost entirely ruled by England and the people that chose to rule them.
England's rule over the colony would become even more obvious in the coming years.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how The Virginia Company was shut down forever and Virginia became an official royal colony.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the sickness and death in Virginia had given Virginia such a bad reputation in England that The Virginia Company had to try and make it seem like a super cool place to live, despite all the death and suffering.
One of the things they did, was allow the colony of Virginia to elect people to an Assembly that would be in Virginia.
Half of that Assembly was allowed to be elected. While the other half was chosen by the governor.
Democracy definitely was super cool to a lot of people in England and it helped get people to travel to Virginia again. And remember, The Virginia Company did have to answer to a powerful council in England. And that powerful council had to answer to the King of England. But, the company was making money on every sale that came and went from the colony. They wanted more people there, making more things, and selling more things, and giving them more money from each of those sales.
Okay. So now we have a colony in Virginia that has elections. The government that ruled over them was kind of like a Parliament or Congress. Half of it was elected. Half of it was chosen. Sometimes, the king chose the people on the Governor's Council. But, he was usually too busy to choose them. So, it was most often the governor that chose the people on the Governor's Council.
Those chosen by the governor were upper class and were fiercely loyal to the king and to the governor. The whole shebang answers to The Virginia Company, who owns the colony. The Virginia Company answers to a powerful council in England. And the powerful council in England answers to the king of England.
The king, however, wanted complete control. But, it wasn't like the 1200s. He couldn't just waltz in and claim that things were his. Plus, the colony of Virginia was establishing that icky democracy.
Remember, that King James literally wrote the book on how kings were supposed to deal with their subjects. It was passed down to his son and it detailed how the king got his power from God. And all of the citizens in his kingdom, including Parliament, was beneath him. And he was above them.
Parliament in England was becoming argumentative with the king and the king was becoming argumentative with Parliament. James couldn't have been too happy with The Virginia Company allowing democracy to set up in the colony. He already gave The Virginia Company permission to own Virginia, and The Virginia Company was the one who set up the colony, who transported people to settle there, and who'd had been running things on a day-to-day basis. But, the king needed money. Like, bad.
As we discussed in previous episodes, he was in a ton of debt. And Virginia was producing a lot of money by growing and selling tobacco. Some of that money, actually, a lot of that money went to The Virginia Company.
If the king can think of a way to kick the company out and take over, he would get all of that money. And he'd be able to more closely control what was happening in the colony. He wouldn't need to get a company to agree to anything he wanted to do.
But, he didn't have a reason that he could give for why he should take over the colony. Not until something horrible happened. In 1622, a massacre that was designed to eliminate all English immigrants was carried out against the colonists in Virginia. This is important to the American Revolution, not because of the massacre itself, but because the aftermath of the massacre changed the fate of the colony forever.
It gave James the reason he needed to gain control of Virginia and finally make it a royal colony under the complete control of the English government.
After this massacre, Virginia would no longer be owned by a company. England would create laws that Virginia couldn't turn to a company to help them fight against. England would use, and bleed, Virginia for as much money as it possibly could. England would be the one we rebelled against.
The colony of Virginia had been at peace with the natives since one of the immigrants, John Rolfe, married Pocahontas in 1614. That was 8 years of peace and living together in harmony.
The settlers were so comfortable with the natives that they often ate in each other's houses. Hunted together and profess their friendship and public events.
It was said that the massacre was dreamt up by a man named Opechancanough. He was the Powhatan chief, which was the tribe in the area.
While Opechancanough was planning the massacre, he professed his love and goodwill towards the Englishman and declared that the sky would fall before he would do anything to end the peace between them. Just before the massacre, he had professed his love for the very people he butchered.
The attack was so sudden, and so unsuspected, that people even loaned their boats and canoes to the natives, who then use those boats to coordinate the attacks. It was said that the evening before the slaughter, the natives came as usual to the farms with their deer, turkeys, and other food to sell.
Some of the natives had been adopted by English families in Virginia. And some Englishman had been adopted by the natives. Many of the natives, thousands of them in fact, knew that this genocide was going to take place and chose not to warn anyone or to try and stop it. Nobody, except a little boy who had been adopted by an English immigrant. The native boy warned his English family and the adoptive father made a journey as fast as possible to Jamestown to warn them of what was to come.
All parts of Virginia were attacked. Anywhere where there were English immigrants, the natives fell on them in a coordinated slaughter and butchered them without mercy.
Sometimes, they hacked at the corpses long after the victims were dead. Babies, children, women, men, everyone.
Sometimes, the native sat down to breakfast with their victims and then, after eggs and bacon, got up and butchered the entire family, children, and infants included, with their own tools.
The only people who were spared were those in Jamestown who had been warned, and a few people who managed to fire guns of the natives as they surrounded their houses. Some were butchered in their houses before they could get to their weapons.
In one case, the people in one of the houses, defended themselves against 60 natives.
Another story is of a Mr. Hammer, whose household had 7 men and 18 women and children. When the natives came for him and his family, they set fire to his field of tobacco to lure them out. When the men rushed from the house to put the fire out, the natives shot them full of arrows.
Fortunately for the women and children, Mr. Hammer had stayed behind in the house. He had been writing a letter at that exact moment. And so, he'd been spared the fate of the others, who were slaughtered just outside. Upon hearing their cries, he ran out to see what was happening. At once, he saw the men in his family, butchered on the ground and received an arrow in his own back. He immediately turned and ran back to the house, the arrow still sticking out of his back. He barricaded the doors and windows. But, the natives set fire to the house with everyone inside.
They were saved by a boy in the house who grabbed a gun and fired on the natives, who then turned and fled.
Once the natives were gone, Mr. Hammer, the boy, and the rest of the women and children escaped to a safer location, leaving the fallen family members behind.
In all, 357 people were killed, including 6 council members.
Think about the brutality of this. The horror. If this happened in your own neighborhood. If you go out and look at the streets and imagine this type of crime happened, and it was senseless, no rhyme or reason to the victims, just whoever was available to kill, you would be terrified. And the immigrants were.
From this point on, all of the laws and orders to make peace with the natives, to bring them into the English religion, culture, and trade were canceled. Farms that had been too far from a town to be protected, were abandoned. All attempts to live side-by-side were stopped. It became illegal to even try. It changed everything.
The biggest point of change was in James, who now had a reason to step in and take control of the entirety of Virginia. Not only this, but the massacre of 1622 set off a war with the natives that lasted for many years.
Back in England, The Virginia Company and the powerful council in England had been preparing a new charter for the king to sign. When the king's advisors got ahold of it, they advised the king not to agree to it. It was likely because it allowed for even more democracy than there already was in Virginia.
We're going to bring it back just a little bit before the massacre happened. The guy who was running the powerful council in England was the same guy who was also running The Virginia Company. His name was Edwin Sandys. Sandys was a well-known king-hater. He was going around spreading democratic ideas in England and helping democratic ideas to be discussed.
The council in England ended up becoming kind of like a school for democratic ideas.
When Sandys started going out on the streets of England, preaching this wonderful democracy that took power away from the king, James could no longer tolerate this guy. So, he imprisoned Sandys. Then, almost 1 year later, the massacre happened.
The massacre didn't make James take control right away. But, he was well on his way to this when it occurred.
His imprisonment of Edwin Sandys, the guy who was running the powerful council in England and who was running The Virginia Company, caused a lot of tension between the king and The Virginia Company. Now, a month after the massacre, some new members of The Virginia Company were going to be elected.
James sent a list of names to them that he would like them to choose from. The company chose 2 people from the list that people could vote for. But, other people, not on the list, were in the election as well.
The king's chosen people were overwhelmingly defeated. And when the king heard about this, he flung himself into a furious passion.
The king had no choice. The company had strongly rejected his control over them by electing people that weren't on his list. What was the king that was placed above all other people supposed to do to show them that he was above them and that they were his subjects? He had given them all sorts of chances to show that they understood their place in society.
Well, because this wasn't the 1200s, and now kings were limited in what they could do, at least a little limited, he couldn't just cancel the charter he had already given to The Virginia Company. He had to go through legal procedures to make it legal. So, he began to hunt for evidence of mismanagement by The Virginia Company.
One of the ways he did this was to send for a captain named Nathaniel Butler who had spent time in Virginia. When Captain Butler arrived at the palace, the king ordered him to write a short book about the conditions of life in Virginia. And make sure to include all the dirty, terrible things.
Captain Butler did this and his book called "The Unmasking of Virginia" is one of the sources many historians use today to learn about the conditions in the colony. We know that some of it's probably exaggerated to make it look as bad as possible. We also know that a lot of things didn't need to be exaggerated. A lot of things in Virginia really were terrible.
Whether it's accurate to blame The Virginia Company for these terrible living conditions is still debated even today. But, the king and the small book did blame The Virginia Company. It said that the sickness, the starving time in the early days, the complete lack of producing anything useful for England other than tobacco, and worst of all, the massacre of 1622, was all the fault of The Virginia Company and their terrible control. The company denied all blame and wrote a response to the little book. They explained why those things happened and how it was totally not their fault.
Their letter to the king, and the company, may have explained some things like why Virginia was terrible for iron, glass, and other materials. Why the sickness wasn't any man's fault. And why the natives had attacked them out of nowhere. But, the letter couldn't undo the damage that Captain Butler's "Unmasking" book had already done.
Just 1 year after the massacre, James took another step to cancel the company's control of Virginia. He gathered a group of men who were ordered to travel to Virginia and investigate the matter for themselves. They were ordered to uncover all abuses and grievances, all wrongs and injuries done to any English immigrant, and to figure out what type of government - hint, hint, if the king - would be better at controlling the situation.
So, off to Virginia this group of men went. When they arrived just a few weeks later, they got to work interviewing people and examining every record they possibly could. They even examined the guy in the Assembly who kept a record of everything. And they read private letters going out of Virginia, complaining about the suffering there.
After a couple of months, the group of men made the report to the king. It found that most of the people sent to live in the colony were sick, starving to death, and suffering from the attacks by the natives. It said that the people of Virginia lived in misery and extreme need, and that they were being neglected by the company who was in charge of their care. It went on to say, that if the company had followed the king's instructions given to them in the charters from the beginning, the colony never would have ended up in such suffering conditions. Therefore, the colony would be saved, and the people spared, if the king would take control.
But the king, as wise and generous as he was, didn't take control of the colony. Not just yet. He instead, offered a compromise to The Virginia Company. If they would cancel their own charter, he would grant them a new one in which they could keep all of their operations going that they had in place. Like, if certain farms made money for them, they could keep that. If they were paid money from all sales of things coming out of Virginia, they could keep getting that money. But, the government of the colony would be under the crown's control.
The company refused this compromise. They already had those farms. They already had that money coming to them from every sale. And they had control of the government. Why should they give any of that up? It wasn't a compromise to them. It was taking some of what they already had and telling them they should be thankful that he doesn't take more.
Well, in this, they were right. It was taking some of what they already had. But, they also should have been thankful that he wasn't taking more. Because when the company refused, the king did take more. And he also took the stuff he was going to let the company keep. It would now all belong to the king.
The offer and rejection went like this. A special meeting was called where everyone who owned part of The Virginia Company would be present. In this meeting, the king told them of the compromise he had offered. Everyone knew they would lose one thing if they accepted the compromise, and lose everything if they rejected the compromise. But, they were fighting for something more important. Something higher than themselves. They were fighting to protect democracy. They were also fighting for the right of English citizens to stand up to their king.
The company knew that it didn't have much time before the king made another move. So, it ran to Parliament and asked them to give the company their full support against the king taking control of the Virginia government.
Seven months after the vote, the matter was up for discussion in Parliament. But, before the matter could be considered, Parliament received a message from the king, warning them that if they got involved, it would only make fighting among the company's members worse. And that he, the king, would be taking it upon himself to settle the welfare of the colony. So, don't get involved.
Parliament kinda, sorta wasn't happy about this. But, it decided that it was best not to refuse the king and the company was left to its own defense.
While this was going on, the king had attorneys write a legal document that basically said, "By what right do you have to govern the colony?" And sent it to the company.
The company had to answer this type of question in court. The company knew that all hopes of resisting the king and keeping the colony were gone. But, it wasn't going to go down without a fight. So, it hired its own attorneys to argue with the king's attorneys in court.
The case came before the court on June 26, 1624. Only 1 month after Parliament had refused to help. And 2 years after the massacre in Virginia.
This is where things get a little interesting.
The Virginia Company had to answer to the court and a very specific way, within a certain amount of time. The court found that there was a mistake the company had made in the paperwork it had given to the court. And so they ruled that the company's paperwork wasn't really complete in the way it was legally required to have been completed. And that the company's charter of Virginia was therefore, canceled.
This goes to the idea of having a certain amount of time to respond to things in court. And you have to respond in a certain way. And if you don't respond in the right way, in the right amount of time, it's legally looked at as though you didn't respond at all.
So, to the court in England, because The Virginia Company had made the mistake in their paperwork, it was looked at as though they didn't fill out any paperwork. And the deadline was already over. So, therefore they couldn't legally argue anything.
The Virginia Company faded out of existence and Virginia became a royal colony, no longer owned by a company. With the new king now in charge of the colony, and nobody in his way, he made new efforts for the colony to produce iron, glass, and other things England still desperately needed. But, Virginia was still a terrible place for those things to be found. And the war with the natives made it dangerous to try and go out and get those things in places where it could be found. Tobacco remained the only thing that people could really make money at to support their families in the colony.
All classes grew it. The lower class grew and sold it themselves, while the upper class and the governor had servants and slaves to produce the tobacco for them.
Virginia was so much the land of small tobacco farmers that it took more than 100 years before it created a town worth mentioning.
This growing of tobacco was very time consuming and required a lot of hands to produce. By this time, slavery had already started in Virginia. It wouldn't really become a major part of life there until around 1680.
For now, in 1624, there were 21 slaves in Virginia. This number increased slowly over time, but the cruelty of slavery wouldn't become a widespread form of labor in Virginia until the 1680s, when slaves would be the ones doing this work. And Virginia would become a land of large farmers, having pushed all of the small ones out.
So for now, it was almost entirely English immigrants and indentured servants doing the work of growing tobacco.
Now, the king was set to profit from all of the sales of tobacco. None of it would go to The Virginia Company any longer. The king winning in court and gaining control over the Virginia colony brought on the next chapter of Virginia's history - royal governors.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the first royal governor and the fight for democracy as a royal colony.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that King James had taken Virginia from The Virginia Company. Virginia was no longer owned by a company. It was now a royal colony. The king had complete control over it.
The colonists in Virginia mostly wanted to be safe, fed, and free to make money from their hard work. They wanted to live their lives while keeping their English born rights. Rights that the English king had promised them they would keep in Virginia just as though they were in England itself.
James had wanted to have direct control of the colony for a long time. The starving in the early days, the sickness, and the massacre of 1622, were just kind of excuses for him to finally make a legal argument for why he could cancel his agreement with The Virginia Company to let the company run the colony. James wanted it for himself.
Remember, that the government in Virginia still had to answer to a powerful council in England. And that powerful council in England still had to answer to the king.
But, when The Virginia Company was in charge, he didn't have a lot of say in the day-to-day things. And a lot of the money that was being made, was going to The Virginia Company, and not to the king. The company had taken a little bit of money out of every sale that was made from the colonies. The king got some of that money too, but he wanted more. He needed more. He was still in massive debt. The massacre of 1622 was his opportunity to cut the company out.
Now that he had won his battle in court, he would have more of a say in the day-to-day things that happened in the colony. And he would get all of that sweet, sweet money.
Okay. So now, remember that group of men the king had sent over to Virginia to investigate and gather evidence of all the terrible suffering? The evidence had been used to prove in court that The Virginia Company was to blame for everything that went wrong and should lose their ownership of the colony.
The Virginia Company had made a small mistake in the paperwork it gave to the court. And so they lost their case. And the king won.
It was 1624. Two years after the massacre. And now the king owned Virginia as a royal colony.
When this happened, the group of men that the king had sent over was still there in Virginia. They told the Assembly, which was the government in Virginia, to write a letter to the king, telling him how grateful they were to have his royal protection and care. This, they did.
However, they also told the king that his reasons for taking over the colony - the sickness, the attacks from the natives, and the poor living conditions - were all untrue. It was all misinformation. They told him that the leader of The Virginia Company had been nothing but awesome and totally amazing.
After they wrote this letter, they sent private letters directly to the king, without showing them to the king's group of men. They knew that the group of men was there for one thing, and one thing only - to make The Virginia Company look bad. But, since the colonists didn't feel that the company was bad, they wanted to make sure the king knew the company wasn't the evil thing that the group of men were probably telling him it was.
They didn't trust that the group of men would give the king those letters. I mean, the letters made the group look like they didn't know what they were doing. And by saying good things about the company, the letters were doing the opposite of what the group's purpose was.
But, in an act of betrayal, one of the Assembly members gave copies of the letters to the king's men. The Assembly was so outraged by this betrayal, that they sentenced the Assembly member who betrayed them to stand in the stocks and have his ears nailed to a board behind his head. And after that was done, his ears were to be cut off. The group of men reported this to the king, calling it a bloody and barbarous act.
In response, James flew into a rage and made planes to immediately take over the colony. He set up another, larger, group of men in Virginia who were to meet once every week to discuss exactly how to run the colony.
The new group did meet, but the new plan didn't make any mention of an Assembly or a government. After all, as we talked about in previous episodes, James strongly believed that kings got their power from God and that the government was answerable to the king. It's place was beneath him. The colony wouldn't do things he didn't approve of. And he didn't approve of democracy.
Even so, the king wasn't stupid. The Kings of England had a long history of revolts and overthrowings of kings and queens that the people rebelled against. In fact, he didn't know it, but his son would be the first, and only, king to ever be executed by England. And his grandson would be run off the throne.
Okay. Back to this point in time. The king was going to control Virginia. But, he wanted to prevent rebellions if he could. So, as the first royal governor of Virginia, he chose one of the old governors that the colonists already knew and liked - Sir Francis Wyatt. He also allowed the governor to keep some of the same council members around him to advise him on things. This made a smooth transition since it was familiar faces at the head of things. And it also helped the colonists feel like a harsh tyrannical government wasn't coming in to stomp on them.
More fortunate for them, was the death of James just 3 years later. His son, Charles I became king.
Charles didn't have the same tensions with the Assembly in Virginia that his father did. Charles also didn't have the same strong belief in government serving beneath him. He did believe that the government's place was beneath him, but he believed it less strongly than his father did. He got rid of the king's group of men in Virginia. And instead, set up a small group. A council in England to take care of the things involving Virginia.
This was much like the powerful council in England before. But, it was now controlled by the king without any input from a private company.
Charles even consulted the former hated enemy of his father, Edwin Sandys, who his father had imprisoned. Sandys had been in charge of The Virginia Company. And he also ran that powerful council in England. He hated the idea of a king and he was extremely pro-democracy. But, Charles still wanted his opinion about the best way to govern Virginia. Sandys gave his opinions to the king, but in the end, Charles rejected the advice. He believed that his father had been right. Virginia didn't need to be run by a company.
He allowed Sir Francis Wyatt to remain as the colony's governor. But, made no mention of an elected body of representatives in Virginia. And the power to write laws for the colony remained with the council in England, the king, and the Governor of Virginia.
The governor had a council to advise him and he had to answer to the council in England and to the king. But other than that, he was all-powerful. This could have ended in complete tyranny with the wrong person in the job.
However, the colony was saved by the democratic nature of Governor Wyatt. He had the power to issue laws, just like the king and the council in England did. But, he didn't abuse this power.
Instead, he knew that the colonists needed representatives making those laws with the colonists' approval. He knew that there was no legal right to an Assembly or any elections there. And that even if he gathered all of the former Assembly members, any laws they made, wouldn't be legal.
He and his council wrote to the council in England, again and again, pleading with them to reestablish the elections and the Assembly. But, the council didn't approve.
So, he did the only thing he could think of to preserve democracy in Virginia. He gathered leading colonists and held meetings with them to discuss the things in the colony that needed attention. Those colonial leaders took the concerns of the people and brought them to the meetings with the governor and his council. Together, they wrote letters to the council in England.
In this way, the colonists had some voice in their government.
It wasn't until 1627, 3 years after becoming a royal colony that Charles finally gave in and allowed the colonists to hold elections again and establish an Assembly. The king didn't hate democracy as much as his father did, but he also didn't love it.
He didn't grant the colonists permission to hold elections simply because he wanted democracy to rule them. He did it because he really, super bad wanted the colonists to give him something in return. He wanted their tobacco. All of it.
He wanted them to grow it, pull it from the ground, put it all together, and sell it to the ships, heading to Europe, just like it had always been. But, he wanted 100% of the profits. He wanted to own all of it. And the colonists would be like employees of his.
So, the colonists could have their democracy. They could have representation back. All they had to do was give the king ownership of all of their tobacco. If they refused, they would lose their chance at democracy. That's a pretty big deal.
But, being Englishmen, they knew they already had the right to representation. They were English citizens. They would fight to gain democracy in another way. So, they refused this deal with the king.
They did offer to negotiate with the king. Perhaps he could have all of their tobacco, if the king would give them even more democracy and rights than they already had. Charles rejected this offer.
Even though he rejected their offer, he allowed the elections to be reestablished anyways.
On top of this, Governor Wyatt stepped down as governor and Charles chose another man already familiar to the colonists. This was George Yeardley. The colonists loved Yeardley as much as they had loved Governor Wyatt.
Things were going great for Virginia. George Yeardley had been the governor in Virginia when the company owned the colony. Yeardley had been the one the company sent over with the charter establishing elections for the first time. They associated freedom and democracy with George Yeardley and Yeardley had been good to them. King Charles was a good king to the colonists.
Sadly, George Yeardley died the year after arriving in Virginia. A man named Francis West stepped in as governor for a bit, but he soon returned to England and the colony was once again in need of a governor.
While they waited, a man named John Potts sat as governor. He was born in Virginia and was a doctor ,inventor, and all-around genius. He was also a kind of sadistic guy who had poisoned natives during the wars. He was said to have enjoyed the company of those who were below him in station, whom we supplied with alcohol and conversation.
The next year, the actual governor that would rule over the colony arrived in Virginia.
This man is one to remember. His name was John Harvey. And he was one of the worst things to ever happen to colonial Virginia. He was cruel. He was a tyrant. And in the end, he got his just desserts. But, not before enacting terror in the colony and injustice on all who opposed him.
He didn't like being limited in power by the council in England. He probably didn't even like being ruled by the king.
From his first day in Virginia, he made it clear to the colonists that he was the master of the land and all would bow before him. He would reward you if he liked you, and punish you if he didn't.
The governor and his council controlled the colonial courts. He could make juries and judges rule however he wanted in any trial or criminal matter. He could issue laws. And he was only stoppable by the council in England and the king. That is, if they heard about his evildoings.
Governor Harvey not only had the power to do these things, he used it, without mercy.
This made the Governor's Council even more afraid to oppose him. The members on the council had always been chosen by the governor, or the king, and therefore, had always been loyal to the governor. Now, they dared not be anything other than super duper, ultra, mega loyal to him. Or they could find themselves with their homes taken from them and their bodies at the end of a noose.
Soon, the colonists were an open hostility to the governor. They claimed that the governor couldn't do anything without their consent.
Remember, the charter from James had promised them the same rights as all Englishman as though the colonists were on English soil itself. Even without the charter, the colonists still had this right. They were still Englishman. And they still had the same rights as all Englishman to be represented by elected officials.
Who did this governor think he was? Didn't he know of the hundreds and hundreds of years of rebellion against those who had absolute power in English history?
Well, if Governor Harvey hadn't heard of that part of English history, he was about to learn it firsthand.
The colonists soon entered into a policy of obstruction against the governor.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss just how far Governor Harvey would take his power and the mutiny that followed.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Virginia's new governor, John Harvey, was using his power to make very bad choices.
He controlled the laws, the government in the courts, and he was abusing that power. He abused this power so much that the colonists, including the governor's own council, had entered into a policy of obstruction against the governor.
So, the colonists were in full-blown resistance to the new governor. Not quite rebellion, but basically stopping him from doing things they thought he shouldn't be doing.
This wasn't the way Governor Harvey imagined is reign. He thought he would have assistance from the people. At least from the council that was chosen to help him.
But, even though they got in his way and refused to follow his orders when they didn't believe he was allowed to do certain things, he tried to reason with the colonists. He had been chosen by the king to be their governor. And with that, he had been given the power to write laws, to rule over the courts, and to create punishments. To resist him was to resist the king.
The colonists felt differently. They felt that Governor Harvey was the one who was resisting the king. The king had promised them that he would take care of the colonists. He would create fair laws, a good life, and ensure that they could pursue happiness, within reasonable limits. The governor wasn't allowing the promise the king had made to be fulfilled. Who did this governor think he was?
So, Governor Harvey was in a bit of a situation when he had to beg the king for more power. He wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the governor was the law. And that they couldn't resist them. Even if they believed he was wrong. He wrote home complaining of his misery, "My position in Virginia is most miserable," he said.
But, Governor Harvey wasn't the only one who wrote home. Colonists poured letters into England telling the tales of the horrible things their governor was doing to them.
By the end of the year, the council in England wanted both sides to end their disagreements and start working together. The colonists said, "Okay. Fine. We'll make peace." They wrote a document promising to swallow up and bury all of the issues between them. Even the Governor's Council promised to obey the governor and follow his orders.
But this peace wouldn't last long. The pipeaceas not only made out of fear of angering the council in England, rather than out of a real sense of wanting to make peace, it was also not faded to be so. For a much larger problem was heading their way. One that was timeless and deep and fiery without compromise. That was the problem of religion.
For hundreds of years, Europeans, Englishman included, had slaughtered each other in the thousands over which version of Christianity was the correct version. And at this particular time, the red hot disagreement was between Catholics and Protestants.
England was overwhelmingly Protestant. And this was in the throes of fierce oppression against the Catholics. That oppression extended to the colonies. This is where we find the beginning of Maryland. Maryland is the only colony that was formed by Catholics for Catholics. It's also right on the border of Virginia. Which, like all other English colonies, was filled mostly with Protestants.
One guy, a Catholic named Lord Baltimore, had been given permission by the king to establish a colony in present-day Maryland. Back then, present-day Maryland was part of Virginia.
Just 5 years after Virginia became a royal colony, Lord Baltimore and his ship full of Catholic settlers arrived in Virginia. The Virginia colonists were exactly as friendly to them as you'd imagine. You could cut the hostility in the air with a knife. Virginians wanted these Catholics out of Virginia as fast as possible.
Lord Baltimore was like, "Yeah, this land is really good. I'll take this chunk of Virginia here." He headed back to England to ask the king for permission to settle there with the other Catholics. The Virginians didn't like this one bit. They sent their own man to England as well. The man they sent would argue against giving the land to Lord Baltimore.
Lord Baltimore won, and off he went back to Virginia to claim his prize and chop off a piece of land for himself.
Just another reminder that this isn't a podcast about Virginia history or Maryland history. We're discussing all of this because it sets the stage for why Virginia colonists went from resisting their governor, to outright rebellion against their governor. The Maryland issue was the flame that set off the explosion.
Lord Baltimore's grandson became Governor of Maryland just a few years later. It was now 1634. At this time, the Governor of Maryland sent a bunch of ships from Maryland to Virginia. There were 300 Catholics aboard those ships. The king had promised these Catholics that the colonists and the Governor of Virginia would help them with supplies and other things they needed. The colonists were obligated to give Maryland their assistance because the king had told them so. But governor Harvey wrote that many of the Virginia colonists were so against helping Maryland, that they would quote, "rather knock their cattle on the heads, then sell them to Maryland."
This meant that even though the colonists were ordered to help, they kind of really didn't want to. And they started to refuse to help the Catholics. They would literally rather destroy their own property than give any of their property to these Catholics in Maryland.
It was one thing for the colonists to disobeyed the king. It was another thing for Governor Harvey to do so. He had been plucked from England by the king himself to carry out his orders in Virginia. And he wasn't about to disobey. So, Governor Harvey sent supplies to Maryland, and even sent some of his own cattle.
The Virginians were outraged at this. How could he take from us and give to them? The Catholics. The people who took some of our land for themselves and are interfering with our trade with the natives. Ironic considering the Virginia had done all of that to the natives who lived in Virginia.
But, they were angry. Their governor wasn't just some other nation. He was an Englishman. They were all Englishman. And shouldn't he hate the Catholics?
But, Governor Harvey didn't have much of a choice. He had to help the Catholics in Maryland. The king had ordered him to do so. But, the stage was set. The lines were drawn and he was not on the side of Virginia.
Fighting eventually broke out among some of the Marylanders and the Virginians. It's a little too detailed and not really relevant to what we're discussing here. So, just know that there were attacks and counter-attacks. It was like a min-war between the 2 English colonies.
Virginia was abuzz with the excitement of destroying Maryland once and for all. Finally, they could drive out the Catholics and have what was rightfully theirs back. Let's do this.
However, in the midst of this mini-war, Governor Harvey was still helping Maryland. The outrage. The scandal. Are you serious?
If Virginia colonists hated Governor Harvey before, they were hoisting his body and lighting it on fire in their minds now.
He tried to tell the colonist his reasons for doing this, but it was no use. He was a traitor.
But, this was not the final straw towards Harvey's end. A few more things had to happen before Virginia could close the book on him.
The Virginia Governor's Council held meetings to dream up ways they could overthrow Maryland. They even went so far as to plot with Lord Baltimore's enemies in England.
Then, came a small act that seemed like it was tiny enough at first. But, it was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. Later that year, we're still in 1634, an Englishman named Captain Thomas Young, came to Virginia on a mission from the king. In order to carry out his mission, he needed someone to build a few ships for him in Virginia. So, Governor Harvey found a servant living in a Virginia household who knew how to build ships. He took this servant without the master's permission and gave him to Captain Young to build the ships.
This was in direct violation of a law in the colony that said the governor couldn't make any colonists do any work for him unless the colonist agreed to it.
Angered by this blatant disregard for the law, the Governor's Council demanded that Harvey answer for his actions. Governor Harvey replied that Captain Young was on a mission for the king. And that the king had given Captain Young permission to use any person he wanted to in the colony. So, he wasn't breaking the law.
The council told them that this was a terrible way to do things and that it would breed ill-blood in Virginia. But, the ill-blood was already there. And it wasn't just from the colonists. His own council hated him. He was denying the council their rights, using them like a tool for his pleasure, and punishing them if they didn't do as he commanded. The council members complained about Governor Harvey taking people's houses and striking fear into the minds of all men in the colony.
The ill-blood wasn't just on the Governor's Council side. The feeling was mutual. Things got so heated between the governor and the Governor's Council, that at one point, Governor Harvey struck one of the council members and knocked his teeth out.
Even through all of this, Governor Harvey wrote to the council in England, that he was being crazy patient with the council in Virginia. He was being a gentleman and was courteous in all disagreements.
When the next year, in the spring of 1635, he was forced out of his office, the complaints against him were so numerous that it became necessary to gather the Assembly and talk about all of the complaints.
Maybe the council in England believed Governor Harvey. Maybe they didn't. That would all be determined in a dramatic showdown in London a bit later. For now, Governor Harvey wasn't done.
Remember when years ago, King Charles asked the colonists for all of their tobacco? He wanted to own all of it and get all of the money made from selling all of it. The colonists would be like employees of his and the colonists had said, "No, thanks." Well, Governor Harvey did something about this that really, really angered the colonists. Like, come on. Give it a rest.
Governor Harvey was afraid that King Charles wouldn't like hearing no, he couldn't have all of their tobacco. So, he intercepted the document from the Assembly to the king, telling him no.
This act by the governor created widespread anger throughout the colony. The governor didn't have the power to stop communication from Virginia's government to England.
The time of the end had come. The end of Harvey in Virginia. Almost. Hold onto your butts. This one's a doozy.
By the end of that year, the Governor's Council was holding secret meetings to discuss the troublesome governor. One of the council members galloped from farm to farm denouncing the governor and inciting resistance. He held meetings where people gathered around him and signed documents stating their grievances.
In the middle of that year, some of the governor's friends invited themselves to one of these meetings. The servant at the door denied them entry, but they could hear the angry conversation against the governor and the injustices they had suffered under him from where they stood.
When Governor Harvey heard about these meetings, he was enraged. He issued warrants for the arrest of the council members involved. Especially that troublesome man who was going around to all the farms, holding these meetings.
The man was brought before the governor in chains and agreed to surrender the signed documents of complaint. He asked, however, for his trial to be done in England because he was certain he would receive no justice from Governor Harvey.
When the other prisoners were brought before the governor to answer for their treason, they asked what the charges against the more. Governor Harvey told them that they'll be informed of their charges when they reached the noose.
Luckily, the Governor's Council insisted on fair trials for all of those accused. Harvey then declared that the colony was under martial law. Meaning that everyone, including the council, had to answer to him. To this, the council refused.
This enraged Harvey. He paced back and forth in the meeting room until finally, he sat down in this chair. A shadow came over him and he ordered everyone to answer a question, without thought or hesitation. One-by-one, he asked them, "What do these men, who have persuaded people from their obedience to the king, deserve as a punishment?"
The council members didn't react well to this. They told Harvey that he was being ridiculous and that they wouldn't answer sudden, unthought-out sentences to be carried out against these people. A heated argument followed.
The meeting eventually ended. And another meeting between the council members and the governor was held.
At this meeting, Governor Harvey asked the council why they felt the colonists had complained about him. And he demanded to know whether any of the council members had known that these meanings among the colonists had been happening.
Oddly enough, out of everything Harvey had done to the colonists, and to the council, the council told him that the main complaint against him was that he had stopped the colony's letter to the king, telling him that they wouldn't let him have all of their tobacco.
The governor shot up from his seat and ordered the arrest of the council member who told him this. To this, the other council members immediately rushed Harvey and pinned him down in place, declaring that it was he who was under arrest for treason.
At that moment, 40 men who had been waiting outside the room, sprang from their hiding places and surrounded the house, muskets drawn. The council members surrounded the governor.
The leader of the council told Governor Harvey that if he would only listen to the complaints against him, they would let him go. They made him sit in his chair and listen, fuming, to all of the grievances from the colonists.
When they were done, the council told Harvey that there was nothing that could be done to ease the anger of the colonists. Except, if Harvey went to England and answered for all of these things to the English council.
Even now, Harvey refused. He said that he had been chosen by the king and he wouldn't leave unless the king himself commanded it.
In the following days, Harvey's friends abandoned him. He soon changed his mind, because not a single soldier would follow his orders. He was powerless.
On top of this, armed guards had been placed around his house so that nobody, including Harvey, could come in or go out. He could make no effort at escape or gathering support.
All of the prisoners that had been arrested over the meetings among the colonists were freed.
A few days after this, the governor finally agreed to get on the first ship to England, where he would answer to the English council for everything he had done.
Naturally, he would deny it all. So, the colonists sent a member of the Assembly on the same ship as Harvey to make it clear that the charges against him were serious, and that they had reason to accuse them of these things.
While Harvey headed to England, the Assembly gathered to discuss the issue of who should replace him. They chose one of the former governors - good old Francis Wyatt.
After Harvey arrived in England, a bunch of drama went down between him and the man sent from the Assembly. And it's all extremely interesting, but not really relevant to the background of the American Revolution. So, just know that Harvey did deny everything.
King Charles was furious that the Assembly had dismissed their governor. He ordered Harvey to return to Virginia, even if just for 1 day, to make sure that all the colonists knew that they had stepped over the line of what they were allowed to do. It was only the king who could send or dismiss governors there.
Keep in mind, the issue that Charles' father had with Parliament stepping into the king's power. Parliament did the same thing with Charles. And, as mentioned earlier, Charles didn't know it yet, but the issues he had with Parliament would explode into a civil war in England. And would result in Parliament publicly executing Charles.
Okay. So there were a lot of problems with people stepping on the king's power in England, and he wasn't about to let the colonists start doing it too.
The king and the council in England restored Governor Harvey to his position in Virginia. The men who had participated in the mutiny and had kicked Harvey out of office, were ordered to come to England to answer for the charge of treason. The man sent from the Assembly to argue against Governor Harvey told the council in England, that Harvey had conducted himself so terribly in Virginia, that if he ever returned, he would be shot.
After much delay, and a near ship-wreck at sea, Governor Harvey did return to the shores of Virginia several months later. He landed in Elizabeth City, 360 miles away from Jamestown. He set up a temporary capital there. And from where he began his reign of revenge.
He pardoned everyone who had been involved in the mutiny, except for handful of men who had been in the room with him when he was forced to sit and listen to the complaints against him. He had brought several men with him from England who would replace people on the council.
Here was this guy, who just months before, had been surrounded by armed guards, not a friend in sight. Now, he had been restored to the highest authority in the colony. And once again had the entire council under his control. The courts were back under his control as well. And he inflicted cruelty and illegal judgements against anyone he deemed deserved it. He ordered whipping, cutting off of ears, and the confiscation of people's private money, so he could use it for himself. He even ordered banishment of those would insulted him or his friends with mere words.
The mutinous men who had overthrown him were sent to England as ordered. And while they were gone, their houses, cattle, servants, and everything they owned was seized, and put under the ownership of Governor Harvey. The council member who had been in charge of the mutiny had been extremely wealthy. Governor Harvey swore to leave him worth nothing.
Fortunately for that man, he got wind of what was happening to his property in Virginia and got the council in England to make Governor Harvey give it all back.
Harvey, of course, didn't listen. He continued to plunder his enemies' houses and pretended that he received a new order from the English council, allowing him to do so.
This guy had become mad with rage and greed.
Back in England, the mutinous council members were making progress with their case. The king seemed to have forgotten all about it and busied himself with other things. The council members were easily able to find important people in England who would side with them.
Reports against Governor Harvey came from everywhere in the colonies. The accusations poured into England. The taverns and streets were flooded with talk against him. Harvey complained that the king should know how much I quote, "Groan under the oppressions of my prevailing enemies who proceed against me as to tear me from my house in an unusual way of inviting my creditors to clamor." Ironic considering that this is exactly what he had done to other people. In fact, he had been even more unfair in tearing houses away from people without so much as a trial or complaints.
Within a few months, the English council had agreed to drop the charges against the mutinous council members. They also agreed that Governor Harvey was a terrible person and had done terrible things. They ordered that he was to be removed as governor. They also approved Francis Wyatt being governor again. This was the man the Assembly had chosen when they kicked Harvey out. He had been Governor of Virginia long before this and the people loved him. He was a good choice and a relief for the people there.
Finally, nearly 2 years later, Governor Harvey received an order telling him to give all of the houses and belongings back to the people he had taken from them. This time, he could no longer pretend he had orders to continue what he was doing. So, he had to agree. He gave everything back to those he had robbed.
When the new governor was in charge, he wasted no time in bringing charges against Harvey who was brought before the courts and made to answer for what he had done. Governor Harvey was, once again, placed under armed guard. He complained about being watched and said that he wished to return to England where he could live in peace.
He was eventually allowed to return to England. And once he got there, he lived in anything but peace. The governor's rage and vile temper hadn't been tamed. He caused such a commotion about what he believed was injustice done against him, that he got the governor who replaced and removed from office.
The poor colonists had just 2 years of this new governor's governorship. Two years in which they enjoyed a fair, compassionate leader. The colonists had wanted him to continue being their governor, but they still needed the permission of England to make it so.. They were completely unable to control who ruled them and who would use them for personal feuds. And now, they had to wait for another governor to be chosen by the king.
That man was Sir William Berkeley.
Governor Berkeley's reign has governor would end in a similar way as Governor Harvey's reign.
But his story is more of a beloved colonial hero who sank to becoming a dark Sith Lord that is to this day, remembered as one of the worst governors America has ever had.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss Governor Berkeley's early years in the colony and the hard position Virginia took when it came to the civil war in England.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the colonists had overthrown their governor and had gotten the king to send them a new one. The king wasn't happy with the colonists thinking they could just kick out a governor. That was the king and only the king's right. But, after some back and forth, the king sent them a man named William Berkeley. So, now we've gotten rid of that Scrooge, British Empire tyrant - Governor Harvey.
The people of the colony and the colonial government had actually accomplished kicking him out of office. This was a big deal. It was the first time that the colony of Virginia had asserted its desires and needs over the needs of England.
Of course, they were still an English colony and they were fiercely loyal to the English throne. They weren't so much saying, "Screw you," to England, as they were saying, " Hey mother, England. Would you please take this horrible creature away from us and send us someone who's better? We humbly ask you this because we know how much you love and care for us."
They weren't in revolt against England. It was just a slight rebellion because the king had been so angry that the colonists assumed they had this power, that he had the terrible governor go back to the colonies, even knowing how terrible he was. He wasn't about to let the colonists think they could dismiss people he had chosen. Or that they had any power to do anything without his permission.
And he was right. They couldn't do this. But, the colonists pushed anyways. This moved the goalpost a little bit. Now, the king was well-aware that the colonists weren't going to sit back and take whatever was dealt to them quietly. And more importantly, the colonists knew that they had the power to change things. Even if only in a small way.
They also gained experience in standing up for themselves. This experience wouldn't lead to much until after the next governor, Governor Berkeley.
His story is that of Anakin Skywalker. Hero to all in Virginia. The darling of the people. The defender of justice and the good. He would endure a crisis in the government. One that would see the people rise up against him. One that would cause his fall from the glory of the people's hearts. Like Governor Harvey, he would be forced out of office. And like Governor Harvey, he would return to that office.
When he returned, he was no longer a Jedi Knight. He was Lord Vader. He was dark and twisted and full of hatred and rage. And he unleashed this rage upon the people in a way that had never been seen before, or since.
But, first we start from the beginning. A small background on who exactly was Sir William Berkeley before the king chose him as Governor of Virginia.
Governor Berkeley grew up in England in a wealthy family. He spent most of his youth actually living inside the king's palace. He was a member of the super elite group of men that surrounded the king. He was like a lady-in-waiting, but for the king.
This meant that he was around the king all day, every day. He helped the king get dressed in the mornings and undressed in the evenings. He went on hunts with the king, went traveling with the king, sat at banquets with the king, and what's the closest thing to king could have to a best friend. Berkeley even went to war for the king. He rode out into battle the fight for him. He would have gladly died for the king.
This would explain what Governor Berkeley was so intensely loyal to the king.
King Charles made Berkeley the Governor of Virginia in 1642. Berkeley arrived and immediately got to work, setting things up.
Berkeley, and Berkeley alone, chose all the police, all debt collectors, and all judges. He also chose all of the people in the Governor's Council, which was half of Virginia's government. The other half being elected by the people. He was in control of the colony. He had to answer to the council in England and to the king. But, like other governors before him, everyone in the colony had to answer to him.
You might think that the half of the government that was elected would be free from his control, but that wasn't the case. He used the police to ensure votes that he wanted were the votes that were returned in the elections. This made it so that most of the people elected were also military members who were directly under his control in the military. Not much freedom from the governor going on here.
On top of that, a lot of the people who were elected were also judges that were chosen by Governor Berkeley. Their existence as judges depended on being on his good side. So, they weren't likely to stand up to the governor either. He basically controlled the entire government. One way or another, everyone bent to his will.
Unless England stopped him, he could do whatever he wanted and if it were illegal for him to do so, he could just issue a new law, making it legal.
This wasn't too bad because luckily, he was a good governor. At least in his first time around.
One of the Assembly members years later said that proof of Governor Berkeley's good nature and fair justice was in the fact that later in Berkeley's life, when his enemies had a chance to ruin him, they chose not to. And that in fact, there was not one man that either publicly or privately charged him with injustice.
The generous new Governor Berkeley had determined that he would not punish Governor Harvey's enemies and the old rivalries would come to an end. His term as governor would start a new day for the colony. In fact, some of the men who had led the mutiny against Governor Harvey were selected by Governor Berkeley to sit on his council.
His decision to not use the government of Virginia to hunt down those he disliked was an enormous benefit for the development of the colony. Without the fear of injustice, new laws could be created. Justice could be dealt out fairly. And matters that needed attention could be discussed by the Assembly.
That the colonists were quite happy under his role is evidenced by the fact that shortly after Berkeley arrived in Virginia, a representative of the Assembly left for England to plead the case for bringing back The Virginia Company. Yes, that Virginia Company. The same one we discussed in previous episodes that had once owned all of Virginia until the king took the colony from them.
So, this representative went before Parliament in England and was like, "Hey, so the colonists want The Virginia Company to come back and rule over them again. They don't want the king to be in charge."
When Berkeley called the Assembly together to ask about this, the Assembly denied the whole thing and said that the guy in England must've misunderstood their instructions. They then wrote a letter addressed to the king, telling him that they didn't want The Virginia Company to rule over them again. They were happy with Governor Berkeley. In the letter to the king, they laid out how unhappy they were before Berkeley came along. And said that they desire to remain under the king's care and protection.
Governor Berkeley was so thoroughly loved by the colonists that they gave him a large orchard with 2 houses as a gift not long after he arrived. Even when he left a fight for the king, the king had suspended his pay since he was no longer actively serving as governor of the colony. To help him out a bit, the colonists imposed a tax on themselves to pay for part of his salary so he wouldn't lose money while he was away with the king.
One of the things the colonists loved him for, was that he allowed people who had been convicted to appeal their case to their elected representatives in the Assembly. Before this, people had to take their appeal to a court that was appointed by the governor. Taking this right to appeal a case to the people that were elected, gave a voice to the middle and lower classes in the justice system.
He also got rid of a tax that was placed on every man in the colony. That tax was used to pay a salary. Instead of every man automatically having to pay a tax just for being alive, people would have to pay a tax based on how much land they owned.
Unfortunately, this only resulted in a lot of arguing and back and forth, and nobody really figuring out how to put this in place. So, they had to go back to taxing each man just for being alive, regardless of how much land he owned. But, it was still something that the colonists thought was really cool of him to try.
Another cool thing he did, was signing a law that said the people of Virginia couldn't be taxed without their consent. We've heard this a lot. This was already the law in England. And remember that from day one, the colonists in Virginia were promised that they had the same rights as all Englishman, as though they were on English soil itself.
The law that Virginia passed was really to make sure that there was no confusion about this taxes part. A governor couldn't come in and start ordering new taxes. He had to get the approval of the representatives in the government. People would elect representatives depending on how that representative would vote for things like taxes, just like we do today. So, any tax would have to have the people elect a person that would then give approval to any new tax.
In this way, people had a voice in new taxes and could vote out representatives that approved too many taxes.
So, Governor Berkeley in 1643, signed a law acknowledging that he needed the elected representatives approval of all new taxes. He also signed a law saying that elected representatives couldn't be arrested while they were in session. And also couldn't be arrested until at least 10 days after the session was over.
This helped the representatives feel like they weren't under threat if they angered the governor or the Governor's Council. They could conduct government business without the fear of being thrown in jail. At least not until 10 days after the Assembly ended their session.
He did a lot of other things like limiting how much certain government officials could make in their salary, and not throwing people in jail randomly like Governor Harvey had done before him.
One of the things that's really important to know about Governor Berkeley is that he owned a huge amount of land in Virginia. He also owned the rights to all beavers on that land. You may be thinking, "Beavers? What do beavers have to do with any of this?"
At that time, beavers were a huge source of money for hunters in America. Not just in Virginia, but all over the colonies. Even the French colonies in America.
People would hunt beavers and use their fur to make hats and other things that people would buy all over Europe. There was a ton of money that could be made from beavers. So, Governor Berkeley owned all of this land in Virginia and he owned the right to all of the beavers on that land.
Anyone who hunted a beaver on that land had to give Berkeley some of the fur they took from the beavers. And he made a fortune off of this. He received hundreds of pounds of beaver skin each year. He could sell them or he could have other people sell them and give him some of the money. He also had a salary the Assembly gave to him from taxes.
Berkeley was turning out to be a pretty great governor for Virginia. The people adored him. He was a defender of their rights and they trusted that he would work cooperatively with the people they elected.
But, his time has governor was broken into parts. Only a few months after he arrived, the civil war in England had broken out. His king was in danger. Parliament had raised an army and the king had also raised an army. The 2 were fighting each other in bloody battles in his homeland. Berkeley loved the king deeply and couldn't let him be attacked without being at his side, defending him. So, he left for England and he fought beside the king in battle.
He stayed there in England fighting to protect the king for over a year. During this time, he kept the title of Governor of Virginia, while someone else ruled as governor until he could return.
About a year and a half after he left for England to fight for the king, another massacre had taken place in Virginia.
In 1644, a second massacre swept through the colony. In 1622, the natives had suddenly rose against their English friends, sometimes right at their breakfast table and surprise-butchered everyone they could in Virginia in every Virginia settlement, they could, with the purpose of extinguishing all Englishman from the colony. They nearly succeeded and years of bloody wars followed.
Now, 24 years later in 1644, it happened again.
Opechancanough was the mastermind behind the massacre of 1622. He had been the chief of the tribe in the area. Now, he planned this massacre as well.
The massacre of 1622 had caused the colonists to change the very laws and ways in which they interacted with the natives.
No longer would they try to convert them into Christianity as they had done before. No longer would they be allowed to trade with them without first getting permission from the governor. No longer would the natives sit side-by-side with the families at breakfast or the fireplace in the evenings.
Because of these changes, people who were in the towns and villages were spared from the slaughter. Most of the victims were out in the frontier, away from the protection of the towns and villages. Still. no less than 500 colonists were butchered in the attack.
Another immediate war between the natives and the colonists followed.
At this time, Governor Berkeley was defending his king in England, but he was still the Governor of Virginia. He had to go back.
He didn't leave right away, and it must have been tremendously difficult for him to leave the side of the man he had spent his life protecting and loving as a close friend. But, his responsibilities to Virginia had forced his hand and he finally made it back to the colony in the middle of 1645.
He immediately jumped from one more into another. He led the forces out against the enemy natives who had attacked the colonists. The perpetrators of the attack fled in the face of Berkeley's soldiers. He was keeping the colonists safe. Governor Berkeley himself rode as the lead in several large quests into native territory. They slaughtered and destroyed everything that they could.
The natives couldn't hope to fight them off. And they fled their own villages when Berkeley and his men drew near.
The war went on for a while and sometimes the colonists would destroy the crops of the natives. And sometimes the natives would destroy the crops of the colonists.
Governor Berkeley was seen. again as the defender, not only of the rights of the people, but of their very lives as well.
Finally, the war came to an end. Opechancanough was captured by the English and taken as a prisoner back to Jamestown.
Governor Berkeley wanted to send Opechancanough to England, where he would stand trial. But a few days after the capture, one of the colonists shot and killed Opechancanough in revenge for the lives he had taken.
In the same month, the natives asked the colonist to make peace with them. They signed a treaty that gave some of Virginia land to the colony. All prisoners would be returned to the colonists and the natives officially acknowledged the King of England as the leader over their tribe. The tribe also had to pay the colony a tribute of 20 beaver furs every year.
In return, the colonists would protect the tribe from their enemies and they gave the natives the rights to some of the land in Virginia. This peace lasted for 30 years.
In the meantime, civil war still raged on in England. Parliament's forces were fighting against the king's army and Governor Berkeley was stuck in the colonies attending to his responsibilities as governor.
Most of the Virginia colonists actually sided with the king. They still considered themselves Englishman. Kings, or Queens, had been the rulers of England for over 1,000 years. It would be like if Congress suddenly raised an army and attacked the President of the United States.
Parliament didn't like the king and the king had problems with Parliament. Parliament wanted the king gone.
On top of this, remembering how strong religion was in the world at the time, almost everyone in Virginia was a member of the Church of England. They nearly fell into a civil war with Maryland because the Marylanders were Catholics. The people in the English Parliament who are attacking the king, were seen as outsiders of the Church of England. They followed a slightly different version of Christianity.
On top of this, most people in Virginia, from the upper class to the lower class, were doing pretty well for themselves. If Parliament won and took over the government of England, they would also take over the government of Virginia. And who knows what type of chaos or hell they would unleash on the colony. Right now, they had certainty about the laws and the ways of things. And it wasn't bad. If Parliament were in charge, things would be uncertain. Why risk it?
All of this added to the general feeling of extreme loyalty to the throne in Virginia.
This was all well and fine with Governor Berkeley. He was obviously a very strong supporter of the king. So strong in fact, that he even enacted laws in Virginia that banned criticism of the king. And banned talk of civil rights. If you were heard speaking support for the overthrow of the king, you could find yourself in jail and charged with treason.
There were small amounts of people in Virginia who supported Parliament, but they were really small compared to most people who supported the king. And this small group of people who supported Parliament, was mostly made out of the middle and lower classes who worked their land. They worked their own land and grew their own food, while the upper class had slaves and servants to do all that for them. The farmers who worked their own land, felt a connection to the middle and lower classes in England who fought against the king. But. there weren't enough of them in Virginia to reason, army or anything like that.
Around this time, the Assembly passed a law saying that everyone had to join, and practice, the religion of the Church of England. Both in public and in private. And everyone who refused to join the church would be kicked out of the colony.
Sadly, for Berkeley and the colonists, and even sadder for King Charles, Parliament won the war in England and executed Charles in 1649. This meant that Parliament and its leader, Oliver Cromwell, now ruled over England and the American colonies.
There was only one little problem. Governor Berkeley wouldn't surrender control to what he said were a bunch of quote, "lawless tyrants". Charles' son, Charles II was immediately declared King of England in Virginia. And the colonists in Virginia wouldn't recognize the authority of Parliament. They wouldn't follow Parliament's orders and wouldn't listen to anything anyone in England had to say, except for the orders of a king, which they believed was rightfully Charles II.
The Assembly also gathered and passed a law, declaring it high treason to even suggest that anyone other than Charles II was the rightful ruler of England and all of England's colonies.
They officially wrote down their objections to the lawless Parliament in England and praised the executed king, Charles I.
The Assembly then went a step further, and made a law stating that anyone who even listens to someone speaking against the rightful king, Charles II, would be charged with treason.
The colonists may have taken a brave step in letting England know just how it felt and where it stood on the issue of who had control over them. But, this act of bravery would have harsh consequences.
When Parliament learned a Virginia's defiance, they sent soldiers to Virginia, ready to use force against the colonists. The bold colonists wouldn't back down, even now. They were prepared for the fight. And so was Governor Berkeley.
In fact, 2 years later, Berkeley would find himself backed by the colonial military on the banks of the river, armed with muskets and firepower, ready to fight Parliament's forces when they sailed into the James.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the showdown between Parliament and Virginia and life in the colony under the rule of England without a king.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Parliament in England had fought a war against its own king. And the king had lost. He was publicly executed and the war kind of dragged on for a little longer.
The king's son, Charles II, still had an army that was loyal to him and they carried on the fighting against Parliament's forces. However, while that was going on, Parliament controlled England. This meant they also controlled the colonies.
The colonists were fiercely loyal to the king. And so was the Governor of Virginia, William Berkeley. He had grown up as one of the king's personal dressers, message men, and companions. He had fought in the civil war in England against Parliament. He had grieved when his beloved king was beheaded.
Now, in Virginia, he and the Assembly immediately declared that the king's son, Charles II, was the legitimate ruler of England. And that Parliament was nothing more than a bunch of lawless traitors. He would not bow to them. The colonists wouldn't bow to them either. And they wrote to Parliament, letting them know as much.
As we can imagine, the Parliament that had just dethroned the king and beheaded him in front of everyone, wasn't about to let a bunch of colonists get away with such disregard for their authority. They were in charge, and one way or another, the colonists would bend the knee.
The first thing they did, was they came up with a new law that said colonists could no longer trade with anyone other than England. All that sweet trading and money they got from selling tobacco to Holland was now canceled.
Remember, the colonists had built all sorts of warehouses in Holland where raw tobacco was to be dried, rolled, and sold to Europe. The colonists made tons more money this way than selling to England alone.
England knew this and decided to assert their control over the colony, by telling them they could no longer trade with Holland. And could no longer trade with any other country. They had to sell and buy things only with England. England controlled Virginia.
Not only did England have the right to Virginia, it had also provided the men, women, children, and money to start the colony in the first place. So, this new law was passed in 1650, it was called the Navigation Act because it said that other countries couldn't navigate ships with things to buy and sell to the colony and that the colony couldn't navigate ships with things to buy and sell to anywhere other than England.
The full force of England was supposed to enforce this law. Anyone who was sailing on behalf of England was ordered to seize all non-English ships that were found to be buying and selling in the colony. You couldn't even sail from England to Virginia without getting special permission from a special council in England.
This was horrible for Virginia. The people there relied on trading with other countries to survive. If they weren't allowed to do this, and they could only buy and sell with England, the entire colony would be ruined. Fast.
Even facing total financial ruin, the people of Virginia didn't bend the knee. When the Navigation Act was sent over to the colony, Governor Berkeley proclaimed to the Assembly that they were basically worthless as a people if they allowed orders from Parliament to shake them. The guilt of the king's execution would be on their hands if they recognized his murderers as their rulers. He told them that he would either lead them to victory over Parliament, or would die trying. Then, the Navigation Act was read aloud for the Assembly to hear.
The Assembly immediately passed a series of documents stating that they were loyal to the king and not Parliament, that Parliament was nothing more than a bunch of king-killers, that the colonists in Virginia were not traitors, and that they were, in fact, following English law, as they had always done, by recognizing nobody other than the king as their ruler.
In addition to that, perhaps the most important document the Assembly wrote, was one stating that they would continue to trade with whomever they wanted so long as it was not with an enemy of the king. And that they would use the entire force of the colony to protect this ability to trade with whomever they wanted.
So, Virginia did just that. England couldn't really do much to enforce the law. I mean, they were an entire ocean away. And who was going to stop foreign ships in the colony? Not the colonists. And not the governor. And not any of the police, judges, or council members who were all under his control.
So, foreign trade continued as it had before the law forbidding it. In fact, it not only continued, it increased. The Dutch specifically brought in more ships and purchased more tobacco from the colonists than it had before.
The Dutch were making tons of money. The colonists were making tons of money. The only people who were making less money, were the English ships coming from England. They couldn't buy as much tobacco and they couldn't offer as much money as the Dutch were offering.
Complaints poured into the council in England. And finally, Parliament realized that their law forbidding trade, was actually hurting England more than it was Virginia.
England's plan of punishing Virginia for not bowing down to them had failed. But, like before, Parliament wasn't about to let a little colony embarrass them like this. So, it was time to move on to the next step.
They decided to send a large number of armed soldiers to the colony to force the colonists to submit. They also sent a group of men to try and convince the colonists to submit in order to avoid any fighting.
Parliament had assumed that there were colonists in Virginia who supported them. There were, but there weren't that many of them. They ordered the men they sent over to raise an army out of the supporters. They allowed the men to grant freedom to any servant, and pardons to certain criminals, who volunteered to fight for Parliament. This army was supposed to overthrow the current government and establish a new government that recognized Parliament as its ruler.
In 1652, Governor Berkeley caught wind of the British soldiers' arrival in the area, and quickly raised his own army by calling all of the Virginia military to arms. He placed them in strategic positions around the River James and took command.
Parliament had betrayed the king. They had executed him. He was not going to allow them to set foot in Virginia. Only the king could command them. Only the king could rule over the colony.
He took control of the Dutch ships that had been trading in the colony at the time, and placed the men on the ships around Jamestown. Other military men were placed along the banks of the River James itself, and others were positioned on the land behind them.
As the British advanced into colonial territory, the colonists aimed their weapons at them. Ready to fight on Berkeley's order.
Luckily for the colony, it didn't end in a battle and things were solved. The rest of the colonies weren't in a place to battle England yet. It would have failed, and harsh measures would have been taken against Virginia.
This is why Berkeley ultimately backed down.
In addition to this, the men who had been sent from England offered some other good deals for the colony, if the colonists would lower their weapons and submit. The men offered the colonists the freedom of trade with whomever they wanted without England interfering, that Parliament recognizes that they can't tax the colonists for any reason without the consent of the colonists, and that interestingly, no castles, or forts, or guard towers could be built or maintained in the colony without the consent of the colonists.
It was like Parliament was saying that the colony wasn't completely under the control of England. Parliament was saying that it needed the colonists' permission for some things. And remember, that the colonists had been promised from the very first day they set foot in Virginia, that they were the same as any Englishman standing on English soil. All laws and rights were extended to the colonists.
In England, the citizens couldn't be taxed without their permission and in the colony, the same law applied. What this meant, was that the colonists would elect people who would vote on whether or not certain taxes could be taken from the people. If they didn't like how one of the representatives voted, they could vote him out. In this way, the people gave their consent to be taxed. And without this consent of the representatives voting for, or against, taxes, taxes we're not allowed to be taken from the people.
This is really important to the reasons behind the American Revolution. Later, when the war would kick off, the major point that was being fought over legally, was that England was taxing them without allowing colonists to elect people who voted on the taxes. They were being taxed without their permission.
So, now we understand a little about the background on why the colonists would later insist that they had that right to representation when it came to taxes.
So, now with this surrender in the colony, all the colonists had to agree to in return, was that Parliament was their ruler. There was no more king in charge and they had to obey Parliament the same as they had the king.
The governor and the Assembly all agreed.
However, when Parliament read the agreement, they were outraged. The men had been too lenient with the colonists. The colonists had disobeyed them, had raised arms against them, and had cost a lot of time and money from England to take care of all of this.
Parliament passed most of the agreement. But, also made a new part of the agreement. They added that all people who took part in this mutiny would be pardoned. They also added that every person who remained in Virginia at all, regardless of whether they were in the government there or just an ordinary citizen, they had to take an oath pledging allegiance to Parliament. And that anyone who refused to take this oath had 1 year to pack up their things and leave the colony.
Berkeley, of course, refused to take the oath, and left the office of governor. He left as a hero of the people, fondly remembered years later, when they begged him to come back.
For now, that opens the next part of Virginia's history. The part where Parliament mostly leaves Virginia alone and things get a little dicey as the colonists try to rule themselves.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how Parliament's takeover of England affected the way things worked in Virginia.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Parliament had executed the King of England. They had taken over control of the colony and Virginia nearly came to war with England over its refusal to accept Parliament as its ruler without a king.
Representatives of Parliament were able to persuade Virginia to stand down. Virginia accepted Parliament's authority without a king. And Governor Berkeley stepped down from his position as governor.
Alright. So, Parliament has made it clear that they're in charge of Virginia, and the colonists were free to trade with whatever countries they want. All is well.
Well, not really. Remember, that the governor controlled half of the Assembly. That half was called the Governor's Council. He chose who was on that council. And he also chose all police, all judges, and many other types of government officials.
So, now that the governor was gone, they had to figure out whether things like the police, the judges, and other officials the governor had chosen would remain in their positions, or if new ones would be chosen.
On top of that, the men sent from England had been given the authority to hold new elections for the elected side of the Assembly. Everyone who had taken the oath of loyalty to Parliament could vote. Within a few months, the new representatives were ready to gather.
Their first order of business was to put together a constitution for the colony. Because Parliament ruled over the colony, they still needed its approval for most things. And because of this, when they went about writing the colony's constitution, they were very careful not to put things in it that Parliament would later reject.
The new constitution included things like the representatives now having power to elect the governor of the colony. Before this, it was always the king who chose the governor. And before that, it was The Virginia Company who chose the governor. This was a major deal.
The representatives were also given the power to elect members of the Governor's Council. This was another major deal. Because before this, only the governor could choose people for the Governor's Council. No longer would a governor control half of the Assembly. Now, the people would elect representatives and those representatives would elect the other half of the government.
In this way, the people now had a voice in all of their government because the people they voted for also elected the governor. And because the people they voted for also elected the governor, they even had a choice in who their governor would be.
Up to this point, the Governor's Council side of the Assembly had wielded control over the elected side. Now, it was the other way around. The representatives had control over who was governor and who was in the council. They were even given the power to remove the governor if they didn't like the way he governed them. The only power that could stop the elected representatives was either being voted out, or Parliament stepping in to tell them no.
The men who were sent to get the colonists to submit had achieved their goal. Beyond these things, they didn't really have many instructions on how Parliament wanted things to be set up.
In addition to that, England was still at the end of a civil war and was still in a massive confusion over how things would work without a king.
Being that Parliament had its hands full, they didn't pay much attention to the colony and basically left them alone to do things as they pleased.
In order to get things set up in Virginia, everyone agreed that once the representatives chose a governor, the new governor, with the men sent over from England, would choose the police, the judges, and other officials. After that, it would be left to the representatives.
The representatives unanimously voted for a man named Richard Bennett to be their governor. This all seem to be working well. The representatives had elected a new governor and everyone was working together.
Unfortunately for the colonists, the representatives didn't specify exactly what powers the governor didn't have. They just said that he had all the powers the representatives gave to him from time to time. This would end up causing a lot of problems between the representatives and the governor. They were, however, clear on one thing. They would not allow their power to be taken by the governor in any way.
One story goes that the night before the representatives were to elect a Speaker of the House, Governor Bennett advised them not to choose this one guy named Lieutenant Chiles. This guy had been kicked out of Virginia's military because of some illegal trading with Holland that he was involved in. His name was one that people didn't want to be associated with.
However, just to show the governor that he had no power, or place, to even make a suggestion to the representatives, they elected that Lieutenant Chiles guy is Speaker of the House.
While everyone was getting the new government set up, a problem had been developing in the eastern part of Virginia. This was on a small peninsula that looks like it should belong to Maryland.
In 1650, right after the king was executed. And Oliver Cromwell took over the head of government, Parliament declared that a new law was to be in place - the Navigation Act. Which said that English colonists couldn't buy or sell from anyone other than England, in English ships. They had declared that people in Virginia, Barbados, Bermuda, and Antigua were rebels and had taken the power of government into their own hands and were therefore, traitors.
The people in this heavily Dutch peninsula of Virginia were outraged. This angered everyone in Virginia. Everybody was trading with the Dutch. But, it was especially angering to the people on that peninsula in Virginia. Because they were mostly Dutch in that area. They had family, long ties, and friends with well-established trade routes that they used with other Dutchmen.
It would be like the Dutch prohibiting English settlers from trading with English ships. It was an outrage, for sure. Not to mention, that items from the Dutch cost less than items from the English. And the Dutch also paid more money for things that the colonists sold.
So now, that shirt you bought for $10? Well, you have to get it from the English. And it's $15 now. That tobacco you sold for $300? You have to sell it to the English. And they'll take it off your hands for $100.
Around this time, the Dutch War had broken out. New York was, at the time, owned by the Dutch and it was called New Amsterdam. At first, it seems the Dutch were planning on attacking the English colonies around New Amsterdam. But, they decided against it and instead sent orders to the Governor of New Amsterdam, telling him to ally with the natives in the area, just in case of an emergency.
As fate would have it, the ship carrying those orders was captured. And so were the documents ordering the allying with the natives. These documents were twisted in a way, and caused wild rumors to spread through the English colonies that the Dutch were planning on allying with the natives to rise against the English colonists. This caused special fears about the Virginia peninsula, where a large number of the settlers there were Dutch.
The Governor of New Amsterdam even wrote to the Governor of Virginia declaring his friendly feelings and his desire to remain in good relations, despite the war going on between England and the Dutch. But, the rumors were too fiery and fierce to die down.
The rumors were so terrifying to the people of Virginia, that the Virginia government made it illegal for the Dutch in the area to do any trade, whatsoever, with the natives. And anyone caught trading with the natives, would be fined 500 pounds of tobacco.
Then, several need of chiefs told the English colonists that the Governor of New Amsterdam had asked them to commit another massacre against the English colonists. Fire was once again, set to the rumors of the Dutch conspiring to slaughter the English. And representatives of Virginia met in Boston to discuss the situation.
Soon, the people in Virginia and Maryland were absolutely convinced that yet another massacre was coming. And that this time, the natives would have the help of the Dutch.
Remember, that not long before this, the people of Virginia had endured at least 2 major massacres committed against them by the natives who had attempted to wipe them out completely. They hacked up babies, mothers, elderly, and men, all the same.
The memory, and pain, from this was still very much alive among the people.
The rumors were based in absolute experience and truth of events that had already happened to them numerous times. And it wasn't long after this, that the Dutch in the peninsula feared for their own safety from the English, who were becoming more terrified of the Dutch by the day.
The son of a prominent military leader in the colony testified under oath that his father, the military leader, could prove the Dutch plot against the English settlers was true. He probably had some evidence, but not enough to prove anything. He also stated that his father believed the English had to attack the Dutch citizens before they attacked the English. It was a matter of self-defense.
The testimony of this man who again, was the son of a Virginia military leader, convinced the Dutch in the area that at least part of the Virginia military was headed by a homicidal maniac, who would delight in their deaths.
Eventually, the Virginia government had to step in and issue orders for the punishment of anyone harassing the Dutch citizens in the area.
This may have helped the Dutch feel a tiny, small bit safer. But, what's certain is that the English were outraged. Here were the Dutch citizens, for sure, allying with the natives to kill us all. And the government's going to punish us for protecting ourselves before the Dutch can harm us?
There was also something else going on. The Dutch in that area were afraid of the English citizens of Virginia. But, they also had a general feeling of separateness from the rest of Virginia. And it took hold of the citizens on the peninsula. They were paying heavy taxes to the government, without so much as one representative in the colony's government. They weren't represented like the rest of the colony was. The rest of the colony also wasn't faced with the same dangers as they were.
This feeling of separateness from the other parts of Virginia, grew over time. And that homicidal maniac leading part of the Virginia military, stoked the fires by encouraging people in the area to resist Virginia's government. He said that Virginia didn't care for the peninsula, and that it only used the peninsula to pay for the rest of the colony's expenses, while the peninsula gained nothing from Virginia in return.
This sense of independence from Virginia was further encouraged by royalists. Remember, that at this moment in history, it was when the King of England had just been executed and the Parliament had taken over control with Oliver Cromwell at the lead.
Virginia had, at first, resisted the idea of Parliament controlling them. And in a previous episode, we covered the drama that went down and almost ended in a battle, colonial rifles pointed at British soldiers as they sailed down the James River.
Now, just a few weeks after Virginia had accepted Parliament's authority in England, those still loyal to the throne spoke to the people in the peninsula about the good old days when the king ruled, and they weren't taken advantage of in the way they are now with Virginia and Parliament working together. They said that things were better under the king. And the people of the peninsula shouldn't consent to be part of the Virginia-slash-Parliament government. They could do better on their own.
Every day for about a week, people gathered in the ports and listened to rebels spread talk of resisting and independence from Virginia. At the end of the week, they elected a handful of people to write a letter of protest to the Virginia government.
The protest letter complained that they'd been paying crazy taxes that were very high for years. And that they did this while being under the impression that for several years now, they were no longer really a part of Virginia. They pointed out that they hadn't even sent a representative to the Assembly since the year they broke off from Virginia. So, really they broke off years ago, and these taxes are bonkers and quite illegal.
You'd think, that they would demand to be recognized as separate from Virginia. But, they didn't do that. Instead, they asked to be allowed to elect representatives to the Assembly.
Then, an actual protest happened. This one's really important. But, it's hardly talked about. It was the first protest in the American colonies against Britain over the issue of taxation without representation.
This was by the people in the Virginia peninsula in 1652. There'd been grievances about this before, but never a protest. In times before this, Virginia colonists had asserted this right granted to them from the very first day they set foot in Virginia. The king had guaranteed that they had all the rights of every Englishman, as though they were on English soil itself. One of those rights, already recognized in England, was the right to representation in the group that makes laws, including tax laws.
The people of the peninsula weren't arguing for this right to be given to them. They were arguing that they already had this right, and that it had been illegally denied to them.
This may seem like it was a protest against Virginia, and not England. But in fact, since Virginia had submitted to Parliament only 3 weeks before this, the people who were controlling Virginia were representatives of Parliament. They hadn't been elected by the people. They had instead, been chosen by Parliament in England and sent to Virginia. They were still busy setting Virginia up with the new elections. So, even though the taxes and the lack of representation was caused by Virginia, this protest, in this moment, was directed at the Parliament of England. Who at that moment, ruled over Virginia while the protest happened.
The ill feelings continued into the next year. And when a crowd of people gathered around to voice their discontent, one of the men shouted out that the judges on the peninsula were nothing more than a bunch of "villains and asses," to which the crowd yelled their agreement.
The government on the peninsula was unable to control the protest. So, Governor Bennett led a small group of men to the peninsula to try and restore order.
In the end, trials were held, people were punished, and a civil war was prevented.
After this, Oliver Cromwell, who ruled England, was busy with ongoing battles and political issues at home, and basically left Virginia to govern itself. There'd been a few things here and there, like the Navigation Acts, that Parliament had imposed on Virginia. But, other than that, Virginia was left alone. Almost like its own independent country. During this time, Virginia gained valuable experience in self-government, and got a taste of what it would be like to be free from England.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the power in the Assembly was challenged and how the Assembly made it clear that they were in charge and that the people who elected them had a voice that couldn't be silenced by any governor.
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Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Parliament started telling the colonists who they can and can't trade with, causing all sorts of problems for the colonists. Things spiraled out of control, and the very first real protest against England occurred over the issue of taxing them without representation.
After Governor Bennett left office, another guy became governor, and everything seemed okay. Then another guy became governor. And this guy was Governor Matthews.
Things with him also seemed okay for a bit. Until in 1658, about 1 year after he became governor. The Assembly met and the elected side passed an order saying that the Governor's Council would no longer get the sweet perks of taxpayers paying for their housing while the Assembly was in session.
The very next day, Governor Matthews and his council issued an order saying, "Oh, a bunch of people in one county want to be joined with another county, so I'll grant it that they're joined together, and oh, by the way, the Assembly's dissolved."
It was the last sentence of the order, almost like an afterthought. But, it was clearly not an afterthought. In it, the governor said that there were many important reasons for him doing this. The Governor's Council losing those perks of free swank housing on behalf of taxpayers' money was probably one of them.
The elected side responded in a short letter. It was polite, and brief, and basically said, "Yeah, no. Maybe governors in the past had the authority to tell us to go home. But, remember a few years ago we decided that the Assembly chooses the governor, and we also decided what powers he has? Yeah, that's not one of those powers."
The Assembly voted that no, they're not going home. And furthermore, any member of the elected side that left their seat would be charged with treason against the people.
Governor Matthews accepted this surprisingly well. Perhaps he was just misinformed and really thought he had the power to tell the elected side of the Virginia Assembly to go home. I mean, it was normal for governors to do this. It wasn't seen as noteworthy, really, until this time, when the rules around it started to change.
So, he sent an official letter to the Assembly saying that he would agree to let them continue their business, so long as they promise to be quick about it and they'll go ahead and ask the Lord Protector in England, who was Oliver Cromwell, to decide what to do about it. And whether or not the governor did, indeed, have the power to tell them to go home.
The elected side unsurprisingly said, "Yeah, we'd like to get on with our business and hurry as fast as we can as well. But, we want you to declare that we're not dissolved."
It may seem like a small issue to argue over. I mean, didn't the governor say, "Go ahead. You're not dissolved and just finish your business?"
Yes. But, the Assembly wasn't asking for permission to get on with their business. They were asking the governor to take back the order for them to go home because he didn't have that power in the first place. It would be like if a judge randomly came up to you and said that he gives you permission to finish your work for the day. And you're like, "Yeah, I'm going to. But, you need to take your order out of here because you don't have the authority to tell me whether or not I can finish my workday."
The Assembly was clearly resisting attempts at controlling them. They were making it clear that the people who elected them had power, had a voice, and couldn't be stomped on as easily as they had in the past.
The governor responded to this by saying, "Okay, fine. I'm withdrawing my order for you to finish your workday. But again, we'll put the matter to the Lord Protector in England, and see whether he says I have this power to tell you to finish your workday."
It was a tense situation. And the very idea of the power of the people rested in whether or not the representatives of the people could be dismissed on the wishes of the governor.
Again, this is exactly the power that the governor and kings in England had for hundreds of years. This was how it worked. The civil war in England had just ended and was in part over this very issue - whether the king could dismiss the people's representatives in Parliament. And now, here in the American colony of Virginia, the same issue was being fought over. Granted, there wasn't a civil war against the governor in Virginia. But, things were changing.
All of this wasn't enough for the elected side of the Assembly. Not only was it necessary for the governor to withdraw his order for them to finish their workday, they decided to put together a group of people whose job it was to write a report, basically confirming the Assembly's power.
The report would put forth all of the reasons that the Assembly had power to call itself and dismiss itself. And how the governor didn't have this power.
The group studied the colony's constitution, history, and laws. They wrote a strong report detailing all of the reasons that the power of the government resided with the people and the representatives they elected.
Interestingly though, they included a line that said that they had this power until the Supreme Power in England could tell them otherwise. So, we can see that even though the spirit of democracy was forming, the most fierce defenders of democracy still recognized the Ultimate Power of England. To them, the ruler of England was still more powerful than the people in Virginia.
The report continued on, saying that Governor Matthews could remain in office. But, the Governor's Council would be dismissed and a new one would be elected by the elected side of the Assembly. They seemed to blame the Governor's Council more than the governor himself. The report stated that the Governor's Council was a bunch of power-hungry politicians trying to destroy the power that belonged to the people.
In order to prevent representatives from being ordered around, or arrested for gathering, or any other threats against them, the report also stated that until further notice, police were not to carry out any warrants or commands given by any person other than the Speaker of the House. The House again, was the elected side of the Assembly.
The report ended by declaring again, that the power to dissolve the Assembly rested only with the Assembly.
Furthermore, any future members of the Governor's Council would be elected by the elected side of the Assembly. And again, they inserted a line here stating that this was to be the law unless the Supreme Power in England declares something else to be the law. We'll see that for a long time, the colonies kept England as the absolute power in their minds. It took a lot of issues, and a long time trying to beg England to do, or not do, things before America declared its independence. It was only after nearly 200 years of pleading with England desperately, and at length, that we decided there was no other choice than to break off.
The governor remained in office and the elected side of the Assembly elected new members for the Governor's Council.
But, all was not well. For the next year, the Assembly's power was once again threatened.
Parliament had sent a letter to the Assembly, telling them that the Lord Protector, who was Oliver Cromwell, had made plans to put order back in the colony and to settle the matter of whether or not the governor had the power to dismiss the Assembly.
The letter went on to inform them that the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, had died. And that his son, the new Lord Protector, would resume the plans to settle the matter.
Part of the letter said that the governor and his council should restore order. That part worried the Assembly, because it implied that the answer to the question would be that the governor did, indeed, have the power to dismiss the Assembly.
The Assembly met to discuss this, and as can be expected, they declared that they would obey whatever the Lord Protector commanded of them. They would, however, ask the Lord Protector to order that only the Assembly had that power.
Whether or not the Lord Protector would grant this request, didn't end up mattering much. Because within 2 years, he had stepped down from the position and the executed king's son, Charles II, was placed on the throne.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the return of Governor Berkeley, the return of the king to England, and the consequences of a newer, meaner version of the Navigation Acts that this time, was strictly enforced.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
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Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the Virginia government had asserted their control over the governor and made it known that they would not have these powers taken from them.
In 1658, the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, finally died and surprise, surprise, his son inherited his position, just like a king. And make no mistake, Oliver Cromwell, who led the overthrow of the tyrannical king, Charles I, and was essential to bringing about the execution of Charles I, was a worse tyrant than the king he had murdered.
So now, Oliver Cromwell had died. And his son, Richard Cromwell, was now the Lord Protector of England and her territories. But fortunately for history's sake, he, wasn't a very good leader. People didn't have confidence in him either. And it appears that at one point the English army had even arrested him.
Just 9 months after becoming Lord Protector, Richard Cromwell resigned his power. And England started to turn back to what it was before the revolution and the tyranny of the Cromwells.
They invited Charles II, the son of the king they had executed to come back to England and sit on the throne as their king. This process, however, took about a year to complete. And during that year, England was a hot mess. Nobody knew for certain who the top person was or would be. Who would solve the issues that needed immediate attention? Who would this group answer to? Who would that group send their pleased to? And the military was just as chaotic and full of uncertainty as parliament was.
The entire machine of English war and politics was based around who their leader was. Who they pledged their loyalty to. Who sat on the throne and guided them with rules and ideas that everyone lined up to center around or to fight around.
The colonists didn't need a leader in England, as much as the English citizens did. After all, they were an entire ocean away and they have their own functioning government. Let's not forget that while Oliver Cromwell was leading England, he basically left Virginia alone to do whatever they wanted. They had many years of self-government at this point. And so it wasn't really that challenging for them to be without an English leader.
Nevertheless, the colonists still considered themselves Englishman. They still did need a leader to guide them. And they still considered England as the final say, in whatever laws and rules they were supposed to live by. So they did need a leader, but it wasn't as desperate of a need as it was for the people in England.
Even so, the colonists had some anxiety about who was going to ultimately sit as a leader. Would parliament end up leaving without a king again? Would the king actually come back? Would some other thing happen? Who knows? England, had just fought an entire civil war over the issue of getting rid of kings. Like, the civil war just ended 10 years ago. Would the king actually come back? It seemed unlikely. Or maybe it was likely. Who knows?
So, they waited. And waited. And imagined all of the things that could gain, or lose, depending on who the leader ended up being.
In the end, it seems that they thought it was most likely the king would come back.
In the midst of all of this, Governor Matthews died. Just about 3 months before the king was restored to the throne of England. In order to restore order and certainty in the colony, the Virginia Assembly passed a law stating that the Assembly itself was the Supreme Power in Virginia until, and this is important, until England commanded them differently. That's really important because again, even with an opportunity like this, where England is chaotic and the colonists could easily assert their independence, they didn't want to. They could have used that decade of being left to govern themselves under Cromwell and used the chaos in England as the perfect time to just say, "You know, we're going to break off." But they didn't.
I can't stress this enough that the colonists, at least in Virginia, absolutely did not want independence from Britain until it was the extreme, last option, after over 100 years of trying out other options and remaining part of Britain.
Okay. So, bringing us to the next point was that the Assembly didn't want to have this Supreme Power forever. Even if they didn't desperately need a king right now, straight away, they did need a head of their own colonial government. They needed a governor.
They chose the person who had displayed a fierce, undying love for the king through it all. Even through the king being executed and Parliament taking over. That man was Governor Berkeley. Their old governor, who resigned after Parliament sailed up the James River and forced Virginia into obedience. Parliament had allowed him 1 year to gather his stuff and get out of the colony. But, he had never left.
Keep in mind, that Governor Berkeley was well-loved by the people. He had fought for the rights of Virginians, stood at the helm of defending them against attacks, and ensured justice prevailed throughout Virginia when he was their governor. Even his critics said that not they, nor anyone who might call him an enemy, had a bad word to say about him personally. This may have been a little bit of an exaggeration. But, just know that he was very much loved in the colony.
The Assembly issued an order stating that Berkeley would again be their governor. In the order, they talked about his great justice and integrity. And how well Virginia did under his leadership. And how many people approved of him.
The Assembly unanimously agreed that in the 25 years they had known him, not one person had issued a complaint against him, and that anyone who did, was confused or mistaken. And furthermore, the people wished him to be their governor for the rest of his life.
The truth is, that he was a good governor. And Virginia did do well under his rule. However, they did well under other governors and they even did well while left alone during Cromwell's rule, without England there to guide them. Other than the Navigation Acts that is.
Governor Berkeley's devotion to the king might've also been part of the reason the Assembly chose him. If the king were restored, surely, he would grant them favors and love because a loyal servant of his was their governor. Plus, it had the added benefit of ensuring a peaceful transition to a king again. With king-loving, best buddy Governor Berkeley at the helm of the colony, there would be no resistance to the king if he were to resume power.
However, Berkeley doesn't seem to have been too excited about taking the reins of power again. He did accept the position. But, he delivered a speech to the Assembly in which he thanked them, but also said that he was cautious of quote, "Assuming this burden, which is so volatile, slippery, and heavy, that I made justly fear that it will break my limbs."
He also said that he was afraid that king might see his acceptance of the governorship as a sign that Berkeley thought he didn't need the king's authority to give him that position. He was terrified of the king disapproving of him. The Assembly assured him that if the king's enemies were the ones who came to power in England, he would be allowed to step down, so he wouldn't serve the king's enemies. If the king returned to power in England, they would request the king's permission to allow Berkeley to be their governor. Thereby, recognizing the king's authority. To all of this, Berkeley finally agreed.
So in 1660, Governor Berkeley became the Governor of Virginia for the second time. The representatives of the people had gotten their beloved governor back and they were ready to charge ahead, into the sunshine and blessing future.
But the blessed future would not be so. For the old governor had grown bitter and inflexible.
There was a storm brewing among the people that had it origins in the beginning of William Berkeley's second term as governor.
Soon, the growing colony would find itself plagued by natural disasters, death, and rebellion.
The first signs of trouble came almost immediately. Charles II, the restored King of England, affirmed the Navigation Acts. The king was indeed, grateful to Governor Berkeley for his loyalty and for his acknowledgement that he needed the king's approval to be governor. Of course, he gave his approval to Berkeley.
Governor Berkeley wrote to King Charles saying that quote, "I do most humbly throw myself at your Majesty's feet, in a dutiful thankfulness to your Majesty that you yet think me worthy of your royal commands. I always, in all conditions, had more fear of your Majesty's frowns than the swords or tortures of your enemies."
So, the king was happy. The colonial governor was happy. The people were happy. The colony itself had been growing. Rapidly growing. When the civil wars broke out in England, the population of Virginia was around 15,000. Now, 10 years later, the population had almost tripled. It was now around 40,000 people.
So, back to the Navigation Acts. Order must be restored. The people who run the machine of England and the colonies must have what they need and the bond between England and her territories must be strengthened, with England being made clear as the ruler in the relationship.
Remember in previous episodes, we talked about the Navigation Acts. They had been passed by Oliver Cromwell and his parliament 10 years ago. They said that countries, other than England, couldn't navigate to the colonies and sell things there. And they also said that the colonies couldn't navigate somewhere other than England to sell or buy things.
Everything had to go from England or to England. Those are basically what the Navigation Acts were. But during Oliver Cromwell's reign, he was busy tying up loose ends of the civil war and dealing with other political things at home. So, he kind of left the colonies to govern themselves for around 10 years. And during that time, the colonies completely ignored the Navigation Acts.
Now that the new king was restored to the throne, he was going to impose the Navigation Acts. And this time, he was going to make sure that they were strictly enforced.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how Charles II as new king, would make life harder for the colonists. And how Virginia's economy went into the toilet because of the Navigation Acts.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Oliver Cromwell was dead. He and his Parliament had made some terrible laws for the colonies. The Navigation Acts basically made it illegal to trade with anyone other than England. The colonists couldn't even trade with other colonies. At least, not at first.
Even though this was the law, England was busy with the last bits of the civil war in England and had mostly left the colonies alone. This lasted. For around 10 years. And during this time, the colonists had gained valuable experience in self-government.
Cromwell's son had inherited the throne and was quickly kicked out of it. The executed Charles I's son was now invited back to England and sat on the throne as Charles II.
If the colonists were hoping for a change in their favor, they would be waiting for a long time. In fact things were about to get worse for them. Much worse.
Charles wouldn't lift the Navigation Acts. He would confirm them. King Charles II understood the need for closeness between England and its territories. He understood that Parliament had beheaded his father had gained control. And it closed the throne to any king until they invited him back. He himself had fought in battle against Parliament's army and he had escaped across England all the way to France, hiding in trees and under houses along the way, while disguised as a peasant. So king Charles II understandably, didn't want to create another tense situation with Parliament.
The people who paid Parliament, lots of money, wanted England's colonies to trade only with them and their ships.
With the colonists being unable to sell their things at higher prices elsewhere, they were forced to sell things at whatever prices English merchants wanted to pay, which was low. And being unable to buy things they needed at lower prices from elsewhere, the colonists were forced to pay whatever the English merchants wanted, which was high.
Charles obviously had an interest in asserting England's power over its territories. A sign, to be sure, that he was in control. This wasn't just personal for him. It was also the prevailing idea around trade at the time. It was completely accepted and had been practiced for generations.
On top of that, remember in the first several episodes, we went over how England had gone to great expense and risk to establish Virginia as the first permanent English settlement in America. And they had done so because they were starving, poor, overcrowded, and their forests were dwindling away at a rapid pace. England didn't have enough natural resources. At least, not enough to support their population. And they had to risk their lives every time they sealed into another country's territory to get those natural resources.
Virginia, and other colonies, were supposed to provide these resources and solve England's problems. But, however hard it tried, Virginia had failed at this. It could only really produce tobacco. Now, other countries were profiting from the colonies. Specifically, the Dutch. England was in direct competition with the Dutch all over the world at this time.
The Dutch grew rich from selling things cheaper than the English could sell them for. The Dutch bought things from the colonists at higher prices than England was willing to pay. And then, the Dutch took those things they bought from the colonists, and sold them all over the world, making tons of money, while England made pennies in comparison. It was an outrage. Why should England's competition benefit more than them? Off of their own territories. This couldn't stand.
The Navigation Acts made it so that England profited from its colonies more than other countries did. All taxes paid on all things brought to England would go to the English government instead of taxes, going to a foreign government somewhere else. Plus, King Charles wanted to make sure Parliament, and all the people Parliament liked, were happy with the money they made by trading with the colonies.
So, the Navigation Acts were written again and passed again. This time, the colonies would have the watchful eye of the king on them, and no longer would they be able to sneak past the laws restricting them. There were some exceptions to the laws, but they were few.
The colonies at first weren't allowed to trade with each other. But, now they were allowed to trade with each other. But, only in English ships, manned by crews, of which the majority were Englishman. With these points in mind, it doesn't seem so evil that England would pass the Navigation Acts.
But, evil or not, while England benefited, the colonists suffered. By this time, Virginia and its neighboring colony, Maryland, had been selling millions of pounds of tobacco every year around the world. If they could only sell the England, they'd be left with the majority of their tobacco unsold. England was only so big and a lot of the tobacco that Virginia and Maryland grew was unpopular in England.
England did allow Virginia tobacco to be sold around the world, but only if it went to England first and paid a huge, massive tax, and then went on its way to Spain, or the Netherlands, or wherever else it could be sold. It was certain to bring utter room to Virginia's economy.
On top of that, war had broken out between the Dutch and England. Even if tobacco made its way to England and the huge tax was paid, England didn't have access to some of the markets where the tobacco was popular. Like with the Dutch. The war had cut them off from the markets. So, massive amounts of tobacco sat in dingy, English warehouses, rotting and wasting away.
With rotten tobacco overflowing in England, who would buy more of it from the colonies? Not many. And whatever tobacco was sold, England sold at very, very low prices.
Think of it like this, before the Navigation Acts, a tobacco farmer could sell his tobacco and get around 12 pounds a year. Or, roughly £2,200 in today's money. Or, $2,800 in today's money. After the Navigation Acts, the same farmer could sell his tobacco and was lucky to get 45 shillings per year. That's around £366 in today's money. Or, $470 in today's money. That's a huge difference.
The situation became so dire that 2 years after the king returned to the throne, Governor Berkeley left for England to plead with King Charles II in person, to allow the colonists to trade with other countries again. Virginia was ruined and the people were in extreme need.
While on this mission to England, Berkeley wrote a paper called "A Discourse and View of Virginia". In it, he stated that quote, "We cannot but resent that 40,000 people should be impoverished to enrich little more than 40 merchants, who being the whole buyers of our tobacco, give us what they please for it, and after it is here sell as they please." He went on to say that people in Virginia were slaves to the English merchants. They worked for nothing. He said that quote, "We furnish ourselves and their semen with meat and drink, and all our sweat and labor as they order us, will hardly procure us course clothes to keep us from the extremities of heat and cold."
The paper was supposed to convince the English powers to lift the trade laws imposed on the colonists. He told the government that the reason the economy was so poor in Virginia, was the Navigation Acts.
He pleaded with the government to get rid of them. But this, they would not do. After all, they had their own English subjects to look out for.
Governor Berkeley's paper was ineffective. England wouldn't change her position on the laws of trade and the colonies. The English power suggested that the colonists should return to the work of producing clothes, iron, leather, and other such goods as they were originally supposed to do. This, of course, had been tried many times, and was always unsuccessful.
That same year, Governor Berkeley stated that the price of tobacco had fallen so low that a tobacco farmer wouldn't even make enough from a sale to pay for the cost of shipping it to England. A few years later, Governor Berkeley's secretary, Thomas Ludwell, wrote that tobacco was "worth nothing".
Still, Governor Berkeley did work with the Assembly to encourage the production of those other items once again.
But a few years later, things still hadn't changed for the colonists. Governor Berkeley's secretary wrote to the governor's brother, that a half penny per pound was the average of what tobacco farmers made. That's half a pound in today's money. Or, 63 cents in today's dollars. That's how much tobacco farmers were being paid per pound at that time.
On top of that, each farmer had to pay a tax of 50 shillings, which is around £540 in today's money. Or, $680 in today's money. That was what the poor farmer had to pay in taxes out of the small amount that he was making. And sometimes the English merchants would double this tax. It was an outrage, indeed.
Berkeley's secretary went on to say that the impoverished families had barely of anything to buy clothes and other necessities. He said quote, "I can attribute it to nothing but the great mercy of God that keeps them from mutiny and confusion."
Two years after that, he wrote that things were still the same.
What's even worse, is that normally low prices on something would make people go out and buy more of that thing. But, while it was cheap in the colonies for the merchants to buy, England kept the price of tobacco the same in England. So, more people didn't come to buy more tobacco.
Remember, that Virginia had no other major thing that it made and sold. Tobacco was it. When tobacco didn't sell, or when it sold for almost nothing, the people had no money to pay for anything. People became desperate.
Imagine if everyone in your state, or province, had the exact same job that you have right now. Imagine that you're competing against everybody else in your state. And that now, suddenly, the people who paid workers like you, only paid you a few pennies an hour. And you still had to compete for those pennies. It's not like today, where certain jobs can be replaced by robots and you won't really be affected. At least, not yet. Everybody was affected by the low prices of tobacco. Everybody. At least, in Virginia. And it brought disaster and ruin to everybody.
People didn't have much money in England either. Things were getting hard in the economy there. So, people couldn't afford to buy many things. Also so many people in England had so little money to spend, that the sellers in English shops didn't want to keep that much tobacco around. A handful of tobacco for a handful of customers who could afford it was all they needed.
So, the merchants in the colonies wouldn't even buy the entire crop from a farmer. Why would they? What would they do with it? Throw it in the Thames? Keep it in a warehouse to rot? There simply weren't enough customers in England who could afford tobacco.
Usually how things work, is that there's a ton of something, like tobacco, floating around, and people are desperate to sell it. So, they make the price really low. And that means people in England who don't have a lot of money could now afford your tobacco. That would at least give the tobacco growers some income. Problem solved, right?
However, the English government didn't see it that way. They didn't care much about the colonists' suffering. They cared more about what would happen to the stores and sellers in England if they had to sell things at a low price.
This is pretty natural for any government to do. And you could even argue that it's the government's responsibility first to it's people that live in its land.
So, what was happening was that England wasn't allowing people to lower their tobacco prices. They made tobacco sellers keep the price high. This kept stores in England open, with the owners of the stores able to pay their rent, and feed themselves, and not themselves fall into poverty.
But back in Virginia, the fact that merchants who bought tobacco from the colonies only paid pennies per pound, meant that the tobacco growers were the ones slipping into destitution.
The money to be made on tobacco was mostly kept by the people who bought it from the colonies and sold it in England. The actual growers themselves, were hardly getting any money at all. Someone can pay you a few pennies for something and then take that something and sell it for several dollars in England. And that's what was happening.
So naturally, the first thing you do is complain to the government, who's part of the problem because they're keeping the prices high in England. One way to fix this issue of growers not getting money, is to tell the government to get out of the way and allow the price in England to drop. Allow more customers. Allow more money to come their way.
And the colonists did complain to England. And the colonists were promptly ignored.
If this weren't bad enough, English merchants who brought clothes, and tea, and other necessities to the colonies, were starting to sell their products for higher prices. Things in England were becoming more expensive. So, they kind of had to.
With the Navigation Acts, it was now illegal to buy or sell anything to anyone other than English merchants, or other English colonies. So while some merchants had to increase prices to keep up with the cost of living in England, many of them did it just because they could. The colonists had no choice but to buy things from them. And when you have no competition from the likes of Holland, or France, or Spain, you can charge as much as you want.
It became so difficult for poor families to buy expensive clothes, that they started to learn how to make the clothes themselves. Every county was ordered by the Assembly to set up a loom and items required for clothesmaking. Several years later, they passed laws that rewarded any family that could make shoes, belts, leather, and even ships.
There was one solution looking the poor colonists right in the face. While trade with foreign countries was illegal, there was one easy opportunity. The colonists had to buy things at lower prices. That was each other.
At first, as we discussed, the English colonies weren't allowed to even trade with each other. Even though it was illegal, Virginia's desperation and New England's "go screw yourself" attitude to the English government, made the authorities powerless to stop them.
But, when King Charles II became king, he made sure the authorities did have some power to stop them. They were allowed to trade with each other, but there were rules in place. When the colonists were finally allowed to sell tobacco to other English colonies, England taxed them 1 penny per pound. That's about £1 in today's money. Or, $1.30 in today's money.
If England had to worry about its own people, then Virginia had to do so as well.
With the people in such destitution, the government either unable or unwilling, to do anything to help them, and laws that made it illegal or extremely difficult to sell their tobacco, the people of Virginia were waiting for someone to strike the match and light the flames of a rebellion.
And the thing that happened next, was the spark that would set it off.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss Virginia's efforts to reduce tobacco growing, and the series of disasters that added to their troubles.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that England was looking out for the people of England and not so much for the people in the colonies. They didn't ignore the colonies completely, but on the issue of tobacco prices in Virginia, the Virginians were on their own.
The prices that farmers got paid for their tobacco was so low that nearly everyone in the entire colony was left in severe poverty, unable to afford even the most basic clothes and items for daily living.
Tobacco was the only thing Virginia could really make and sell. The government eventually started to reward any person who could make belts, ships, shoes, and clothes. Every county was also ordered to set up a small clothing factory so people could make clothes themselves.
England had made a couple of laws that, together, were called the Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts made it illegal to trade with any country other than England. The colonists were eventually allowed to trade between each other. But, they had to pay a special tax to England for each sale. Since England wouldn't help them, Virginia had to come up with its own idea to limit the amount of tobacco that could be grown.
As it stood, everyone in Virginia was a tobacco farmer. Even the upper class. The problem was that they could really only sell their tobacco to England and the people coming from England to buy it from them, were paying them pennies for it. Not enough to live on. And oftentimes, the people who were buying it didn't even buy the entire crop. So, if farmers in Virginia only grew with small amount of tobacco, instead of heaps and mountains of it, the English merchants who came to buy it, would buy the whole crop.
Less tobacco [00:02:00] floating around also means that English merchants would compete to buy it. Each one would offer a little bit more money for it than the other English merchant. And so the price of tobacco would go up. Farmers would get more money. All they had to do, was convince literally everyone in the colony, and in the neighboring colonies, to stop growing tobacco. Or to stop growing so much of it. Easy, right?
If that weren't hard enough, they also had to consider that less tobacco meant less taxes and therefore, less money for England. England kept that tax money. And it was good money for them. So, they also needed to get England's permission. And that was going to be a little difficult.
So, off they went to England where they officially petitioned King Charles II, to forbid the planting of tobacco in Virginia and Maryland for 1 year.
Charles II said no. And warned them not to come back with the same ridiculous request. However2wo years later, the king's council was [00:03:00] able to convince him to reverse that decision. Sort of.
What they said, was that Virginia's Assembly could go to Maryland and have a talk with Maryland about what it would take to stop growing tobacco and both of their colonies. Maryland also grew a lot of tobacco, so Virginia needed Maryland to join whatever plan they were coming up with. Not exactly a green light, but it was a step forward at least.
So, Virginia and Maryland did come together for a meeting. Maryland was like, "Yeah. Okay. Let's do this." Virginia was like, "Great. Let's get going." Then, Mylandyn said, "Wait. Hold on. What about North Carolina?" They grow a lot of tobacco too. And if we stop growing tobacco, all the people buying it, will just go to North Carolina and North Carolina we'll get rich. While we get poorer than we already are.
Virginia agreed that North Carolina must be part of the agreement for the plan to work. So, the colonists went to North Carolina. And asked if they would join the [00:04:00] agreement to stop planting tobacco for a certain time each year.
North Carolina had his own troubles with the natives at this time. We may get into that in another season, focusing on the Carolinas. But, just know that they were too busy to get involved in whatever Virginia and Maryland was doing. They put it on a desk somewhere and basically forgot about it. And they forgot about it long enough that Maryland backed out of the agreement.
Without North Carolina agreeing to join them, it would be too great of a disaster for Maryland to order their farmers to stop growing. As with England, and as with Virginia, Maryland had to look after its own people first.
But, good news came soon enough. And eventually North Carolina joined them. All three colonies agreed to stop planting tobacco for a certain time each year. Finally.
But, and you may be shaking your head thinking what now? Well, remember in a previous episode, we discussed how the king had given the entirety of Maryland to [00:05:00] 1 man? And that man, Lord Baltimore, said no. He absolutely forbade Maryland from stopping the growing of tobacco. Probably because he was making money from it and didn't want to see that income go away.
When news of the agreement falling apart reached Virginia, the people were furious. Governor Berkeley wrote that the Assembly in Virginia was completely overcome with distress. He said all future hopes of being able to do ourselves good was now gone. Because the colony was forced to obey other people's interests.
So, now Virginia had no way of bringing the price of tobacco back up. That was the fault of the guy who owned Maryland.
Other than the issue of stopping tobacco growth for part of the year, there were issues with Virginia's Assembly at this time.
The people complained about being taxed far more than they had voted on. And what's worse, these high taxes were being voted on by the Assembly behind closed doors.
Nobody was [00:06:00] allowed to see what was said, where money was being approved to go, or how much each Assembly member was paying themselves from the taxes. One complaint said that quote, "It has been the custom of the county courts at the laying of the [taxes] to withdraw into a private room by which the people not knowing for what they paid their [tax] did always admire how their taxes could be so high."
Another complaint from people in a different area, said quote, "We desire to know for which we do pay our taxes every year, and that it may no more be laid in private."
Today, the government has to tell you where the tax money's going. At least, to some degree. Back then, the government didn't tell them anything. People were just being charged super high taxes while most of them lived in poverty. And the government was like, "We're not going to tell you what we're doing with these taxes."
People weren't happy about this. Some people suggested that taxes switched from taxing each person to texting the land that each [00:07:00] person owned. This seemed like a good idea at first, but was quickly discarded because it was too difficult to put into use.
If all of this weren't bad enough, the Assembly seemed to be spending their tax money on really stupid things. They wanted to build Jamestown into a proper city. I mean, that sounds good.
Except for they either hired terrible builders, didn't provide enough money for it, hired builders who kept some of the money for themselves, or some combination of all of those things. They even passed a law saying that Jamestown was supposed to build 32 brick houses. Each county in Virginia had to build 1 of the houses and each person in Virginia had to pay a special tax that would go towards paying for it. It was going to be awesome.
But it wasn't awesome. According to one complaint, the buildings that were built in Jamestown were so terrible that people couldn't even live in them, and some of them literally fell down before they could be finished being built. Other [00:08:00] work on other buildings never even started.
Even more angering to the colonists were the protective buildings that were being built around the river edges and the edge of Jamestown. They were meant to save people from enemy attacks, but these were just as useless.
One complaint said that the protective forts were never finished and were allowed to crumble into dust, burying the artillery within underneath sand, which then sat there, rusting, completely uncared for, by anyone.
A few years later, one of the king's men was rolling through town, reporting to the king about how things were in the colony. His report stated that the forts were made out of mud and dirt.
The people had paid enormous amounts of money to build them, but they didn't even do much to stop their enemies.
To fix this, the Assembly ordered for the buildings that could be repaired to be fixed up. And of course, new taxes to pay for it.
To help with the cost of building the forts and protecting the colony against attacks, [00:09:00] the Assembly decided to have people from outside of the colony help pay for the forts. And to do this, the Assembly charged anyone coming into Virginia from other colonies and from England, a special fee.
This fee wasn't to be paid in coins. It was to be paid in bullets and gunpowder. That way, less tax money went towards buying these things. Sounds great.
But, it seems that some of the government officials who collected these bullets and gunpowder payments kept them for themselves instead of giving them to the forts. So, it didn't really save the colonists any money, since some of their taxes had to go towards buying these bullets and gunpowder anyways. Multiple counties complained about this.
After all of that, the Assembly decided to abandon the forts just 3 years later. Other buildings were planned, but were either never built, or the ones that were weren't maintained very well.
Luckily, the war with the Dutch had ended. Unluckily, around the [00:10:00] same year that the war with the Dutch had ended, the Dutch soldiers hadn't even left the colony before a heavy rain began to fall in Virginia. Endless torrents of water flooded the streets for 40 days.
Then, 2 months later, a massive hurricane swept through Virginia. Winds knocked down buildings. Hail is big as turkey eggs fell from the sky, and more endless rain poured into the colony.
What little grain was left unspoiled by the earlier rains, was now destroyed by the hail and the hurricane.
It blew ships from their anchors. The wind carried one of the major forts into the river. Farms of corn and grain were destroyed. Tobacco was torn from the ground and ripped to shreds by the wind. Trees had fallen everywhere. And animals escaped their pens and ate what corn and grain was left undamaged.
It was estimated that around 10,000 homes were destroyed in the hurricane's wake and not one farm escaped [00:11:00] rune.
Then, a few years later, a strange disease came through the farms and wiped out huge numbers of cows and bulls, which were normally used by every Virginia family to provide milk, meat, and labor. Then, a bitterly cold winter that year killed off even more of the animals.
At this time, the price of tobacco was still very low. Poverty was still everywhere. So was desperation. For anything that could bring income to families.
Governor Berkeley wrote that the people of Virginia were so poor that if a war were to start again, the colonists' loyalty to England could no longer be counted on.
Remember that until 1660, when King Charles II was invited to come sit back on the throne, people did trade with countries other than England. Mostly, with the Dutch.
Then, after the king sat on the throne, he confirmed the Navigation Acts, which made it illegal to buy and sell from anyone other than England, or for the [00:12:00] colonists to buy and sell to each other, unless they paid England a special tax and the crews on the ships were mostly Englishman.
This was illegal before Charles sat on the throne, but people ignored it and Parliament kind of left the colonies alone to do whatever they wanted. So, the law wasn't really enforced until Charles sat as king on the throne.
The Dutch not only had better quality items than England did when it came to selling things to the colonists, they also paid more for the colonists' tobacco. A lot more.
In good times, the colonist preferred to trade with the Dutch. In desperate times, they'd be willing to break the law to trade with the Dutch.
One letter from the Assembly to the king, stated that trade with the Dutch was so much better than it was with England that had the people of Virginia been suffering under a bad governor at that moment, they would certainly have revolted and joined the Netherlands.
This was particularly concerning to England because a year or so after the hurricane, and [00:13:00] just 6 years after the previous war with the Dutch had ended, another war with the Dutch broke out.
But, since Governor Berkeley had not yet become Darth Vader, the people didn't revolt. And the number of Dutch ships from the Netherlands that dared to come close to even try and trade with Virginia was very low.
The Virginia who had managed to illegally trade with the Dutch, were now left with nothing.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the king nearly destroyed Virginia by giving it as a gift to some of his friends. And how life was under Berkeley during his second time as governor.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Virginia was suffering from really low tobacco prices. They had been through several wars with the Dutch and they suffered through a terrible hurricane and a disease that killed off many of their cows and bulls.
Fortunately, this other war with the Dutch eventually ended too. Now, the colonists could get to business dealing with another issue they'd been facing. That was the issue of land that the king had given to some of his buddies. And it wasn't just any land in Virginia. It was all of the land in Virginia, the whole thing.
Originally his father, Charles I had granted only part of Virginia to a bunch of nobleman. But then, Charles was executed by Parliament. Now, fast forward to when Charles II was put on the throne. He renewed the gift of land, but now it wasn't just part of Virginia, it was all of Virginia. And instead of a bunch of noblemen owning it, it was just these 2 guys - Culpeper and Arlington.
These guys would operate kind of like The Virginia Company did. And the Virginia government would have to obey them. And these guys would have to obey the king.
They weren't allowed to do certain things that would break the English law. But otherwise, it was pretty open for whatever these 2 guys wanted to do.
Not only that, it also gave them the right to certain income from the colony. They were entitled to money from colonists that was kind of like rent that people paid for any land their house was on. They not only demanded this money, they also demanded 4 years of back payments from the colonists.
The Virginia government was supposed to be collecting this land rent money all along. [00:02:00] But, they had found that it was too hard and too complicated to do so. Also, people really, really didn't want to pay land rent. So, Virginia hadn't been collecting this money from any of the colonists. And now, these 2 dudes came in like Virginians weren't a fully functioning society on their own. And they demanded Virginia pay them, and pay them years of back rent. The colonists were completely outraged.
If this weren't insane enough to demand of Virginians, another thing that was super terrible about the grant from Charles II was that it required everyone who had been given any land in any area of Virginia to get brand new permission from these 2 guys to keep the land. Imagine. if some other state in America, or province in your country, suddenly told you that you no longer owned your house and that you had to get their buddies' permission if you wanted to keep it.
The 2 men would also inherit any property of people who died without an heir. They [00:03:00] also had the power to divide the land into counties, and choose police. And if any colonists wanted to own land in Virginia and they didn't already, they would have to get permission from these 2 guys first.
The Assembly immediately wrote to England listing the reasons why the document giving these 2 men the rights to Virginia should be canceled. One of the things they said was that any document giving these 2 guys the right to Virginia violated the documents and promises that Virginia already had from the king, giving them freedom from such things.
The kings of the past had always promised them that they wouldn't be under the authority of other Englishman or Virginians, except for the ones in the government. Basically, Virginia had been promised that Virginia would always be between Virginia and the English government, with nobody in between them. These guys would be in between them.
They also said that it would be impossible for colonists to pay back taxes. People simply didn't have the money.
And the part [00:04:00] that allowed these guys to decide who gets what land, could possibly take land that's been long occupied by colonists and give it to someone new. They could change the government that had already been elected in the colony. The whole thing could ruin Virginia.
Governor Berkeley and the Assembly also wrote to one of the men explaining all of these things and humbly begged the men to consider Virginia's reasons for not submitting to them.
There was some back and forth between the 2 men in the Assembly, and it's really quite fascinating, the details about when, on between them. ,But seeing as this is a podcast about the background to the American Revolution and why it happened, we won't go into too much of this here. Just know that it basically ended with the 2 guys giving up their rights to all of Virginia. Except for one small area.
Virginia wanted to buy back that small area from those 2 guys, so they wouldn't own any part of the colony. The men eventually agreed to this.
If the 2 men sold that area [00:05:00] of land back to Virginia, they would get some money from that. If they refused to sell that area of land to Virginia, the people wouldn't pay them anything, and the Assembly wouldn't even acknowledge their right to any payments at all.
The 2 men had no choice, really. Possibly, they could have fought with the Assembly and likely would have won. The king had given them this land. The king loved them. They were favorites of the king. They did have a legal right to the land.
But, luckily for Virginia, the men decided to take the money and give up all claims to Virginia. Sounds good. Deal reached.
The only issue now was that everyone needed permission from the king for the deal to go through.
So, the Assembly wrote to the king. They asked the king to allow them to buy the small area of land from the 2 men. They also asked him to guarantee that he would never again give Virginia land to people. They wanted him to promise the colonists that they would [00:06:00] never answer to anyone other than the King or Queen of England, that in the future, England would have to include a representative from Virginia if it ever wanted to do something that involved Virginia, and just to be sure, they wanted the king to re-promise, as old kings had, that no taxes would be asked to Virginians without the Virginians voting to approve those taxes first.
I'm emphasizing this point because it comes up again, and again, At the center of almost every revolution is one thing - taxes.
Taxes being demanded from the colonists without the permission, or at least having a vote on the taxes, had been an issue since the very first year of settlement in Jamestown.
So, the king did read the letter from the Assembly and his advisors advised him to approve it. The king agreed. And so a new document was written for him to sign, giving Virginia everything they had asked for.
But for some unknown reason, it was [00:07:00] written, but not signed by the king. He did have a lot of other colonies, plus England, to worry about. So, he was probably just busy for a while.
He eventually did sign it, but just before it could be sent back to the colonies where it would give the green light for the deal to go through, Virginia's largest, most explosive rebellion broke out and everything changed.
How did this rebellion come about? Well, there were a lot of things that made people angry at the Virginia government. But, if it had not been for the actions of Governor Berkeley through all of this, the rebellion might not have happened.
When their governor had died, the people of Virginia had pushed, and pushed, and begged Governor Berkeley to come back as their governor when the king was restored on the English throne.
So, you have this hero guy running things back in charge, and the people love him. He's a legend.
But, remember when I said that things get a little dicey and Governor Berkley falls into darkness and becomes a wicked supervillain? [00:08:00] Well, this is where it starts in his second term as the governor of Virginia.
To start, let's look at how we thought about the world. He was a man who was well-known for his ability to govern, to fight, and to defend the rights of the people. But, he didn't really think that people had all the rights that would become normal to have in our world today.
He believed that it was the height of foolishness to allow people to participate in their own government. The king, or queen, should be the one telling everyone what to do and everyone should obey.
Remember, that he grew up as the male version of a lady-in-waiting. He had lived in the palace with the king and attended to his every need. From dressing him to being his best friend, Governor Berkeley was always in support of the king.
At one point, governor Berkeley told the English government that he quote, "Thanks God, there are no free schools, nor printing, in Virginia. And I hope we shall not have these for a hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and [00:09:00] groups. into the world.
He thought that printing had made these disobedient groups known to others, and bad things had been said about his awesome government.
" God keep us from both," he said. Which basically meant that he thought teaching people to read and write had given them a way to disobey and criticize the government. And he hopes that no public schools, or printing, comes anywhere near Virginia for another 100 years. Nice.
This gives us a glimpse into his mind. He may have been a super cool guy, with lots of justice for the people, but he held common beliefs that the people should obey and only say nice things about those who rule over them, like the king, the members of his council, and I don't know, himself.
It helps us understand why a man beloved for his justice would end up turning on the people with such brutality.
Berkeley chose the police, he chose the judges, and he chose the members of the Governor's Council, which was half of the Assembly. He also used the [00:10:00] police that he chose to intimidate voters and return false election results. He made sure that election results were in favor of the people he wanted to serve on the other half of the Assembly. In addition to this,, a lot of the people who served as elected representatives in the Assembly, also at the same time, held positions of power, like police, or in the military, where Governor Berkeley had chosen them for that position and could take them out of that position.
Not only did everyone in power owe their position to Berkeley, Berkeley also gave them money, privileges, and other rewards that bound them to him very closely. In fact, he kept the Assembly just as it was for 15 years, in which there was only 1, maybe 2, elections. This period is known as The Long Assembly.
So, Governor Berkeley controlled everything. The courts, the police, and the Assembly. Nobody dared stand up to him. Nobody dared vote in a [00:11:00] way that would go against his wishes. If they did, they might find themselves out of power, out of money, and later on, at the end of a rope.
A famous rebel leader, Nathaniel Bacon, whom we'll be covering in a future episode, once said quote, "What hope is there of redress and appealing to the very persons our complaints do accuse?"
The people of Virginia had gone from practically self-government during Oliver Cromwell's rule, to having no real voice in the government at all during Berkeley's second term as governor.
So just what kind of ruler was Governor Berkeley when it came to attacks from the natives? How would he respond? And how would he allow others to respond?
Those decisions were a major part of the rebellion to come.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the arrival of the rebellion's leader in America.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars [00:12:00] Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the king had given the entire colony of Virginia to his buddies. The people fought them on this until the men agreed that they wouldn't claim all of Virginia anymore. They would just claim a little part of Virginia.
The colonists wanted to buy that land back from those men. And they needed to raise taxes to do this. They also needed the king to approve this plan in order for it to work. The king did approve the plan, and he signed the document allowing the plan to go through.
He even gave the Virginians extra things they asked for, like the promise to never give away Virginia to anyone else in the future, to always include Virginia in England's plans about Virginia, and he [00:01:00] re-acknowledged the law that said Virginia can't have any taxes taken from it unless the people vote on and allow the tax.
But, before this document promising all those super cool things could be sent to Virginia, a crazy, fiery rebellion broke out, and it wasn't a surprise to anyone when it happened. The rebellion had been bubbling and boiling for a long time.
First, as we discussed in previous episodes, there were the Navigation Acts. Those were laws that were passed by England saying that the colonies couldn't buy or sell anything from anyone other than England.
Eventually, England allowed the colonists to buy and sell from each other, but only if they paid a special tax to England. This obviously caused a lot of problems. People in Virginia had been trading with other countries for a really long time. A ton of immigrants in Virginia had family and businesses in other countries that they traded with.
People tried to trade illegally and some of them got away with [00:02:00] it. The largest country that people illegally traded with was the Netherlands, where the Dutch were. Sadly, there were 3 wars between England and the Dutch, and therefore, they were basically wars between the English colonies and the Dutch. Dutch ships would come in and blast Virginia with guns, cannons, fires, raids, and all sorts of other warlike things. They would also capture Virginia ships headed to England.
Before the wars began, the people in Virginia were living in extreme poverty. The only thing they could do was sell tobacco. They had tried a lot of other things, but could never compete with Europe, and the land in Virginia just wouldn't produce much of anything other than tobacco. So, it was tobacco that the Virginians had to buy and sell in order to make any money. Through 3 separate wars, each lasting for a few years, the people in Virginia couldn't trade with the Dutch. The Virginians were even poorer than before the wars.
So now, you have these poor colonists and they [00:03:00] had to raise taxes in order to buy this land back from the king's friends. At least they had his permission to do it. Great. We did it. Yay.
Except now that we got our way and there's 2 guys agreed to leave and give up all the claims to Virginia, the people actually had to pay up.
Keep in mind, the price of tobacco was so low that even the hardest working farmer in the colony could barely afford to live.
Now, they had to pay more taxes. For land that was already part of the colony until the king decided to give it away to his friends.
On top of that, there was still the problem of the forts and protective buildings along the rivers and edges of town. The people in Virginia had paid tons of money for these forts around the towns and the rivers, and they were literally crumbling apart. They were terribly made and completely useless at defending the towns from attack. Once again, complaints swirled around these issues. People felt that the government was squeezing them dry for nothing in [00:04:00] return.
Governor Berkeley said that the high taxes that the people had to pay in order to buy this land back from those 2 guys was so hated by the people, that it made the people ripe for mutiny.
Fortunately, people did have the ability to feed themselves. And that's quite remarkable because normally, in really hard times throughout history, people who were poor starved to death. But in Virginia, people grew their own food. Not enough to sell to other countries, but enough to feed themselves comfortably.
So, back to some of the issues they were facing. The Navigation Acts made it so they could only sell to England. Some people broke the law, but most people weren't able to find ways of illegally getting things out of the colony. So, the English ships came in, paid next to nothing for the tobacco, because they could, and then they didn't even buy all the tobacco that farmers had to sell. The people in England didn't smoke as much tobacco as the Virginians grew. So, the merchants didn't want to buy it all. And this is part of what made everybody [00:05:00] really poor.
On top of that, English ships coming in with clothes and other things that the colonists needed day-to-day, would charge 2 to 3 times as much as they did before the Navigation Acts. I mean, they could, right? Who else were the colonists going to get their shirts and soaps from? Nobody.
Even though the colonists complained to England and had suffered for almost 2 decades under the Navigation Acts, it wasn't what drove them to rebellion.
In a previous episode, we talked about how the Assembly was taxing the people for far more than what was voted on. The Assembly themselves had been sending complaints for decades over to England, stating that taxing people without the people approving the tax by a vote was illegal, and intolerable, and it wouldn't be allowed. Yet, here they were, adding taxes to things that were not voted on by the people in Virginia.
And the things that were voted on, like building a city around Jamestown and building protective forts around the rivers and edges of town to stop invaders, were being [00:06:00] done in such a poor condition that the buildings often fell down before they were even completed. Or, they were so badly built that nobody could live in them.
There'd been a war with the Dutch and the Dutch had wiped the floor with Virginia's forts. These forts were useless. The buildings in Jamestown that were meant to turn it into a city were useless as well. But, the people had paid for them with extremely high taxes. People also had to pay taxes that went towards public buildings, like courthouses, jails, police, and other things needed to run a town.
On top of that, as we discussed in a previous episode, the Assembly members would shut the doors to the Assembly. And in secret, they would decide how much money to tax the people. The people were furious. They were in a rage about it. They were absolutely convinced that taxes did nothing other than making Governor Berkeley's favorite people rich. The leader of the rebellion had called them quote, "vile, juggling parasites".
Remember, [00:07:00] also that Governor Berkeley controlled at all. He selected half of the Assembly right off the bat. He was allowed to do that. That was the Governor's Council. As for the other half of the Assembly, the half that was elected, he made sure that his police officers, whom he also chose, counted the votes the way he wanted them counted. Then, when the people he wanted elected were elected, he gave them lavish gifts of land, money, and privileges that regular members of society didn't get. So, the council that he chose for the Assembly and the elected members he chose for the Assembly, always voted on things the way Governor Berkeley wanted them to.
But, the Navigation Acts, the Assembly voting in secret, the crumbling buildings, the high taxes, the poverty, the complete lack of a real voice in their government - a ll of it. Still didn't lead anyone to rebellion. At least, not the major one that was coming.
There were 2 small rebellions and part of Virginia in 1674. [00:08:00] One of them, was in an area that was mostly populated by Dutch settlers. The intense dissatisfaction there were taxes and with the law stating they couldn't trade with their Dutch kinsmen anymore, made the situation incredibly tense. And it wasn't just the Dutch settlers in Virginia that were angry about this. Almost the entire colony of Virginia had done better when they were allowed to trade with the Dutch.
Governor Berkeley was absolutely terrified that the people would revolt and join the Dutch against the British. Others in Virginia's upper class were equally afraid of this.
So, there was a small rebellion in that Dutch part of Virginia, but it didn't amount to much. And the other small rebellion that year, was caused by rumors about the taxes being paid to buy back the area of Virginia from those 2 guys. The rumors going around stated that the tax money for this wasn't actually being used to buy Virginia back. Instead, the rumors said that it was going directly into the bank accounts of a few rich men who were using the people to make themselves richer. [00:09:00]
Maybe this was true. Maybe not. But what's for certain, was that when these new high taxes were announced for the year to buy that area of Virginia back, the people thought that this was going towards the upper-class just to make them richer. So, there was this second small rebellion in one area of Virginia. And it was promptly squashed by the governor.
One of the reasons it failed was that they didn't have a leader to really take them over the edge from a small rebellion, to a full-on rebellion that could spread from place to place. So, the poor, angry people waited. And waited. They waited until one day a leader did come to them. His name was Nathaniel Bacon.
Nathaniel Bacon had come to Virginia from England, where his family was pretty well-off. His family was doing well in the colonies too. In fact, his cousin, also named Nathaniel Bacon, was a member of the Virginia Assembly. And we all know how well those guys did financially.
Nathaniel [00:10:00] Bacon was 29-years-old. He had a head full of black hair and was on the thinner side. He had a reputation as a smart man, who was thoughtful and logical. But, his attitude could turn sour at a moment's notice. He was highly persuasive, especially anytime it came to public speaking. He was also, as we'll find out, an incredibly talented military leader.
When he came to Virginia in 1674, he was welcomed with open arms by Governor Berkeley. Bacon was related to Governor Berkeley's wife, through a somewhat complicated marriage-blood-marriage situation. And seeing as his cousin, the other Nathaniel Bacon, was already a favorite of Governor Berkeley, and served in the Assembly, this Nathaniel Bacon, the one who would become the rebel leader, was picked by Governor Berkeley himself to sit as a member of the Assembly on the Governor's Council.
As we discussed in a previous episode, Governor Berkeley owned land. Tons of it. So much that he kind [00:11:00] of owned the beaver trade in Virginia. The beaver trade was basically taking beaver skins and making fancy hats and coats out of them. It was all the rage in Europe and people paid top dollar for it.
People in the American colonies would either own land where beavers could be found, or they rented land where beavers could be found. And Governor Berkeley had some sweet money pouring in from rent that people paid to hunt beavers on his land.
Bacon was one of those people. He worked for a man who rented land from Governor Berkeley. Both Bacon and the other man, owed Berkeley a certain amount of beaver skins each year. This was something around 800 pounds of beaver skins per year. That's a lot of beavers. This was on top of the beavers Bacon had to kill to make his own money from selling them.
Even though Bacon had to give money, or beavers, to Governor Berkeley, this didn't cause a lot of problems between them. The problem started when Bacon realized he didn't like the incompetent government officials. He [00:12:00] didn't like the injustices he saw. He didn't like the high taxes. And he didn't like that people didn't really have a voice in their government, even though he was part of that government.
Bacon wasn't one to keep these dislikes to himself. He voiced them. And soon, Governor Berkeley became less, and less, happy with his distant relative.
Tensions simmered for a while. And, surprisingly, Berkeley allowed Bacon to remain in the Assembly without retaliation for his criticisms. After all, Berkeley was still Mr. Hero. Mr. Good guy.
The things to come had, not yet changed him.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the tensions did explode into a war between the 2 men, and the incident that ignited at all.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the man who would lead the coming rebellion had arrived in Virginia. He was a distant relative of Governor Berkeley's and he sat as a member in the Assembly, where he had been chosen by the governor himself as a member of the Governor's Council.
His name was Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon criticized the government from time to time about its high taxes, it's members who didn't do their jobs very well, and about how the governor controlled everything, basically leaving the people without a real voice in their government.
If the tensions between the colonists and the government weren't enough to kick off a rebellion, then maybe sprinkling a little bit of an omen in there would help. In the summer of the year before the [00:01:00] rebellion, a great comment streaked through the sky for a week, leaving a spooky horsetail behind it. Then, tens of thousands of pigeons blotted out the sky. As far as the eye could see pigeons everywhere. They swept into the trees and wherever they sat, tree limbs would break and crash to the ground. That's enough to freak anyone out and put people on edge. But, there was more.
Along with the comment trailing through the sky and the clouds of endless pigeons, millions of bugs, known as cicadas, who as those in the south will know, are extremely loud, swarmed over the grasses and trees of Virginia. They ate everything in their path and then simply disappeared. Did I mentioned the word spooky or omen or disgusting yet?
The strange thing about all of this, the thing that really spooked people out, was that the last time this had happened, the natives had massacred entire villages and towns of people in 1644. It was [00:02:00] indeed an omen. And don't forget the floods and the massive hurricane that came just a year or so before this. It's enough to make anyone believe the world was coming to an end. Or, that something terrible was about to happen. And happen, it did.
One Sunday morning during that same summer, a group of people were headed to church. They passed a house and stopped in shock at what they saw on the doorstep. A man, bloodied and near death, lay across the threshold. A native man lay just outside the house, dead on the ground with wounds from a hatchet to his head and to his arms. They ran to the man at the doorstep to see if there was anything they could do to save him. He, also had wounds from a hatchet to his head and to his arms.
He was too far gone for anyone to save. So, they asked him who had done this to him. Just before he died, he breathed the name, "Doegs. Doegs." The Doegs were native tribe that lived nearby. So, everyone knew what he meant. [00:03:00]
And just ,then a little boy came up from underneath the bed, inside the house where he had been hiding during the massacre. The people asked him what had happened and the boy confirmed that it was the natives who had come to their house and attacked them.
Up until this point, Virginia had been at peace with the natives for many years. There've been multiple massacres committed by the natives before this. One in 1622 and one in 1644. Both came as a surprise to the Virginians who had lived in peace with the natives for over a decade each time. Each time, they had literally welcomed the natives into their homes.
Some of the natives had even been eating breakfast at the colonist's table, when they suddenly rose to attack and butcher entire families, including infants. This memory still lived vibrantly in the minds of the Virginians. It wasn't that long ago.
Many of the colonists themselves had lived through it. Others had parents and grandparents who had lived through it. This was only 35 years after the last massacre.[00:04:00]
If we're to look at why it happened, we need only to look at the relationship between Maryland, which is right above Virginia, and some of their own natives who moved closer to Virginia.
There was a tribe called the Susquehannock. The Susko Haneke lived in Maryland for a very long time. And they were at war for a very long time with the colonists in Maryland, and with the Iroquois. The Iroquois were going crazy on the Susquehannock. Totally decimating them. And the Susquehannock were so desperate that they decided to make peace with the Maryland colonists in order to make it so they didn't have to worry about the colonists in Maryland attacking them anymore.
Part of this agreement to make peace, was that the Susquehannock would give up claims to some of the land in Maryland. The Susquehannock weren't teaming up with a colonists just yet. They were only making it so that the colonists would stop attacking them. This made it so they could focus on fighting the Iroquois.
But eventually, the Susquehannock suffered a major attack from another tribe. And now, they wanted the [00:05:00] colonists in Maryland to fight by their sight and beat the tribe's enemies.
Maryland agreed to fight alongside the Susquehannock. This agreement was great for both the Susquehannock and Maryland.
However, the colonists in Maryland also made an agreement with some of the enemies of the Susquehannock. Seriously guys? That's messed up.
The enemy tribe attacked the Susquehannock and defeated them, badly. The Susquehannock fled their villages.
Maryland wanted them to settle in one spot, and the Susquehannock wanted to settle somewhere else. Closer to Virginia. 40 miles closer to Virginia. Right on the Potomac River. This is where the whole trouble with the Doegs started.
The Doeg tribe actually lived with the Susquehannock, here in this spot by Virginia.
Before this, the Doegs had committed a bunch of murders in Virginia, and had been pushed out of the areas where the colonists lived and driven to the same spot that the Susquehannock now lived. And this is where [00:06:00] the two tribes live together. So for all appearances, they were the same tribe. This is where it gets a little dicey.
The Susquehannock were safe from the slaughters of their enemy tribes, but they had no space to plant corn or other food. The land around the place they chose was now owned by the colonists. The Susquehannock could catch fish, but this wasn't enough to keep the tribe alive.
So, they began going onto land owned by the colonists and stealing the colonists' food. They also killed the colonists' dogs, cattle, and other animals. This became a known thing to the colonists in the area.
It hadn't been that long before this, that the English colonists themselves arrived to Virginia and went out on Powhatan land to hunt and the natives there had killed them for it. It was completely understandable that the Susquehannock would go onto English land to hunt.
However, instead of just stealing food and killing animals to survive, the raids on English land eventually [00:07:00] escalated into murders of English people. Like the stealing of food, the murders committed by the Susquehannock became a known thing to the people in the area as well.
So, while the man who had been murdered on his doorstep said that it was the Doegs who had murdered him, it's possible that it was the Doegs. And it's also possible that he may have been mistaken and it was the Susquehannock.
Either way, it was on. The colonists were going to retaliate. The people were frightened. Who knows when the next attack could occur? They had to protect themselves. Something had to be done.
The colonists immediately gathered arms and set out to find and kill the attackers. A group of 36 men came together and, like something out of an epic poem, they crossed the river into Maryland at dawn.
They plunged into the woods, pursuing the tracks of the Doegs.
At one point, they came across a trail that split in 2 directions. So, half of the group went one way and the other half went [00:08:00] the other way.
As fate would have it, both halves found a cabin full of natives. One half found a cabin full of the Doegs they were looking for. The other half found a cabin full of Susquehannock. The group who found the Susko Haneke believed that these were the Doegs.
So, we're going to start with the group that found the Doegs. The group that had found the Doegs made themselves known to those inside. When the king of the Doegs came out, he seemed frightened and like he wanted to run. But, the leader of the group grabbed him by the hair and demanded that he deliver the people in his tribe who had committed the murder of the man found on his doorstep.
The Doeg king claimed that he had no idea what the colonists were talking about. Then, he slipped loose from the hold on his hair. Before he could get far, the leader of the colonist group shot the king dead.
Not only was this unjust, it was a terrible mistake. The Doegs inside the cabin immediately opened fire on the colonists. The colonists returned fire and killed [00:09:00] 10 of them.
All of these gunshots happened to awake the Susquehannock in the cabin that was surrounded by the other half of the group. The Susquehannock, however, didn't fire on the colonists. Instead, they ran. And the colonists fired on them as they fled. This group killed 14 of the Susquehannock.
While the Susquehannock had been committing murders and robbery against the colonists all along, the colonists didn't know what those inside the cabin had ever been guilty of it. The colonists had murdered them instead of finding out if they had been guilty.It's entirely possible that they were as innocent as the colonists who had been murdered. Maybe they were guilty.
Either way, it was unjust and it was a huge mistake. In fact, the leader of this group quickly realized that the cabin was full of Susquehannock, and not Doeg. He immediately shouted to his men, "For the Lord's sake. Shoot no more. These are our friends, the Susquehannock. But it was too late. 14 of them had been shot. [00:10:00]
In retaliation, the Susquehannock began a series of murderous raids in Virginia and in Maryland. So, Virginia and Maryland joined together to fight the Susquehannock. Together, they went after the tribe with nearly 1,000 men. And they found them on a patch of land in a swamp.
The Susquehannock had no chance of beating the colonists in open battle. So, they withdrew to their village and were protected by a special kind of wall.
The Marylanders themselves had taught the Susquehannock how to strengthen their village against attack. And it was both Maryland and Virginia who had given the Susquehannock guns. If they had not given them guns, or taught them how to protect their village, it would have been very easy to overtake them. But not now.
The colonists had no equipment that could knock down or break the walls. And remember, they were in a giant swamp. The village was built on a small patch of land, but the ground around it sink when stepped on. It was impossible to dig a trench or move across it, to get the men [00:11:00] close enough to attack the walls.
So, the colonists decided that the only real way to get to the Susquehannock would be to wait and starve them out. They also set up men around the river outside the swamp so that the natives couldn't escape that way.
However, one of the leaders among the colonists got an idea. He invited the leaders inside the protected village to come out for a parlay. Which is a chat that's normally protected under the rules of war.
The native leaders came out where the man who invited them, accused them of some of the recent murders committed in Maryland. The native leaders claimed that it wasn't them. It was another tribe - the Senecas who had committed the murders.
This, was an obvious lie. The Susquehannock themselves, right in front of the colonists here, were wearing the clothes of those who had been murdered.
On top of that, their canoes had been seen loaded with beef from freshly killed cows. They were guilty.
One of the native leaders realized that they'd been caught. So, he was like, "Hey, uh, here's a medal and [00:12:00] a piece of paper from that guy, Lord Baltimore, who owns Maryland. The paper and the medal from him say that were under his protection. So, you can't really do anything to us."
Despite this, and despite the fact that the native leaders had come out from their protected village to parlay, and were therefore, under parlay protection, the leader of the colonists who would invited them out, ordered his men to murder the native leaders. And they did.
The natives inside the village immediately responded to this barbaric act by firing on the colonists. They inflicted enough damage on the colonists that they were able to run out and grab horses, which they took inside the village and used as food. The colonists fired back and the natives fired back again. And the whole thing lasted around 7 weeks.
Finally, after those 7 weeks, in the middle of the night, the natives burst from the village in a surprise attack. They killed many of the colonists while they slept and escaped into the dark with their women and children.
When word reached Governor Berkeley, that the [00:13:00] Maryland leader had invited the natives to parlay and then had murdered them, he was enraged. The man who had ordered the native leaders to be murdered, was removed from Maryland's military, fined, and imprisoned.
And Governor Berkeley was right to be furious. Despite the fact that the colonist responsible for this event had been punished, the damage was already done.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week, when we discuss how the people pleaded with Governor Berkeley, for permission to go and hunt down those who continued the attacks, and how the governor's refusal to allow this resulted in a rebellion.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly podcast where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross, and today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution, with a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the people of Virginia had been dealing with the natives who had been stealing from their farms and murdering the families inside. A tribe called the Susquehannock had been forced out of their land in Maryland by an enemy tribe. And when they resettled closer to Virginia, they had done so right on the edge of some of the towns.
The place they had settled, didn't have enough space to grow or hunt food. So they started stealing from the farms of the colonists. The murders of the people inside the farms began soon after that. This became a well-known thing among the Virginia colonists.
When a man was found murdered on his doorstep one morning, the people [00:01:00] had had enough. Small groups of citizens headed out to chase down the murderers. They found those whom they believed to be guilty, a battle broke out, and some of the natives who were killed were Susquehannock, who were at the time, a friendly tribe of the colonists'.
Even though the Susquehannock were a friendly tribe, it does seem that they had at least some part in the murders. The tribe's members were literally wearing the clothes of the murder victims and their canoes had been seen loaded with food from the colonists' farms. So, they were guilty.
Some of the people the colonists killed in this battle were probably innocent. Either way, this caused the Susquehannock to end the friendship with the colony and they began a series of murderous raids on the colonists.
So, now you have the Englishman who had slaughtered innocent people. And, like the Englishman, the Susquehannock were filled with rage and wouldn't let this stand. And, like the Englishman, they retaliated. They began their own series of attacks on [00:02:00] further innocent people up and down the farms of Virginia. But, unlike the Englishman, these attacks on innocent victims were deliberate, intentional, and caused the already bubbling tensions to come to a boiling point.
The Susquehannock joined other native tribes that hated the English and together they murdered entire families around the colony in a series of slaughters that lasted for months. In the first few days, the native raiders had killed 60 people, including children.
Some of their victims had been kept alive, only to be brought back as prisoners to the native villages, where they suffered unimaginable tortures. Some were burned alive. Some had their nails ripped out of their fingers. And some of the colonists had their guts sliced open and were made to run around a tree in circles until they died an agonizing death. Other tortures awaited them that could barely be imagined.
The terrified Virginia citizens fled from their homes, [00:03:00] leaving everything behind in search of a more populated town where they were more likely to be protected. Others joined larger farms and put up protective walls around them.
Governor Berkeley knew that the relationship between the Virginia citizens and the natives was his responsibility. If issues came up between the colonists and the tribes, everyone would be looking to him to solve it.
Even so, he didn't act on these attacks right away. And here's where the trouble begins for him. Governor Berkeley said that the colony should wait until the Assembly could get together and decide what to do. Seems reasonable. The people would be able to voice their opinions about what was to be done in response to the attacks. But, remember that Berkeley controlled the Assembly. They would do whatever he wanted them to do. There wasn't much point in waiting. Plus, there might be another attack before then.
Even so, Governor Berkeley did wait. He [00:04:00] called the Assembly together and, seeing as they lived so far away from each other, it took several weeks for them all to meet up.
When the Assembly was all nice and gathered, Governor Berkeley told them that war should be declared on the tribes who had been attacking them. The Assembly agreed. And the governor proceeded to have 500 men with horses assemble to go out against the natives. At the head of this 500-man army was a man well-experienced in battle. His name was Henry Chicheley. Yes, the same Henry Chicheley that would become Governor of Virginia. We'll get to that later.
For now, Chicheley was in front of the 500-man army and their horses, and they were all ready to go. But, for some unknown reason, Governor Berkeley came out and told them to stop. Nevermind. Everyone go home. We're not attacking any natives.
This has baffled historians for centuries. While we don't know an exact reason, we can piece together some of the possible explanations for this sudden [00:05:00] change of plan.
One reason is that he may have been worried that the men wouldn't be able to tell the difference between friendly and unfriendly natives. If this 500-man army attacked a friendly tribe, the entire situation could spiral into something far worse than it already was.
Another possible reason was in the letters he had written to England. In the letters he had stated that he was worried there might be a rebellion among Virginia's population. The people were unhappy with his lack of leadership in the situation and the people serving in Virginia's military might mutiny against orders they didn't like.
A third reason might be that Governor Berkeley owned most of the beaver hunting lands in Virginia. Owning beaver land was the tops of what any land owner, or businessmen, could hope to participate in. Berkeley was extremely wealthy. And part of his wealth came from these beaver lands. Hunters paid him permission to hunt on his land. Any war would scare away, not only the beavers in the area, [00:06:00] but also the beaver hunters. This would mean less people paying him money each month. At one point, it was said that Governor Berkeley was determined that quote, "No bullets would pierce beaver skins."
A fourth, more compelling, reason was that there was a friendly tribe in the area known as the Pamunkeys. Berkeley had plans to use them as spies and allies in the war. If soldiers marched out in the area, they might attack the Pamunkeys or scare them off. And he didn't want to risk this.
Whatever the reason, or reasons, he called the whole thing off and declared that all the people needed to protect themselves were the forts that had been built around the towns and rivers.
In a previous episode, we discussed how these forts were usually nothing more than dirt and mud. They were often so poorly built that they would sometimes crumble before they could even be used. The people had been paying excessively high taxes to build them and had accused the Assembly members of keeping a lot of the money for themselves, and [00:07:00] only paying for poor materials and poor work to complete them.
This had caused enormous tension between the people and the government. On top of that, the forts hadn't done much to protect them during the Dutch wars. The people knew that the forts might as well be made out of paper. But, here's their governor telling them, "Hey, remember those totally useless buildings you guys paid for? Why doesn't everyone just use those?"
He was leaving the people completely unprotected. The natives slipped in between the forts and committed atrocities in the towns inside. They burned, murdered, and plundered wherever they went. Some were kept alive and led off to be tortured to death. It even seemed that the town's very inability to defend themselves emboldened the natives and increased the attacks. More murders were happening than ever before.
The people cried out that if the governor wouldn't send a force of men to stop the attacks, the townsfolk themselves would go out and do it. Some proclaimed that they [00:08:00] would no longer plant tobacco. Tobacco was used to pay taxes and the taxes were going towards building and maintaining these terrible forts. If they didn't grow tobacco, the government wouldn't have the money for the forts. To this, the governor said that if anyone stopped growing tobacco to avoid paying taxes, he would send men to their houses to confiscate their beds and cows to pay for it.
From all around the colony, the people cried out for protection. They asked the governor to forget the forts and send out a large body of men to stop these attacks. Letter after letter flooded into the governor's office, begging him for help. They said that the people themselves had the weapons and the readiness to go out and find the murderers. They declared themselves as the governor's subjects. So, all they needed was his permission.
But, the governor refused them. He went a step further and called them fools and told them that they weren't his subjects. They were the king's subjects. He cursed [00:09:00] them by saying, " A pox take you," and forbade them from ever asking him for this permission again. Anyone who did ask for this permission would be punished.
Their own government was so hostile to them and their own lives were at such risk, that the only thing to be done was to rise up in their own defense.
At this precise time, a group of natives had been spotted off the shores of the James River. The closest town was Charles City. And the people in Charles City began to arm themselves in panic and preparation for another brutal attack. Groups of men dashed from place to place, beating the drum of war, and gathering up volunteers.
Soon, a large body of men had gathered in the town. They had weapons, they had determination. All they needed was a leader.
This, they found in Nathaniel Bacon. Nathaniel Bacon was a young man, now in his early thirties. Even though he was young, he was still looked up to as a member [00:10:00] of the upper class society. He was a member of the Governor's Council, he was distantly related to the governor, and he was well-educated.
Bacon had been renting land from Governor Berkeley in order to hunt beavers. Because of the blood relation, being on the council, and paying the governor money every month, Nathaniel Bacon was friendly with the governor. Perhaps the governor. would listen to him. Perhaps Bacon's education gave him knowledge on how to do battle. But, most importantly, Beacon was a great speaker. He captured the attention of anyone who listened, and he was very easily able to persuade people to do things.
On top of all of that, he had a personal reason for fighting this fight. The natives had attacked his home in Virginia, plundered his belongings, and murdered the man whom bacon had been working for. Bacon himself was furious with the governor's inaction on defending the people from attack. He was the perfect leader.
Some of his friends had [00:11:00] suggested him as the leader. And the rebel army was willing to have him. But Bacon was not so ready to accept the position. Even so, his friends convinced him to row across the river and meet up with the rebel army. Bacon agreed and off they went to Charles City.
When they got there, the men cried out in celebration, "A Bacon! A Bacon! A Bacon!" and declared him as their leader.
Bacon could hardly resist. As he stood before them, he denounced the government as nothing more than a bunch of negligent traitors, incapable of performing the office which they serve. He instantly became the people's hero and was seen as the only person who could save their lives and their fortunes.
Bacon promised that if the governor ordered them to disband, they would march out anyways. The men drank to the damnation of their souls and gathered around him in a huge circle. One-by-one, each of them took an oath of loyalty. Bacon's rebellion had officially begun.
In the [00:12:00] newly formed army, their first action was to march 6 hours away to the town of New Kent. Before they left, Bacon wrote to Governor Berkeley informing him of what was happening. In the letter, he assured the governor that they were only acting in self-defense and for the country's safety. He had no intentions of overthrowing the governor and he even enclosed a payment of money that he owed to Governor Berkeley. He sent the letter off, and without waiting for a reply, he marched towards New Kent with his rebel army behind him.
When they got there, they found that the people in New Kent were ripe for rebellion and ready to join their army. Together, the men of Charles City and New Kent headed out to find the murderers.
When Governor Berkeley received the news of these actions, he was furious. Only the governor could send people to battle. And only the governor could declare when, and where, it would happen. This was a clear act of mutiny.
On top of [00:13:00] that, remember the friendly tribe - the Pamunkeys - that Governor berkley wanted to use as allies and spies in the war with the natives? Well, as Bacon and his men marched to New Kent, they crossed right into Pamunkey territory. The Pamunkeys had seen the approaching army and had fled in fear. Now, they were nowhere to be found. And if they were found, they would be less likely to help them in the war.
Governor Berkeley couldn't let this stand. He had to respond with appropriate force to stop the rebellion before it spread to other parts of the colony.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the governor was finally able to stop the rebel army, only temporarily, and how he was forced to hold new elections in the Assembly.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly podcast where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross, and today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution, with a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the people of Virginia had had enough of being attacked by the natives. Their governor, Governor Berkeley, wasn't doing anything about it. He had assembled a force of 500 men and horses to go out and attack the tribe that had been raiding the farms around Virginia. But, at the last moment, he disbanded the men and told them to go home.
The people went to the governor and begged for permission to go out and attack the natives themselves. The governor refused to listen to these requests, cursed at them, and declared that if anyone came to him with any more requests like this, they would be punished.
It wasn't long before a group of natives lined up on the river banks by Charles City, Virginia. When the people of Charles City got wind of this, they immediately gathered with arms at the ready to defend themselves. All they needed was someone to lead them.
Nathaniel Bacon was a young man who had come to Virginia from England with the hopes of making money for his family. He did this by hunting beavers and selling them. Beavers sold for a lot of money at the time, so it wasn't really a bad idea. To get the beavers, he did what most men did - he rented beaver land.
Governor Berkeley himself owned almost all of the beaver land in Virginia. So, Nathaniel Bacon paid him a monthly fee to hunt on his land. This made him friendly with the governor and perhaps someone the governor might listen to. In addition to this, he was well-educated, very good at public speaking, and he was distantly related to the governor's wife. The governor had also placed him on the Governor's Council.
His friends had proposed his name to the group of men gathered [00:02:00] in Charles City. The men agreed to meet with Bacon. And Bacon's friends, with the little push, were able to convince him to row across the river and talk with the men. Once he got there, the men gathered around him cheering, "A Bacon! A Bacon! A Bacon!" And declared him as their leader.
He accepted the role and began a speech, in which he promised that if the governor told them to disband, they would disobey and march out against the natives anyways.
Their first task was to head to the next town over - New Kent, which was about a 6-hour march. Before they left, Bacon wrote a letter to the governor informing him of what they were doing and assuring him that they had no intention of overthrowing the government. They just wanted to defend themselves. In addition, he enclosed a payment for the land rent he owed to the governor.
Bacon's own home had been raided and the person he worked for had been murdered by the natives. So, this was just as personal for him as it was for the men who marched with him.
On their [00:03:00] way to New Kent, they passed through friendly native territory. This was the territory of the Pamunkeys. Governor Berkeley had hoped to use the Pamunkeys as spies and allies in the war. And he was furious when he learned that not only were these men acting in mutiny against him, they had also driven the Pamunkeys off their territory. The Pamunkeys had fled at the sight of the rebel army.
Then, he learned that the men of New Ken had joined Bacon's army and together they were marching out to find the murdering tribe.
In the letter that Bacon had written to the governor, he asked for one thing - official permission. That was it. They truly didn't want to act against the governor. They wanted to act within the law and within his permission. The governor, fuming with rage at this disobedient army going around, mucking up all the governor's plans for the war, refused to give this permission. Instead, he issued a proclamation declaring [00:04:00] Bacon and his men rebels. He offered to pardon any who would lay down their weapons and return home.
The rebels, in turn, refused to lay down their arms. They asked whether they should return passively to their homes to be slaughtered by the natives.
The governor had given them no choice. The natives were coming. And they had to protect themselves. They cried out that they preferred to die in battle than be sneakily murdered in their beds. They said that if they lie still, they are destroyed. If they defend themselves, they were called rebels and traitors. And that if they must be hanged for killing those who would destroy them, then let them be hanged. That would be far better than to lie at the mercy of their quote, "barbarous enemies."
So, the rebel army continued on and plunged into the forest where the Susquehannock had traveled. When Governor Berkeley heard that the rebels had refused him, he decided to take stronger action. He gathered a group of 300 men on horseback to [00:05:00] pursue the rebels, and off they went to stop them. But, when they got to the James River, they realized that Bacon and his men were far away. So, he decided to turn his men around and return to Jamestown where he would wait for Bacon to return.
A few days later, he issued another proclamation declaring Bacon and his men rebels. Again, he offered to pardon any man who would return to his home. The rebellion was spreading. People in multiple towns all across Virginia were arming themselves. The people overwhelmingly supported Bacon. The governor hoped the rebels would accept his pardon and the rebellion would be stopped.
In the meantime, he kicked Bacon off of the Governor's Council and seized his home and all of his belongings. Bacon's own father declared that he would no longer pay any of Bacon's debts. Nathaniel Bacon was already paying for his act of rebellion.
As they marched deeper into the woods, food became scarce, and shelter was [00:06:00] desperately needed. They found groups of natives along the way, but nearly all of them were unwilling to help. Most likely, they didn't want to be seen as an ally of either the Susquehannock or of Bacon's army. Bacon had been counting on the help of these tribes who had historically been allies with the English. But ,without their help, the men began to grow hungrier by the day. The rebel army was facing starvation.
Now comes apart where the rebels meet their battle. But it wasn't with whom they had expected.
Deep in the forest, they had come across a tribe called the Occaneechi. The Susquehannock, whom they had been pursuing, had come across the Occaneechi before Bacon and his men had arrived. The Occaneechi welcomed Bacon with open arms. When Bacon inquired about the Susquehannock, the Occaneechi king told him what had happened.
The Occaneechi had also welcomed the Susquehannock with open arms. And together, they shared food and shelter, and built 2 forts around the Occaneechi [00:07:00] village. After the forts were built, the Susquehannock turned on them, and began to attack the Occaneechi. They began efforts to force the Occaneechi off of their own land so that they could have the forts and the village to themselves. A fight ensued. And the Susquehannock eventually fled and the Occaneechi kept their land.
Now, as Bacon's army arrived, he found the Occaneechi in the midst of preparing for battle against the Susquehannock. Bacon and his men wanted to join them. They had the same enemy. But, the Occaneechi were afraid that Bacon's men would ruin the element of surprise attack the Occaneechi had planned. They insisted that the Englishman stay in the village.
Plus, the Occaneechi had been able to contact some of the slaves and captives that the Susquehannock had taken during the raids on other tribes. These captives were more than willing to rise up and help the Occaneechi defeat the Susquehannock when they attacked. It was all planned. Everything was going to be [00:08:00] fine. They didn't want any unexpected changes to this plan. So, they fed and sheltered the starving rebel army while the warriors went out to battle.
The battle was successful. And before long, the Occaneechi returned with their own captives - Susquehannocks that have been kept alive. The Occaneechi king asked Bacon and his men to execute the Susquehannock, but Bacon refused to do so. Even though some of the army, no doubt wished to murder all of the Susquehannock, and there were many times when the English did murder other natives, it wasn't unusual to stop the execution of an enemy in order to put them on trial. And this is what Bacon wanted to do.
He had already seen how wild murders had resulted in more war. And the colonists deserved closure by seeing justice done to those who were actually guilty of the murders. The Occaneechi, in turn, refused Bacon's request for a trial and the Occaneechi began the custom of torturing their enemies to death.
[00:09:00] Now that everything was settled, it should all be fine, right? Their enemy was defeated. Nobody was in danger any longer. What issue could there be?
Well, the issue first came in the form of withholding food. It wasn't long before the Occaneechi king began to do to the Englishman what the Susquehannock had done to them - they turned on them.
At first, it was the Occaneechi king deciding to withhold the food he had promised to the English. This was promised to them so they would have enough food to return home. Bacon and his men insisted they be given the promised food, but the Occaneechi king returned to the village and refused to speak with them anymore.
On top of that, the Occaneechi king began to line the riverbanks and the protective walls of the village with armed warriors. If Bacon in his army left to return home, they would likely starve on the way. If they stayed, they would be attacked. And without food, they would start here as [00:10:00] well.
Some of the Occaneechi in the houses outside of the village saw that a fight was inevitable. They ran from their houses towards the village, but Bacon and his men stopped them from entering. They would not allow more people into a position to fight them from behind the walls. And they would have the added protection of the Occaneechi not wanting to kill any tribe members who were around the rebel army.
Perhaps this was enough to open a negotiation with the Occaneechi. If they would just give them the food they had promised, the rebel army would be on their way back to their homes in the Virginia towns. But, it didn't turn out this way.
From across the river, one of the warriors shot into the crowd of Englishman and one of the rebels fell down dead. The time for patience was over. Bacon ordered an immediate attack on everyone and everything.
The rebels fired on the village, while others ran up to the houses outside the village and fired inside. In [00:11:00] this, Bacon's men murdered innocent women, children, and men. Many of them fled from their houses only to be butchered when they reached outside.
Fire was set to one of the 2 parts of the village. Only 3 or 4 of the Occaneechi escaped the flames. Among the victims where the wife and children of the Occaneechi king. The Occaneechi king, himself, was not inside with them. And so he was still alive.
The next day, the fighting continued. There were several times when the Occaneechi left the village to hide behind trees and fire on the English from there. But, Bacon and his men were well-accustomed to this style of fighting and knew how to hide themselves so as not to be hit.
In addition to this, they knew how to hit their own targets during this style of fighting, and were able to kill most of the Occaneechi who were behind the trees.
Finally, the Occaneechi made one last attempt to kill the English. The Occaneechi king rushed out with 20 of his warriors [00:12:00] and surrounded the Englishman in a wide circle, raving and shooting at them as best as they could. But, they were unsuccessful in this too.
The Occaneechi king, and most of his warriors, were killed. Of the 20, only 7 escaped. They fled from the fight. And the rest of the Occaneechi in the village gathered their wives and children and fled as well.
Bacon and his men didn't chase after them. Instead, they went into the village where they gathered food and supplies and turned their horses to the river. Back to the way of home.
Let's head back to Jamestown for a minute. While all of this was happening, Governor Berkeley had called together his council and asked them what the people wanted. What should he do, you know, other than allowing them to defend themselves, to make them happy?
The council told him that the people wanted a new Assembly to be elected. Calls for new elections were coming in from all over the colony. Long had it been that the people considered the [00:13:00] Assembly as nothing more than an extension of the governor. He controlled who was on the Governor's Council side of the Assembly, and he had the counties committing fraud to ensure that only those he wanted elected got elected to the other side of the Assembly. He controlled the police. He controlled the courts. He controlled everything. And he was doing a terrible job of it.
It had been around 15 years since the last election. The people were ready for it. They demanded it. Berkley agreed to this and allowed the elections to occur without any of his usual fraud. If Anyone had a complaint he wished to bring against him or his government, he would allow them to do so by bringing it to the Assembly. In addition to this, he agreed to stop using the ineffective forts.
When Bacon and his men returned from the forest, they found the colony preparing for the new election. Bacon was thrilled and looked forward to changes in the government. He wasn't so happy, however, that the governor had declared them to be rebels [00:14:00] and had even threatened to hang Bacon himself.
His army stopped off in Henrico, where they gathered in one of the courthouses. While they were there, the sheriff of Henrico held up the proclamation declaring them all rebels, and began to read it to them. But, he was interrupted by Bacon who told him, "If you dare read a line of that proclamation, I will make you regret it."
The elections quickly came and went. The majority of the new elected side of the Assembly was made up of Bacon's supporters. It was actually almost entirely made up of people who supported Bacon. On top of that, Bacon himself was elected as the representative of Henrico.
Even though it had been the Occaneechi who had defeated the Susquehannock, the purpose was still the same. The people were safe. Now, they could focus on other things.
Bacon had often spoken of the changes needed in the government. Things like lower taxes, less corruption, and elections that were [00:15:00] not hand-in-hand with fraud. The people hoped he and his supporters would deliver. And it turned out, that they would not be disappointed.
Bacon deeply resented the idea that the men going out and defending themselves should be treated like criminals. While in Henrico, he wrote to Governor Berkeley stating that he was sorry to find that the homes and possessions of his army had been seized. And that the governor had been misinformed of the army's intentions. He told the governor that he has all along detested mutiny and rebellion, and that if the governor had been present with them, they would have followed and obeyed him as the army's leader.
He then continued in a somewhat different tone. He told the governor that if he wanted to punish the army for treason, then the governor should take a look at his own treasonous acts of bribery, cowardice, and lies. He further stated that he knew the governor's wife had been spreading false rumors about Bacon, and that he could say a thing or two about her.
Governor Berkeley received [00:16:00] the letter and took it to his council where he asked for their advice on how to respond. They told him that he should offer Bacon a pardon. But, he would have to submit himself and apologize in front of everyone in the Assembly. The other offer they should give him is for a trial. A trial would likely result in Bacon being found guilty of treason and hanged. And everyone knew this.
Even though Bacon was now an elected member of the Assembly and the governor had offered to pardon him if he submitted and apologized, it was still a great risk for him to return to Jamestown. Jamestown was the center of the governor's power. The people of Virginia, even in Jamestown, widely supported Bacon, but the governor could arrest and hang him if that's what he wanted to do.
But, seeing as the rebellion had ended and he was elected to the Assembly, Bacon had to eventually go to Jamestown. His friends, however, wouldn't let him go without [00:17:00] protection. They surrounded him with 50 armed men, and together, they rowed down the James River to Jamestown.
Once they reached a little bit aways from the town, they anchored their boat and sent word to the governor that they were there. They asked if Bacon would be allowed to enter Jamestown without fear of his life or imprisonment. The governor replied by heading up to one of the forts along the river, and firing on Bacon and his men. The men quickly escaped. Only for Bacon to return later that night with 20 of his men.
When their boat was discovered, an alarm was sounded. Men filled boats to pursue Bacon. They were given orders to capture or sink them. It wasn't until the next day that Bacon was surrounded and forced to surrender. He was taken aboard one of the larger ships and then taken ashore, where he was brought before the governor.
It seemed all was well and the governor was once again in control.
But, that was not the way things were to be.
That's all for [00:18:00] today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how Bacon submits and is pardoned, changes come to the Assembly and things spiral out of control again, with Bacon once more leading a rebel army. This time against the governor himself.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly podcast where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross, and today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution, with a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Bacon and his men had returned from their mission of defeating the Susquehannock. The Occaneechi tribe had actually been the ones to do it, but the people were now safe. While they were away. Governor Berkeley had asked his counsel what he should do to make the people in Virginia happy with him.
His council advised him that what the people wanted was new elections for the Assembly. The people have long considered the Assembly to be nothing more than puppets chosen using election fraud by the governor. And there hadn't even been an election in 15 years. It was time.
So, by the time Bacon's army returned from the forest, elections were well underway. The majority of the [00:01:00] new Assembly was made up of Bacon's supporters. Bacon himself was elected as a member of the Assembly.
Now, all that was left was actually setting foot in Jamestown. Bacon knew this would be dangerous. Even though he was elected to the Assembly, he and his men had been declared outlaws, rebels, traitors. The governor had written to him, giving him the option of either submitting and apologizing in front of everyone, or going to trial.
Bacon was finally convinced to go to Jamestown. And when he arrived, he had 50 armed men with him. They anchored their boat a bit aways from Jamestown and sent word to the governor that they were there. They asked if he would be allowed to enter the town. The governor responded by firing on them from one of the forts along the river. He then ordered men to hop into their own ships and pursue Bacon and his men down the James River. Bacon was finally caught the next day and forced to surrender. Then, he was brought as a prisoner [00:02:00] before the governor.
When Bacon was out fighting with the natives, Governor Berkeley had told Bacon's wife that he wouldn't hesitate to hang her husband once he got his hands on him. But, seeing as almost the entire colony was in support of Bacon, as was almost the entire elected side of the Assembly, it wouldn't be possible for the governor to do this. Not only would the Assembly not allow him to do so, there was also a very real fear that the people in Virginia would revolt and burn the colony to the ground if he did.
In fact, when Bacon had been captured, a hoard of angry men descended upon Jamestown and threatened terrible retaliation if any harm were to come to Bacon. So, the governor had to make peace.
Now, when the governor was face-to-face with the mighty rebel leader, he lifted his face and his arms to the heavens and proclaimed, "Now I behold the greatest rebel that ever was in Virginia." He then asked Bacon if he was still a gentlemen. [00:03:00] And that if he were still a gentlemen, he would be allowed to go free. Bacon said yes, he was still a gentlemen. And so, the governor released him on the gentleman's word that he would not rebel again.
In addition to this, the governor restored Bacon to his position on the Governor's Council. So now, Bacon sat in both the Governor's Council side of the Assembly and the elected side of the Assembly.
A few days later, Bacon was led before the Assembly, where he got down on one knee and humbly submitted his obedience to the governor. The governor forgave him in front of everybody and when someone from the Assembly shouted, "What about all the men who were with him?" The governor forgave them too.
The rebels who hadx been captured with Bacon were freed, and it was publicly declared that Bacon was made the official leader of Virginia's military in the war with the natives.
This was what the people wanted all along. They finally had it. So, the rebel army returned home, waiting to be called to arms again. [00:04:00] This time, with official permission. This time, without the threat of being declared or rebel.
Now, back to the new rebel-supporting Assembly. The first thing they did was to address some of the changes that were needed in the government. There were many grievances from people who had accused the government of unnecessary high taxes, corruption, and refusal to listen to the people.
A special group was created in the Assembly just to hear these complaints. But, right when things were getting started, another attack came from the natives. The governor immediately put a stop to the Assembly's process of hearing the people's complaints, until after the attack could be dealt with.
Then, he ordered an army of 1,000 men and horses to go out against the attacking natives. Now was the time for that official permission, bacon had to lead the Virginia military to be used.
But, it had been several days and the governor still hadn't given him that official paper with the governor's [00:05:00] signature. So, while he had been promised this permission in front of everyone, he technically hadn't officially received the permission yet.
Keep in mind that Bacon's submission and apology had been forced and that Governor Berkeley's forgiveness had also been forced. Neither of them really saw their submission, or forgiveness, as real or binding.
While waiting for the official paper from the governor, Bacon began to suspect that the governor would not give it to him after all. So, he went to Governor Berkeley and told him that his wife was sick and that he needed to leave Jamestown to go visit her. The governor allowed him to do this, but almost immediately realized that it was a mistake. Someone had delivered information to the governor that Bacon's wife was not sick. And that he, in fact, intended to leave Jamestown to go out and lead another army against the natives.
The governor had promised Bacon official permission to do so, but he had not delivered the actual paper yet. So, [00:06:00] Bacon was technically in rebellion once again.
At once, the governor jumped on his horse and rode out to stop Bacon from leaving. He ordered other men to do the same, and to patrol the rivers. But, he was too late. Bacon had gone. "Why did I not put him to death when I had the chance?" The governor asked himself.
Bacon arrived back in Henrico to meet an eager band of men, waiting with arms, to fight for him against the natives who were once again, attacking them. Entire families have been wiped out since Bacon's army had returned from the forest.
They, like Bacon, had been informed that Bacon would have official permission to do it this time. When they learned that the governor had not made good on his promise and that Bacon was once again a rebel, without the official papers allowing him to go out and fight, they swore oaths of loyalty to him and promised that if Bacon would lead them to the governor, they would make him give them the official permission, or they would destroy all of Jamestown.
So, off the rebel army went, [00:07:00] some on horses, to Jamestown. Ready to force permission to defend themselves, or destroy all. Along the way, the soldiers talked of plundering the houses of the wealthy and making the governor's wife trade in her fine gowns for canvas dresses.
Word reached the governor that the motley crew of 500 men was headed his way. The governor summoned the Virginia military and ordered the mounting of 4 guns along the fort surrounding the town.
The next morning, he went out himself to oversee the mounting of the guns. But, his dream of unloading them into the rebel army, and once and for all, showing the colony who was in charge, were not to pass.
The 500-man rebel army, with Bacon at their lead, threatened that if any guns were fired on them, they would kill and destroy everything. Despite the governor's burning rage at the army, he understood that firing on them would only bring death, and was unlikely to end with Bacon dead. So, he ordered the guns to be dismounted and the military to [00:08:00] stand down. He returned to the center of Jamestown and waited for the rebels to arrive.
And arrive, they did. Facing down a 500-man army full of rough, angry men who had their own reasons for rage, and who were determined at all costs to get this permission from him, he could hardly resist. But, he didn't give it without a fight.
When the governor came out to meet them, he declared to Bacon that he was a rebel and a traitor, and that he would never have the permission he sought. He then tore open his coat, bared his chest, and shouted, "Here. Shoot me. 'For God. Fair mark. Shoot." But Bacon only replied that he was not there to harm the governor. He was there for the permission that he had been promised.
Think about that. These men had experience fighting the natives. They had the weapons. They had the determination. They had the ability. And they would likely win in battle. They also had a leader who had been successful in leading the army in the past. They were [00:09:00] being slaughtered in their homes. Nobody was safe. Their government was completely leaving them on their own.
And they still acknowledged that they needed the government's permission to fight. Even in defense of their own lives against their attackers. The breakup with Britain that would happen just over 100 years later, was still, even then, only done as an absolute last resort. Throughout American history, the colonists didn't want to throw Britain off of them. Not until it had to be.
So, here we are over 100 years before the revolution, and the clamoring army is demanding that the government give them permission to go out and pursue the attacking natives. Bacon then aimed his speech to the Assembly members watching from the windows of the Assembly House above.
He shouted up to them that they'd better make the delivery of the papers fast. On his orders, some of the soldiers cocked their pistols and aimed them at the Assembly members. To which the Assembly members shouted, "For God's sake. [00:10:00] Hold your hands." They told him that if he waited a little, they would deliver what he desired.
The Assembly pressed hard on the governor to sign the papers. The governor knew that the men would kill and plunder the town if he refused. He had no choice. He signed the official permission papers and gave it to Bacon, there, full of rage, at the Assembly House in front of everyone.
The next day, Bacon and his men went before the Assembly and refused to accept the papers. We were so close, right?
They had the official permission they wanted. But there was another matter to attend to. And this goes to the point of loyalty to England and acknowledging that England had authority over them.
What Bacon and his men wanted, was the governor to officially declare the actions of Bacon and his men had always been in full loyalty to the king and had never been rebellious. If the governor declared this, it would prevent him from claiming that they were rebels later, and putting them all on trial or flat [00:11:00] out executing them. Unfortunately, the rebels would find out that this would not, in fact, protect them from such a fate.
But, in the meantime, the governor flew into a rage. He said that he would rather die than issue such a declaration. But, the Assembly wanted to keep their throats intact. And so, they once again, pressed the governor to give Bacon and his men what they wanted. The governor was finally convinced to do so. And he issued the declaration saying that Bacon and the other rebels had always been acting legally and were never rebels to begin with.
Copies of the declaration were taken out to parts of Virginia and read aloud to the people so that all would know it.
On top of this, to what must have been one of the most difficult things the governor ever had to do, a letter was written to the king stating the contents of the declaration. This must've been humiliating for him. He looked up to the king and had always sought his approval. Now, he was saying that those [00:12:00] rebels he had written about to the king before, were actually just a confusion on his part. They were not rebels at all.
On top of that, several of Governor Berkeley's friends were imprisoned by the new Assembly.
Once the matter of the declaration was taken care of, Bacon then launched into a speech that lasted for almost an hour. In this speech, he demanded the changes the people had been asking for. He wanted an end to high taxes, an end to corruption, and an end to fraud in the elections.
At the end of his speech, the Assembly informed him that while he had been gone in Henrico raising his 500-men army, those changes had already been passed by laws in the Assembly. " Bacon's Laws", as they were called, made it illegal for any person in the government to hold more than one position at a time. This meant that judges couldn't also be police and that Assembly members couldn't also be judges, or tax collectors, and so forth.
A little ironic, considering that Bacon was serving on both the Governor's Council [00:13:00] and in the elected side of the Assembly.
Bacon's Laws also made it so that no man could serve as sheriff for more than 2 terms. And church officials who controlled the areas where their churches were, including the raising of taxes in those areas, now had to be elected instead of chosen by the government. The power of the courts was lessened as well. And the right to vote was extended to free men who didn't own land.
The issue of taxes was perhaps one of the greatest concerns of the people. As we've discussed in this series, right from the beginning of Virginia's history, the very first permanent English settlement in the Americas. The king had given the settlers the promise that no taxes could ever be taken from the people without the people voting on those taxes. This meant that people voted to elect people, and those elected people would decide the taxes.
This is how it was in England as well. The right had been reasserted again, and again, in America, and would not be let go of by anyone for [00:14:00] any reason. It was, in fact, the legal basis for which the revolution rested on in the century following this.
One of the other issues involving taxes was that the people of Virginia now were claiming that the judges were declaring taxes. These judges had been chosen by the governor and had not been elected. Bacon's, Laws put it to a stop.
From now on, people were to be elected to sit with each of those judges when taxes were decided in the court. Therefore, when judges ordered new taxes, the people had a voice in it.
In addition to this, members of the Governor's Council were no longer exempt from paying taxes. As for the fraud in the elections, a law was made that any policemen found guilty of intimidating voters, or making sure only the votes the governor wanted returned were returned, they would be charged a fine of 20,000 pounds of tobacco.
These laws were passed by an assembly largely in support of the changes, but signed by a governor [00:15:00] who was under the threat of violence and death if he didn't sign it.
So, Bacon was pretty happy to find out that these laws - Bacon's Laws - had already been passed when he was in Henrico.
When the Assembly was done and they closed up shop, word came that the natives were once again raidind homes and murdering families up and down Virginia . 8 people had been killed. Bacon immediately gathered his army and headed out to protect the people from danger.
Even though the governor had been forced to give Bacon the permission to go out and do this, and he didn't consider it binding, he knew that most of the colony supported Bacon and he therefore made no attempt to stop them.
Bacon assured his army of his loyalty to the king. He said that it was quote, "The cries of his brethren's blood," that pushed him to lead them. He then took an oath of loyalty to the king and required his men to swear an oath of loyalty to him as their military leader. Volunteers poured in and added to the great army. Then, the great army [00:16:00] headed out to fight the natives who were attacking them.
But, this is where something strange happened.
Some of the governor's friends in the Assembly had written an official letter to the governor. The letter was written on behalf of some of the people in Gloucester County, Virginia. The letter stated that Bacon had taken weapons from the people of Gloucester County, and they asked the governor to protect them from him.
The governor jumped on this at once and granted them this protection. This was his chance to go back on what he had done. He declared that Bacon was, in fact, a rebel. And that because the permission to fight had been given to Bacon by force, it wasn't valid. He rode out on horseback, straight to Gloucester County to assemble an army to go out against Bacon and stop them once and for all. This time, with the people at his side.
It's true that Bacon's men had plundered the farms of some of the colonists as they went along. And it's also true that nobody dared resist them. But, when the governor got to Gloucester [00:17:00] County, he found that only a few people knew about the letter, and that when those few people found out that getting the governor's protection from Bacon meant that they themselves had to go out and fight Bacon's army, they broke up and decided to stay out of the whole thing.
To add further injury, when the small group of men in Gloucester County broke up, they walked away shouting, "Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!"
To this, the governor responded by riding away to an area of Virginia that was more loyal to the governor. But, not before fainting in his saddle from sheer exhaustion.
When he awoke, he continued his journey. As he rode, he attempted to gather volunteers to form an army that would fight against Bacon's army. He was unsuccessful in this. And people were actually pretty outraged that he was planning on attacking Bacon while Bacon was out fighting those that the governor should be fighting.
When word reached Bacon that the governor planned on betraying him and attacking him from behind, he had to change all of his [00:18:00] plans. He immediately sounded the drums of war and called everyone together. He delivered a speech to his army, in which he said that the governor would rather see them murdered and left to the mercy of those who would butcher them, than allow them to defend themselves.
He told them that once again, the governor had declared them to be rebels and traitors. He asked quote, "Was there ever heard of such wickedness and inhumanity?" He then said that the governor, and those who side with him, are nothing but cowards and that they would all see that the governor's men "wouldn't dare to meet us in battle."
The men declared that they would rather die fighting than surrender and be hanged as rebels. They decided that it would be better to attack the governor now, rather than wait for the governor to attack them, when they're in battle with the natives. To this, everyone agreed and they gathered their weapons, and set out to find, and battle, with the governor. But, the governor would be hard to get to.
When he had found little success in gathering his army around Gloucester County, he moved [00:19:00] east to an area that was not only loyal to the governor, but was also across a great river. It would be nearly impossible for Bacon's army to reach him.
As for the rest of the governor supporters, they too fled from the towns and settled in the east, across the great river with the governor. Any who remained, pledged their loyalty to Bacon.
This left Bacon as the unquestioned ruler of the entire colony.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how Bacon was now in control of the entire colony, and the governor's fight to gain it back.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly podcast where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross, and today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution, with a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Bacon and the rebels had been forgiven and all was well. Bacon, and a lot of Bacon's supporters, had been elected to the Assembly, and changes had been made to a few laws that were designed to get rid of the corruption the people had been complaining about. The Assembly had even put together a special group, whose only purpose was to hear the complaints of the people in order to address them.
On top of that, governor Berkeley had promised to give Bacon that official permission to lead an army against the attacking natives.
But, the governor delayed giving the actual documents to Bacon. Then, the natives began attacking again and the governor put a stop to the group that was hearing complaints, until the issue of the attacking natives could be taken care of.
Bacon grew suspicious that Governor Berkeley had no intention of giving him the official papers that gave him permission to lead an army. And so, he told the governor that his wife was sick and that he needed to leave. The governor allowed him to leave and only too late realized that it was all a lie. Bacon's wife hadn't been sick. And Bacon's real plan was to slip out of Jamestown and head for Henrico, where the people would once again gather around him as an army.
The governor hopped on his horse and rode after him. He ordered men around the town to go out on the rivers and streets and find and stop Bacon. But, they were too late. Bacon was gone.
When Bacon got to Henrico, the men in the town did gather around him. People from everywhere, poured in to volunteer as soldiers in his army. They brought weapons, grit, and iron determination. Families were once again being murdered by the natives and 8 people had recently been killed.
When they learned that the governor had not given him the official documents that would allow them to go out against their attackers, they vowed that if Bacon would lead them to the governor, they would force him to hand the documents over, or they would destroy the entire town.
So, the army marched to Jamestown and a showdown happened between Bacon's men and the governor. The governor was forced to give the official documents with the permission the army sought. And the army went off to fight the natives.
The governor was filled with rage at Bacon and his men, and didn't consider the permission to be legal since it had been forced from him. However, he had no choice but to allow them to go. Almost the entire colony was on Bacon's side and most of the Assembly was on Bacon's side as well.
But, when 2 of the governor's friends in the Assembly wrote a letter to the governor, they wrote it on behalf of some of the people in Gloucester County. The people in the letter complained that Bacon's army had been plundering their farms and stealing their horses, and they were completely helpless to stop them. They asked the governor for his protection. And this, the governor used as a perfect excuse to ride off in the throes of joy at the thought of rescuing citizens from his enemy - Bacon - at the people's own request.
But, when he got there, there were only a handful of people who even knew about the letter. Gloucester County was still largely on Bacon's side. The few people who had complained about Bacon were told that in order to have the governor's protection, he would lead them out in a fight against Bacon. These men had no desire to fight Bacon's army and quickly returned to their homes. The governor then literally passed out in his saddle from exhaustion.
When he awoke, he rode off towards the eastern part of Virginia where the people were mostly in support of the governor. Plus, there was a huge river the rebels would have to cross in order to get to him. And they had no large ships to do it. He would be safe there while he built his own army.
On the way there, he tried to recruit volunteers for his army against Bacon, but nobody wanted to join him. In Jamestown, those who supported the governor either fled to the eastern part of Virginia to be with the governor, or stayed and pledged their loyalty to Bacon. This left Bacon as the undisputed ruler of the colony.
Now, was the question of how Bacon would rule. He wasn't a governor, but he was in charge. Shortly after he gained power over the colony, Bacon asked his friend, John Goode, what he should do about the rumors that the King of England was sending 2,000 British soldiers to Virginia to restore order. He asked his friend whether his army of 500 men could defeat the British army of 2,000 men. Bacon thought his own army had a bit of an advantage because they knew the land better than the British who were coming.
His friend told him that his army didn't have a chance against the British, and that he should lay down his weapons and again submit his obedience to the Assembly and the governor.
As history would have it, Bacon did not take this advice. The people were still in danger. He couldn't leave them to be slaughtered. They had to defend themselves. He would even ask Britain's enemy countries for help if he had to. If England tried to block incoming and outgoing ships of supplies to Virginia, enemy nations would surely help the colonists. At least, that was the hope if it came to it.
Along the way, his 2 closest advisors helped him. These 2 men are important to remember because Governor Berkeley developed a particular hatred for them, simply because of their influence on Bacon.
Bacon had always been a fan of elected government. So, one of the first things he did was to order a new election for the Assembly. The new Assembly would meet later to discuss any issues that needed attention.
Next, Bacon set up his headquarters in present day, Williamsburg, Virginia. Then, he issued a declaration stating that Governor Berkeley and some of his friends in the Assembly were traitors, and he would confiscate their homes and property if they didn't surrender within 4 days.
Finally, he turned his attention towards how he would interact with the English government. Virginia was still, after all, under English control. Governor Berkley had made the king well-aware of Bacon's rebellion and treachery. The king was sending 2,000 soldiers to take Bacon down and restore order, with, likely, Governor Berkeley in charge again.
The men who were fighting by Bacon's side were considered enemies of the king. At this time, the people of Virginia still considered themselves to be English citizens. Even the one whose ancestors hadn't come from England. Virginia was part of England, was governed by England, and had been given the special right along with all other colonies that it was the same as though the people there stood on English soil itself. The idea of breaking off from England wasn't in the minds of the people. Bacon couldn't ask them to overthrow the king's power or betray the throne in any way.
The only thing he could do, was to act in a way that would seem as though his army was fighting for the king, not against him. So, he gathered his men and took an oath of loyalty to the king in front of all of them. Then, he required all of his men to do the same.
Next, he called in all of the wealthy planters of Virginia. Most of them showed up, and some had to be dragged in. But, when they were all gathered, there were 70 of them standing before Bacon.
First, he had them all promise to support his efforts in the war with the natives. Second, he told them that anyone who tried to raise an army against him would be arrested. Everyone agreed to these things. But, it was a different story when it came to the third requirement.
Third, Bacon asked the wealthy gentlemen to declare that it was out of loyalty to the king for them to resist the king's soldiers when they arrived. The idea was that they would resist the British soldiers only until Bacon could plead his case to the king. And then, hopefully, surely, the king would see that Bacon was acting in the best interest of Virginia and therefore, the best interest of the king.
The gentleman flew into heated arguments about this last demand, and ultimately refused to agree to it. Normally, that would be the end of it. The gentlemen weren't used to being forced to do anything. But, Bacon locked the doors to the meeting room and forced them to agree to all 3 requirements.
To keep up the appearance of allegiance to the king, all of Bacon's orders were issued in the king's name.
With the election still underway, and the matter of how to deal with the incoming British troops having been settled, Bacon turned his attention once again to the governor. He also put his attention on the ongoing attacks from the natives. He ordered a large group of men to patrol the rivers and edges of some of the towns to try and prevent native attacks, and to capture the governor if anyone saw him.
The orders were to keep the governor alive and return him to England, where he could face trial for his corruption and treason against the people for not protecting them and allowing them to be butchered.
The other part of Bacon's army marched west, towards Henrico, to go out against the natives. Henrico was about a full day's march if you didn't stop along the way. The Assembly was set to meet soon. It often took days for the Assembly members to reach Jamestown from their far away homes. And now, it was possible that Bacon wouldn't be there when they gathered. But, the attacks from the natives were the most pressing issue for the people. And Bacon was determined to defeat them, even if it meant missing the Assembly meeting.
Okay. So back to the men who were patrolling the rivers and towns. They were to stop the native attacks and capture the governor if possible. Well, they were busy having their own adventures. Here is a tale of piracy, betrayal, and executions.
In the James River, there were 2 large ships that belonged to merchants. One day, a few of Bacon's men rode out to one of the ships, fired on her, and captured her. Once aboard, the rebels forced the ship's captain and crew to join their army and fight against the governor.
Then, they anchored the ships off the shore of Jamestown and raided the guns from the town's forts. They then added those guns to the ship.
The rebels demanded permission to board the other ship to search for the governor inside. But, the captain refused, raised his anchor, and sailed out of there before the rebels could fire on him.
The rebels now had a ship. Even though one of the ships had gotten away, this one was all they needed. Together, with the large ship, they added several smaller boats and placed 250 men at the opening of the James River. Ready to capture any ships that came their way.
After a while, they sailed to the eastern part of Virginia, where the governor was hiding and building his own army. They anchored off the coast and decided on a plan.
One of the rebels who was leading the army while Bacon was away, would go ashore and meet with the governor under a flag of truce. He took 160 men with him for protection. Some of the men had stayed in Jamestown. So, now only 40 of Bacon's men were left behind on the ship.
When the leader arrived at Berkeley's headquarters, the governor tried to convince him to leave the rebel army and join his side. But, the man refused. There was not much more to say after this and neither side was willing to surrender. Berkeley ordered him and his men to be gone within 8 hours, or a battle would ensue.
In a twist of fate, strong winds began to blow that night and the leader was unable to leave for the ship.
So while the ship sat, waiting for the leader to return, a secret message came from the imprisoned captain on the ship. The message was meant for Governor Berkeley. In the message, he told the governor that they had all been captured and forced to serve the rebels. And that if the governor would send another 40 men to help, they would join them and overthrow the rebels.
The governor jumped on this immediately. He secretly sent 26 of his own men to the ship to help the crew recapture her.
While this was going on, he chatted further with the leader who had come to meet with him. The governor gave him wine and participated in negotiations as though he had intentions of reaching an agreement.
When the governor's men rowed out to the ship, the rebels thought their leader had been successful and that the governor's men had been invited to the ship to talk with them. So, the governor's men easily boarded without being fired on.
Once on board, one of them ran up to the rebel who had been left in charge of the ship. He pressed a pistol to the rebel's chest and declared that he was now his prisoner. The rest of the governor's men pulled their swords and pistols, and waved them at the surprised rebels. The rebels were unprepared. And some of them were even unarmed. They had no hope of winning a fight. And so, the rebels surrendered to the governor's men.
Shortly after this, the man who had been meeting with the governor finally returned to the ship. When he boarded, he was dumbfounded to see what had happened. He flew into a rage and tore at his clothes and his hair. He called the other rebel leader "a coward" and accused him of betraying all of the rebellion's plans.
He wasn't wrong. Who knows what would've happened had the rebels fired on the governor's men as they approached? The rebels had no way of knowing that the governor's men came to fight, and not to talk.
But, the rebel leader had a reason to be furious. Shortly after this, he was tried, condemned, and hanged.
The governor was now regaining control. Now, he made another move that got him closer to regaining the entire colony. Together, with the army he had built while he was hiding, his new ship, and the volunteers who flocked to join him, he sailed back to the mainland of Virginia, and headed towards Jamestown.
The governor now had an army of several hundred men. A good match for Bacon's several hundred rebels. And while the rebels had boats, the governor had a ship. And the rebels had gone to the trouble of adding several large guns from the forts onto that ship.
So, as the governor and his men arrived in Jamestown, Bacon was still gone on his mission to defeat the natives. There were rebels in Jamestown, but not enough to fight the governor's men. When the people of Jamestown saw the sails of the ship and learned that it was the governor, not Bacon, who was approaching, the town descended into chaos.
It had been right around the time that the newly elected Assembly was supposed to meet. In fact, it seems to have taken place 4 days after the Assembly meeting was supposed to start. So, it was likely that Assembly members were there, panicking, over having met at the call of Bacon and not at the call of the governor.
The governor sent word ashore that he would pardon anyone who would lay down their weapons, and pledge loyalty to him. The only people who would not be pardoned were Bacon's 2 close advisors. But, the rebels didn't trust him very much and had all fled Jamestown by the end of the night.
Shortly after this, Bacon and his army returned from their mission. They had defeated the natives and many of the men had returned home.
When he heard the news that Governor Berkeley was back in charge and had control over jamestown, he looked out at his army, now only half of what it was - around 150 soldiers.
But, the outcome of a fight wasn't certain. Even if the governor's army were double, perhaps triple, the size of his own, the small rebel army was well-experienced. And as they returned, the people poured around them with offers a food and blessings. Even the women volunteered to help if there were not enough men to fight the governor. Bacon knew that he still held the hearts of the people while the governor was loaded with their curses.
On top of that, the governor's men were widely regarded as cowards. And nobody believed that they would actually stand to fight Bacon's men. So, with his half-remaining army, Bacon set course for Jamestown.
Along the way, men joined, or rejoined, him and built up his army again to 300 men.
Within a week of Berkeley retaking Jamestown, Bacon and his army were at his door. When he got there, he found that the governor's army had increased to 1,000 men. There were 3 of the governor's men for every 1 of Bacon's men. But, Bacon's men had experience, determination, and were fighting for their very lives. Plus, Bacon had a plan that would blow the minds of the men on the governor's side.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the battle between the governor's army and Bacon's army, and how it all ended in the burning of Jamestown.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Bacon and his army of rebels had heard that Governor Berkeley had successfully raised an army to fight Bacon and his men. The governor had around 1,000 men and Bacon had around 300 men. But, even though there were 3 of the governor's men for every 1 of Bacon's men, the governor's men were considered cowards who wouldn't dare face them in a battle. They were inexperienced and unused to the roughness of war.
Bacon's men on the other hand, had fought many battles, had faced near-starvation, and had the people cheering them on.
When Bacon's army arrived, they were tired, hungry, and had a major battle looming ahead of them. They set up camp, just outside the [00:01:00] walls of Jamestown. They worked through the night, digging trenches, and cutting down trees and bushes, and gathering dirt to build their defensive protections.
The men were certain that the governor's army would fire on them at dawn. They had a lot of work to do and not enough time to do it. So, Bacon came up with a plan to delay the governor's men from shooting at them. He ordered his own men to go out on horse and kidnap the wives of the governor's most important supporters. He even captured his own cousin's wife. He had no intention of harming the women, but his men's safety was his top priority.
Even though this was kinda messed up, it was a good plan, because it worked. The next day, the governor's men awoke to a wonderful feeling. That today would be the day that they could end the rebels once and for all. They lined the walls of Jamestown, aimed their weapons at the rebel scum, and waited for the order to fire.
But, their joy turned a horror, as they realized that their wives had been [00:02:00] placed on a ledge above the area where Bacon and his men were still toiling, building, and readying themselves. If they fired on the rebels, their own wives would be at risk of being hit. They were outraged and saw it as cowardly, but they dared not fire a single shot.
Finally, the rebels who had marched all day before and had worked to build the defenses all through the night, were finished. They sent the wives away and immediately got into position. Ready for the fight. The governor's men opened fire, but they did little damage. The rebels had built such tremendous defenses that they couldn't harm any of them. Then, the rebels returned fire.
Some of the governor's men were wounded and at least 1 was dead. As predicted, the governor's men were nothing more than cowards. At the first shots from the rebels, they laid down their weapons and fled for their lives. Only 20 of the 1,000 men remained. Those few remaining men [00:03:00] forced the governor to abandon Jamestown before the rebels got inside. So, the governor fled with the rest of them as Bacon's men rushed from their defensive positions.
The next morning, Bacon's army entered Jamestown. The capital of the colony was once again under their control.
Once inside, he received word that one of his former allies had gathered a large army, also of nearly 1,000 men, and was marching towards Jamestown to fight for the governor.
On top of that, the governor hadn't run away entirely. He was anchored about 20 miles away, where he was making plans to recapture the town.
The army led by Bacon's friend wasn't like the governor's army. It wasn't certain if they were cowards or not. It could be real battle, with real chances of loss and death. He could stay and fight. Or, the other option, was to abandon Jamestown as well. The only problem with this was that the governor, still being so close [00:04:00] by, could easily come back and retake the town.
Their whole plans of attacking the natives had changed in order to march to Jamestown and take the city. If they left and the governor regained it, it would have all been for nothing. They couldn't let that happen.
So, they did the only other thing they could think of. They burned it to the ground. Even their churches and their Assembly House. They set fire to the town that night. And within a few hours, it was nothing more than ash. Even his 2 closest advisers burned their own houses down.
As the flames consumed everything, the governor watched from a distance. He later reported that the rebels had burnt 5 of his houses. Yeah, the governor had 5 houses just in Jamestown. He had more in other places too. He reported that 20 of his friend's houses were burned down as well.
Once the work was done, Bacon and his men left Jamestown and headed towards Gloucester County. After he arrived in Gloucester County, he [00:05:00] learned that the 1,000-man army headed by his former ally was now marching towards Gloucester, and not Jamestown. And they would be there soon.
With no time to waste, Bacon gathered his men once again, and with the beating of the drums, they marched to meet them. They marched for several days before word reached them that the 1,000-man army had broken up and fled. The likely reason for this is that some of them had been forced to fight for the governor and probably didn't want to face Bacon on the field. Whatever the reason, Bacon was again in charge of the entire colony.
But this time, things were different. Remember all those wealthy men that were dragged to the meeting where Bacon forced them to take oaths of loyalty and oaths to resist the coming British army? Bacon had made the claim that by resisting the king's soldiers, they were actually doing the king a favor, because all they needed to do was resist the British army long enough for them to explain to the king why the rebels were the good guys, and why the [00:06:00] rebels were actually protecting the colony from the natives who had been murdering them. The king would surely understand that the rebellion was in his, and everyone else's, best interests.
The wealthy men hadn't wanted to agree to resist the king's soldiers, but Bacon had forced them. These wealthy men at least had made it appears as though the rebels had the support of the upper class. Well, now these wealthy, important men were on the governor's side. Bacon no longer had the appearance of being anything other than a bunch of rebels. Many of the prominent gentlemen that had given them their support and had taken his 3 oaths were now fighting on the side of the governor. And those British soldiers, around 2,000 of them, they were coming. They would be in Virginia within a few weeks.
Without the wealthy agreeing to resist the British army, would the rebels stand with him when they arrived?
Even though the wealthy, important gentleman had already abandoned him, it was likely that they would have abandoned him when the British soldiers [00:07:00] arrived. The wealthy were also suffering from some of England's laws against trading with other countries. And the wealthy were also paying high taxes. But, like the other colonists, they didn't want to break off from Britain and they definitely didn't want to go to war with Britain.
The rebels had no chance of beating the British at this time. That wouldn't come until over 100 years later. This was still 1676. But, Bacon and his men had accomplished a lot since the rebellion had begun. It was possible that the king would call a halt to the British army, just long enough to hear him out. Either way, he had to at least try.
So, he called the men in Gloucester County, who weren't already part of his army. Once they were gathered at the courthouse, he delivered a speech and asked the men to pledge their loyalty to him. He also asked them to swear an oath that if the British army attempted to use force against them, they would all fight, or fall, in the defense of the colony. And, [00:08:00] further, if the British won and some of them survived the battle, those who were left would leave the colony rather than submit to a life in which they were not allowed to defend themselves against their native attackers.
The men in Gloucester didn't want to stand against England. No matter what England had done or what their own government had done, they were Englishman. Virginia soil was the same as English soil. They would not stand against the king.
They told Bacon that they wanted to stay out of it and not pick sides. But, Bacon replied that if they weren't with him, they were his enemies. To Bacon, they were actually worse than enemies. They were the type of men who would allow others to bleed and save them without lifting a finger to help. Even so, he didn't take his anger out on them. Instead, he told them to return home.
The next order of business was what to do with those they had captured who had fought for the governor. Bacon set up a special court that would hear the cases of these men. The trials were held and the captives were found [00:09:00] guilty of treason against the colony.
Instead of executing them, he offered to trade them for some of the rebels that the governor had captured. But, the governor refused. Again, instead of executing the guilty men, Bacon let some of them go.
Even though some had been, let go, the men in Gloucester county saw how those seen as enemies could be placed on trial and declared traitors.
Bacon had told the men in Gloucester County that those who didn't join him were his enemies. And they didn't want to risk this.
So, they decided that rather than stay out of it, without picking a side, they would join Bacon and his men, and they took an oath of loyalty to him.
After this, they did what any band of rebels would do and they plundered the governor's houses and the houses of all of his friends. That is, the ones they hadn't burned to the ground in Jamestown. The homeowners were gone. They were with the governor. There was nothing they could do.
The rebels took cows, pigs, sheep, corn, clothes, and [00:10:00] anything else they could lift and carry away. Soon, predictably, the rebels started plundering the houses of other rebels and of Bacon's supporters. When this happened, Bacon called for all looting to come to a stop. But, for the governor and his friends, the damage had been done. The looting that had been allowed to continue against Bacon's enemies would unleash a torrent of retaliation, the likes the country had never seen before or since.
But, before we get into the governor's brutal retaliation, the rebellion needed to end. There was one thing above all else that started the end. That was Bacon's death.
He had been sick for a long time with dysentery. Which is an infection that makes you head to the bathroom a lot and has killed countless kings and important people throughout history. The illness finally caught up with him and he was unable to continue fighting. So, in Gloucester County, where he had last summoned people around him and made them take oaths of loyalty, he found a [00:11:00] bed to rest on, and on which, he would die.
While on his death bed, he often asked whether there were enough soldiers outside the house. And whether or not the king's army had landed in Virginia. But, his luck ran out and he died before the rebellion could be finished.
This left a man named John Ingram in charge. Ingram had been Bacon's right-hand man in his army. So, he had some experience leading and Bacon's army cheered for him when he became their leader. But, he was no Nathaniel Bacon. No one could replace his charm, his ability to rally people around him, and the symbol of power that he represented to the people.
Considering that the governor had not yet given up the fight against Bacon. And that people were slowly wanting to be neutral instead of immediately joining Bacon. And the fact that England was likely going to send over an army to stop the rebellion. Which the rebel army was extremely unlikely to win against at this time. The rebellion would have in all likelihood [00:12:00] ended soon enough. But, Bacon's death sped it up to the end.
Ingram lacked the ability to control the rebel army the way Bacon had been able to. Soon, the rebel army fell into disagreement and distrust amongst themselves.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the final end of the rebellion.
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Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that a short battle had gone down in Jamestown between Bacon and Governor Berkeley. The governor's men had deserted him at the first sign of gunfire and the governor went off to raise another army. Bacon and his men took over Jamestown, but soon realized that another army was approaching from the other side of the town. So, they burned Jamestown to the ground and abandoned it. Off they went to face the approaching army.
But, they soon learned that the army had dispersed and was no longer a problem. Now, Bacon tried to get the men around him to pledge more oaths of loyalty to him. But, the people were no longer eager to join him. They knew the king was sending soldiers from England to squash [00:01:00] them. Bacon had asked them to fight against the king's men. And this was too far. They were Englishman. And they would not fight the king.
Then Bacon died. This left the next in command as the leader of the rebel army. The man in charge was named John Ingram. The rebels loved him. But, he was no match for Bacon.. He couldn't command them the way Bacon had and soon the army had fallen into disorder and distrust.
On top of this, the colony was in terrible condition. Many farms had been abandoned in order for the farmers to save their families from the native attacks. Other families fled from the attacks of the looting rebels. Crops were destroyed. Houses were burned to the ground. And farms were torn apart.
People wanted an end to the rebellion. An end to anything that could cause them further harm. They would take whatever peace would come their way. At this time, Governor Berkeley was still [00:02:00] gathering an army in Virginia. With the rebel army weakening and no Bacon around to rile the people to their side. The governor had a much better chance of finally beating them.
Partly because of this disorder in the rebel army, when a group of soldiers on the governor's side came in to recapture Gloucester, they found the rebels keeping a poor watch and were able to take them by complete surprise. The men there were captured and taken back to the governor. The man in charge of them was tried and sentenced to death for treason. He begged the governor to shoot him as a soldier and not hang him like a dog. But, the governor declared that the man was not a soldier, but a rebel. And so would be hanged us one. On the day of his execution, he shouted to the gathering crowd that he died a loyal subject and lover of his country. And then he promptly met his end.
Soon, other bands of rebels were captured. They were also placed on trial and condemned to die as traitors. Governor [00:03:00] Berkeley began on a path of executions and bloody brutality that hasn't been seen in America since.
He had seen 5 of his houses in Jamestown burned to the ground, with all of his belongings stolen from him. He had seen belongings and other areas stolen from those houses. He had been overthrown by a rebel and a motley crew. And now, had to explain to the king, whom he loved and deeply respected, why he had allowed this to happen to his Majesty's colony.
A fury of hellfire had been unleashed from the governor. Even the king couldn't stop him now. Several instances of his treatment towards the rebels highlight the governor's bitterness. When one of the rebel leaders came forth before him, he asked the rebel why he had joined Bacon. Before he could answer, the man's wife rushed forward and told the governor that it was her idea. She had convinced her husband to join the rebels. And so it should be her, not her husband, who was hanged. The governor didn't care. [00:04:00] He sent her away and condemned her husband to die.
Another leader begged for his life and declared that he had only joined Bacon because the governor himself had signed the special permission allowing Bacon to take up arms against the natives. The governor responded by saying that Bacon had only been authorized to take up arms against the natives who were attacking them, not against the governor himself.
Another rebel leader complained that he had lost an eye in one of the battles. And now, at the hour of his death, the governor would not provide him a guide to help him reach the noose.
None of this mattered to the governor. He wouldn't allow the rebels, looters, traitors, and villains to escape their just punishment. He hunted the rest of the rebels like dogs. When they were caught, they were almost immediately sent to their deaths.
He almost seemed to take joy in the executions. Gone was the man who could compromise to avoid battle. Gone was the man who would ensure peace in the colony. [00:05:00] Governor Berkeley was now an old man, hardened by his losses and embarrassments.
His army invaded the areas where rebels were camping out and even set up one of his own camps in the very house where Bacon died. Even the symbol of Bacon would meet its end.
The people of Virginia joined the governor's army. Some of them really supported the governor. Many didn't actually support him, but just wanted it all to end. The governor's army was able to capture some of the rebels. But ,they also had some disasters, like when nearly an entire group under the governor fled from battle rather than fight the well-experienced rebels. The remaining soldiers laid down their weapons and negotiated with the rebels rather than fight them. But, in the end, the governor was able to retake Virginia.
When it came to the last major rebel leader, John Ingram, who had taken over when Bacon died, he and the governor were both eager for the fighting to stop. Governor Berkeley had been deeply humiliated by having been thrown out of power by [00:06:00] rebels. It would have been another embarrassment for the English soldiers to be the ones to restore him to power. So, he sent a messenger with an offer to pardon Ingram. Ingram accepted.
Now, the governor had to convince the rest of the rebels to surrender as well. So, Berkeley sent the same messenger to the other rebel armies. He offered them a pardon and full soldiers' pay for the time they spent fighting under Bacon. This was extremely generous. Who could resist such an offer? Not the rebels. They easily accepted the offer.
Now, to the final part of squashing the rebels. Throughout the rebellion, there were 2 men who constantly advised Bacon on how best to carry out his plans. The governor hated these 2 men with a fiery passion. He hated them so much that when he had offered pardons early on in the rebellion, he had specifically left their names out of the offer. Their names were Lawrence and Drummond. And they were still out there, roaming free, somewhere in [00:07:00] Virginia. The governor couldn't let this stand.
His soldiers went to work hunting Lawrence and Drummond down. After only a few days, Drummond was found half-starving in a swamp. The governor's twisted hatred swept over the rebel. When he was brought to the courthouse, he was stripped naked, the ring torn from his finger. He was denied a trial by jury. And in fact, his trial, by the judge, only lasted half an hour. He was found guilty of treason and promptly hanged that same day.
It seems that the other man, Richard Lawrence, was last seen entering into native land. And with that, he was gone. Never seen again.
As the rebellion came to a close ,the issues that people had raised had mostly been left unchanged. The natives were still attacking them. And any laws that were made to better their lives were quickly reversed the next year.
Governor Berkeley had been a major problem for the people. He had been accused of corruption, [00:08:00] imposing high taxes, and making sure elections only turned out the way he wanted them to. Now that he was full of anger and humiliation, his attitude towards the people of Virginia became even more unbearable. He acted with recklessness, retaliation, and cruelty.
Months later, when the matter of Drummond's execution came to the attention of England, one of the English leaders declared that he wished Berkeley were still alive, so he could answer for his barbarity.
What's more, was that the English soldiers were still on their way to Virginia to ensure order remained. This could bring nothing but higher tensions between the colonists and their government.
Also, King Charles II was greatly disturbed by the rebellion. Remember, that his father had been executed by the English Parliament after civil war had broken out in England. Charles himself had had to go on the run to France to save his own life. He wasn't a fan of people rising against the government.
In [00:09:00] previous episodes, we discussed a tense situation between Virginians and these 2 guys that the king had literally given the entire colony of Virginia to. As a gift. They were entitled to all of the land in Virginia and everyone had to get permission from them to own land there. Even if they already had permission from the government. These 2 men were also entitled to rent from anyone owning a house on any land in Virginia. And, they were entitled to back rent for the previous 4 years. The 2 men were also entitled to certain tax money. That was to be paid directly to them.
This had been an outrage to the colonists and they fought fiercely against it. Fortunately, the men seemed open to negotiating. They, and the colonists, all prepared an agreement that said the men would only take possession of a small part of Virginia. And that the Virginians would be allowed to buy that area back from them. The only thing the agreement needed was the approval from the king.
[00:10:00] The king did approve this agreement. But, before he could send it to Virginia, Bacon's Rebellion broke out and the king decided to hold onto it. The agreement had also asked the king to promise to never do this again. And to acknowledge that the people had always had a right to determine how much taxes they paid, and where the taxes went. And, that the king couldn't just put new taxes on them, or give their tax money away.
Into acknowledged that the people had always had a right to determine how much taxes they paid and where the taxes went.
Bacon's Rebellion changed all of that. After Bacon's Rebellion, a new charter was granted. But it was very different from the one sought by the colonists. In it, he said that Virginia was answerable to England and that the king had the power to choose their governor.
This is important because remember that during the time when England had no king and Virginia was basically left to govern itself?
The Assembly had declared that only the Assembly has the [00:11:00] power to choose the governor. With England's blessing, of course. But now, the king was saying that the Assembly didn't have that power anymore. It was only the king's power now. So, Virginia lost some really important power here.
It goes on to say a few other things, generally good for Virginians, and also states that the governor has the authority to hear and judge all murders and other serious crimes. So long as what he does with those cases closely matches the laws of England.
One of the other effects that rebellion had was that the image of rebels being hanged was fresh enough in the people's mind that they dare not complain any longer about the Navigation Acts. Those were the laws that said it was illegal to buy or sell from anyone other than England or English colonies. Before the rebellion, people had complained a lot about how these laws made it difficult for them to earn enough money to live off of. Governor Berkeley had even gone to England himself to plead their case and beg the king to do a way [00:12:00] with these laws.
Now, there would be no more of that. Nobody wanted to be accused of being a rebel or a traitor. Or having anything to say against Berkeley or the king that might be interpreted as rebellious feelings.
Yet, even though there were some bad consequences from the rebellion, the Virginians learned in a strong way that they actually did have power. When it came down to it, they could force the government to listen to them. It gave a sense of fellowship among the poor and working classes in Virginia, and it created a new type of colonist there. One that would resist the government, even at the risk of his own life.
The government also learned a very small lesson that they had better be careful when making decisions that might cause another rebellion. Unfortunately, they didn't learn this too well. For it wasn't long before Governor Berkeley started his path of revenge with the Assembly supporting him.
That's all for today. [00:13:00] Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the governor rampaged through the colony, murdering, plundering, and even disobeying the king on his quest for revenge.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Bacon had died and the man who took over for him wasn't able to command the rebel army in the same way that Bacon had. Disorder erupted and the soldiers soon found themselves either taken in battle by the governor's army, or the governor's army surrendering to the rebels and negotiation solving some of the problems.
The governor hunted down the rest of the rebels and the rebellion soon came to an end. The rebel soldiers were pardoned and even given soldiers' pay for the time they had served in the rebel army. The governor was back in control of Virginia and the king was still sending soldiers on their way to the colony to ensure order was maintained.
In all of the pardons the governor issued for the rebels [00:01:00] there were only 2 men that he excluded. These were Bacon's most trusted advisors and Governor Berkeley considered them to be main leaders in the rebellion. One of the men was captured half-starved in a swamp. And then, promptly put through a fake trial and hanged the same day. The other man was last seen heading into native territory, and then he was never seen again.
The governor who had once been a kind, level-headed beacon of justice was now an old, bitter, cruel man. He took out his revenge on the rebels with fierce brutality. So much so, that the king eventually had to force him to come back to England to answer for his actions.
When the king found out that the people of Virginia had rebelled against their government, the images of his own father being executed by a rebellious Parliament would have flooded his mind.
Remember, that he himself had to go into hiding during the English civil war. There are stories of him hiding in a tree, concealing himself in [00:02:00] cellars beneath houses, and going around the country on his way to France, pretending to be a commoner so as to blend in, while Parliament's soldiers hunted him down. Rebellion was a nasty taste for the king and wouldn't be treated very warmly.
On top of that, England and the king himself received a large sum of money every year from tobacco sales in Virginia. A rebellion could stop, or slow, the amount of tobacco sold. And on top of that, the cost of raising an army of 2,000 British soldiers to take a several-weeks-long journey across the Atlantic, and the cost of housing, feeding, and paying them was something that king wasn't wanting to spend any money on.
Governor Berkeley had been a close friend with the king's father. The current king had grown up knowing Berkeley and seeing Berkeley fight in battle beside his father. In fact, the governor had been the male equivalent of a lady-in-waiting to his father. He had lived in the [00:03:00] palace and had done everything big and small the king had asked of him.
Berkeley was considered a strong royal ally. An attack on him was also an attack on the crown. And seeing as the governor had been chosen by the king, an attack on the governor was also an attack on the crown's authority.
The king had received letters from Governor Berkeley stating that Bacon was a rebel, a traitor, and that permission that he, the governor, had given to Bacon had only been given by force.
In a previous episode, we discussed how Bacon and his rebel army had forced the governor to send a letter to the king saying that Bacon was not a rebel. And that Bacon was only acting in self-defense, and in the king's best interest, because he was protecting the king's people.
To the king, this must've seemed like Governor Berkeley had absolutely no control over the situation and that he must have failed in his job in order for this to get so out of hand. But to be fair, and to be [00:04:00] sure that he was making the most informed decision about what to do with Virginia, the king decided to gather a group of men together in England who would go to Virginia to investigate exactly what happened to bring these events about.
This group was supposed to ask the people themselves, rather than asking the governor, or the assembly members. The king had ordered the men to pursue all means of peaceful solutions to the people's grievances before using any force. This was partly because the soldiers were expensive, and partly because the king just wanted things to return to normal. The king would have wanted things to once again run smoothly in Virginia. And he would have wanted the colony to continue earning himself, and England, money. And, King Charles II also seems to have been a fair king who really did care about the welfare of the people. At least a little bit.
While the king was gathering the soldiers and the group of men who would investigate things, the governor was busy putting his own plans of revenge in [00:05:00] place. He and his friends had lost a lot during the rebellion. The rebels had burned down 5 of the governor's own houses. Yeah. Again, the governor had 5 houses just in Jamestown alone. And the houses of many of his friends had burned down as well. Their farms and food supply had been burned away, their animals stolen or driven off, and their belongings had been plundered. When you count all of the houses, cattle, belongings, and other things taken, berkeley alone, lost 8,000 pounds. Which is just over 1.6 million in today's pounds or 2 million in today's dollars. That's just the amount of money that Berkeley alone had lost.
Governor Berkeley stated that he had not 5 pounds in the whole world left to his name. I doubt that that's true, but it gives you an idea into just how much the rebels had taken from him.
The rage spreading amongst those who had been victims of the ransacking rebels only [00:06:00] increased over time. The upper class demanded that they be paid for their losses. And they weren't wrong in this. Even today, we have laws that forced those who steal to pay back the people they stole from.
However back in 1676, which is where we are, there weren't as many receipts to show who owned what and it was harder to track down the stolen items. On top of that, seeing as the massive amount of rebels had all acted together in large groups, it would have been nearly impossible to determine who stole what. Was it John Higgins who stole your coins? Was it Matthew Goodman who stole your watch? Any sort of paying back to the people who had been victims of these thefts, would have inevitably caused injustice to the people who were being ordered to pay back. It would have swept up people who hadn't been guilty of theft at all. But, what was there to do? Let those who enabled the rebellion and the looters get away with it? Something had to be done.
[00:07:00] The answer was to do what always happens when the tides of revolution turns. Those who had been kicked out of government we're now back in charge and they took from those who had kicked them out of power.
And this played out in Virginia with the re-seizing of property from anyone who was suspected of being a rebel. The governor's men barged into people's houses and stormed the place, taking anything that could be carried away and used to pay for the losses of the victims. People suspected of being rebels had their silverware, pigs, cows, dishes, clothing, tobacco, and sometimes their entire houses taken from them.
There were no trials and no processes that went about determining whose house was to be raided.
These bursts of retribution got so bad that the governor even started throwing people into prison. And kept them there, starving and living with rats, and wallowing in sickness and filth, until they signed over everything they owned to the governor. One suspected rebel [00:08:00] was held for almost an entire month while his belongings were looted by the governor's men. His pregnant wife was so stressed out by the whole ordeal that she went into labor and died.
When it came to the rebels who had already been executed by the governor, the governor and his friends gathered all of their belongings into a pile and divided it amongst themselves. They left the widows and the orphans of the executed rebels with nothing.
Now, to the next order of business. The Assembly was full of Bacon's supporters. The rebellion had seen their election and the rebel-loving Assembly had made laws on the people's behalf. Now that the rebellion was over, the governor had to make things right. He ordered a new election. It's likely that the governor promptly returned to his usual ways of election fraud. He used the police to intimidate voters and made sure that only the votes for the people he wanted were turned in.
In addition to that, the people had seen the execution of rebels and the ransacking of those [00:09:00] thought to be rebels. People were tired. They had no rebel leader who could possibly continue the rebellion and they just wanted peace. Because of this, it wasn't hard to imagine that people actually did vote for the governor's preferred candidates.
Soon, the Assembly was once again nothing more than puppets who owed their position completely to the governor. And the governor could dismiss them at any time. For their loyalty, he would give them gifts to ensure they voted however he wanted them to. And their first order of business was to undo Bacon's Laws. The ones that banned government officials from holding more than one office at a time. The ones that forced the members of the Governor's Council to pay taxes. The ones that made it so judges who declared certain taxes were to be paid had to be monitored by elected members of the Assembly so that people had a voice in their taxes. These laws were completely reversed. It was as though they never happened.
Next, they voted to have large [00:10:00] amounts of money given to themselves. Then, they made it a law that all of the rebel leaders were forever incapable of serving in the government or military. Then, they made it illegal to speak poorly of the governor, or the Governor's Council, or any of the judges in Virginia. If you were caught saying bad things about them, you would be whipped.
They also made it illegal for people to gather in groups of more than 6 people. And if you did, you would be considered a rebel and would be subject to execution or imprisonment. They further made official declaration saying that the governor was super-duper smart, and brave, and full of justice. They said he had done nothing wrong. And in fact, had no blame at all for the rebellion happening. They said that the people who had complained about things at the start of the rebellion, had only done so because of false rumors, and not anything that was actually happening in the colony for them to complain about.
So now, we get to the point where the king's group of men [00:11:00] sent to investigate the reasons for the rebellion finally arrive in Virginia. But, things don't go as planned. The governor hates them and tensions slowly rise between those on the governor's side, and those on the side of the king's men.
The men had arrived with 1000 British soldiers ready to step in if peaceful measures failed to restore order. It wasn't the 2,000-man army that king had originally planned on sending. But, it was still quite a lot of soldiers.
Governor Berkeley met with the king's men aboard their ships shortly after they arrived. In this meeting, they discussed everything that had happened during the rebellion. All of it, of course, from the governor's point of view. He had defeated the rebels and restored order and loyalty to the king. He saw no reason for the king's men to be there and was probably pretty bothered that the king thought he needed to ask the people instead of the governor, what had happened. In fact, the governor was so sure that the king shouldn't ask the people that he and [00:12:00] his Assembly told the king's men, that they should direct all questions to the Assembly, not the people.
The Assembly had been given the power to hear and address people's complaints. So, any business dealing with the people's complaints had to go through the Assembly. At least, that was the governor's argument.
It was outrageous that the Assembly would try to take this right to be heard by their king, away from the people. The king had ordered them to listen to the people. It was even more absurd because when the people did bring their complaints to them, the Assembly turned them away or worse, punished them severely as criminals.
Berkeley had controlled everything for a long time in Virginia. He was undoubtedly going to be blamed for some things. And rightfully so. If he could stop the king's men from reporting to the king that he was to carry some of the blame, he could avoid embarrassment from the one person whose opinion he cared about the most - the king.
On top of that, he had suffered tremendous [00:13:00] humiliation by the rebels who had forced him to write that letter to the king declaring that the rebels were not disloyal to the crown. Any had been forced to give Bacon permission to go out against the natives. And, he had been forced to submit to a power of the people over himself. It was an utter humiliation. If the king's men heard the people's complaints, they might again gain the power to force the governor into submission or apology. He couldn't let this happen.
On top of that, Governor Berkeley was right on the edge of crushing his enemies. They would be stamped out once and for all. And he was showering rewards on those who had remained loyal to him. He was more than a little worried that someone could just come in and tell them not to execute or rob the rebels. And the king certainly had this power.
Not only did the king, have this power, the men he sent to investigate decided to use it. They declared that the confiscation of the rebels' possessions were to be stopped at once, and all matters related to redistribution of possessions were to be put [00:14:00] before the king for the king to decide on. They must go through the legal process. They must grant those accused of being rebels a fair trial.
The governor flew into a rage. He stormed around the men's ship and shouted at them. After this, the king's men decided that all communications with the governor should be in writing.
The relationship between the governor and the king's men would only become more tense from here.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the governor disobeyed direct orders from the king. And continues the rampant executions before finally being forced to return to England.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the king had sent a group of men to investigate the colony and find out exactly what had happened to bring Bacon's Rebellion about.
The governor had called for new elections to the Assembly and all of Bacon's supporters were voted out. The Assembly was once again full of people who would do whatever the governor wanted them to do. First, they undid all of the laws that were passed during the rebellion. These were laws designed to end corruption and high taxes. Now, it was though those laws had never been passed.
Next, they declared that any ill words about the governor, or the Governor's Council, or any judges in Virginia was against the law. And anyone caught speaking poorly of them would [00:01:00] be punished. It was declared illegal to gather in groups larger than 6 people. And those caught in groups larger than 6 people would be considered criminals and also punished.
The king's men had arrived with 1,000 British soldiers, but had been instructed to use peaceful means to restore order in the colony before using any force. When the king's men got there, they found that the colony was in ruins. The people were in severe poverty. The people were unhappy. And the governor was targeting them without following proper methods of justice that the English government had laid out.
The governor had told the king's men that they were not to ask the people directly about their grievances that led to the rebellion, as the king had ordered. He told them that instead of following the king's orders to talk directly to the people, they should talk to the Assembly and that the Assembly had the power to hear and address the people's complaints. In fact, he said that the Assembly was the only place that had the power to [00:02:00] address people's complaints, not the king's men.
One of their meetings with the governor turned into a violent rampage where the governor stormed around and yelled at them. The king's men declared that all communications with the governor after this was to be in writing.
This was a tense situation. And if that weren't enough, in another meeting, the king's men informed the governor that the king was ordering him to step down as governor and return to England at once. The colony was to be placed in the hands of the king's men.
This order meant the end of the governor's revenge. Revenge for the deaths of his friends. Revenge for the humiliation which he suffered at the hands of the rebels. Revenge, which had already started and would now be cut short.
Even though Governor Berkeley had written the king asking for permission to retire from the governor's office just 8 months before this, a lot had happened since then. The governor was righting wrongs. He was joyfully punishing those who had harmed him [00:03:00] and the crown.
The king's advisors back in England, didn't want Berkeley to be dismissed. But, the king remembered Berkeley's letter asking to retire from the office of governor. The king thought that if the governor was saying that he was too weak and old to govern, then the best thing to do is to grant this dismissal and order him to England, where he can shed some light on what happened to bring the rebellion about.
But, by the time Governor Berkeley had received these orders, the rebellion had ended and he had brought it to an end.
This is where the governor takes a turn against the king.
At first, it was denying the king's men the ability to question the people directly as the king had ordered. Then, it was yelling and raving at the men. Now, he would go a step further in his disobedience and he would actually disobey that king's orders.
To do this, he pretended to read the king's orders wrong. The king had told him to give up the position of governor and return to England at his nearest quote, [00:04:00] "conveniency". He took this word "conveniency" and acted as though the king was telling him that he could stay as governor and remain in Virginia until it became convenient for him to leave. Everyone, including the governor, knew that the king meant for him to return immediately. As soon as he was able to, as in, as soon as a ship was available and he had gathered some of his belongings.
The governor, former Swifty of the king, was now disobeying direct orders. The king's men could have used those 1,000 British soldiers and forced the governor aboard a ship to England. But, they had been ordered to use peaceful methods before resorting to the use of the soldiers.
Plus, Governor Berkeley's brother was still in England, and he was a very important man there. Not only was he important there, he was also one of the king's favorites. If Berkeley had been forced to do anything by use of the king's soldiers, his brother could persuade the king to take revenge on the men who ordered the use of the soldiers. [00:05:00] So, for now, the king's men had to sit back and wait for the king's further orders on what to do.
While they waited, there was another matter to attend to. When the king's men had arrived with the 1,000 British soldiers at their back, the people of Virginia went into a panic. They had already been suffering under the governor's brutal reign of terror, and now they were sure the soldiers would inflict even more suffering upon them. The king's men wanted to reassure the people that they were in no danger from the soldiers.
So, the king's men presented the governor with a pardon from the king. The king had offered the pardon to every person who had been involved in the rebellion. If someone were to accept the pardon from the king, all they had to do was return to following the laws in Virginia and take an oath of loyalty to the king. This wouldn't have been hard since the rebellion was over, and the people in Virginia still considered themselves Englishman. They were still deeply loyal to England.
During the rebellion, the governor had offered several pardons himself. [00:06:00] But, the rebellion was over. And he was no longer in a position to be forced into giving the rebels anything. But, this was coming directly from the king. He had no choice. Not really. Maybe a little. What he did with these orders was kind of remarkable in how bold it was.
Instead of publishing the pardon in all areas of Virginia, as the king had ordered, Governor Berkeley decided to hold onto the pardon and hide it from the people while he figured out what to do with it.
His first idea was to shred the king's pardon and issue one of his own one that exempted certain rebels from it. Especially that one rebel we discussed in a previous episode that had disappeared into the forest and had not been seen since. This had been one of Bacon's closest advisers and the governor wouldn't agree to pardon him for any reason.
The king's men begged the governor to publish the king's pardon unchanged. They told the governor how displeased the king would be if he heard that Berkeley were disobeying him. [00:07:00] Plus, the people were still terrified that the soldiers were there to punish them. They should know that their king wanted to forgive them. He intended no harm.
Finally, after a few days of thinking it over, Governor Berkeley decided to publish the pardon unchanged. But, this wasn't the end of that. Even though he published the king's pardon unchanged, he also published his own declaration. His declaration named a handful of rebel leaders and said that they would be exempt from the pardon. So, it was kind of the same as if he had changed the king's pardon.
This couldn't stand. He was going directly against the king's orders, and speaking as though he had the power to change, or add to, the king's commands. The king's men wrote to the king about everything the governor was doing to disobey him.
Even before the pardon, the king had ordered Berkley to stop all executions and all confiscations of rebel property, so that the king could hear the cases against the rebels and decide what to [00:08:00] do after a fair trial.
But, the governor didn't seem to care. He was mad with rage and his singular focus was on revenge.
Governor Berkeley returned to the executions and the confiscations of rebel property to pay back those the rebels had looted from. Remember, that the Assembly was under the governor's complete control. He had made sure that the people he wanted elected had been elected. He controlled the Governor's Council, which was the other half of the Assembly. And the people had witnessed the atrocities committed against those whom the governor disliked. Nobody would dare stand up to the governor now. Especially, not the Assembly.
And so the prisons filled up with people accused of being rebels and those the governor wanted to force to sign over their property in order to gain their freedom back. Other people had their property just taken from them to pay back the governor's friends. Others were sent to their deaths.
Finally, it seems that though the Assembly had had enough. It [00:09:00] must have taken quite a lot for the Assembly to speak out against the governor. The governor had continued on this way until the Assembly themselves asked the governor to stop the executions.
The Assembly was under his control. But, they were also his friends and they were the people he most wanted to make happy by repaying them for their losses.
But, that wasn't the end of the punishment for the rebels. The executions had stopped, but in their place, he began to set heavy fines on them to repay for the losses. Others, he banished from Virginia.
By this point, the people's previous complaints, the ones that had led to Bacon's Rebellion, had still not been addressed. The laws that had passed to end corruption and high taxes had been reversed. And now, they were in fear of who would be executed or punished next.
The possibility of another rebellion was a real one. All they needed was another leader like Bacon and they could topple the whole government this time. [00:10:00] Rumors spread that the rebel leader who had escaped into the woods would return and lead them. If another rebellion happened, they might even do some real damage to the 1,000-man British army stationed there.
So, why didn't they find the man, or even another man who could lead them? The people were certainly angry enough, had the weapons, and many of them now had experience in battle.
Well, instead, they did the next best thing. Something that was less likely to cause bloodshed. They turned to the king's men as their saviors.
These men had the king's ear. They had the king's pardon. And they had the king's soldiers on their side. The king had sent them to find out from the people what their complaints were. Surely, they would protect the people.
The king's men wrote to the king that the people were far too afraid to speak out against the governor and the Assembly, who were at the center of a lot of the complaints.
They advised the king that the people would never truly inform him of what had gone [00:11:00] wrong until the governor himself was removed from the colony, and the fear he instilled in the people had gone with him. On top of that, the governor was actually stopping their investigations wherever he could, and even going so far as preventing people from speaking to the king's men.
When the king learned about all of the governors acts of disobedience, he was furious. Who did the governor think he was? He had grown up in the palace. He had been one of the crown's strongest supporters. He had even risked his own life to defend his father, the previous king.
The king wrote to Governor Berkeley telling him that he was surprised at his disobedience. The king told him that the orders that have been given to him to return to England at his conveniency had been written so clearly that no man could misunderstand them. The king, obviously didn't believe that Berkley innocently misunderstood the king's orders to return as soon as possible. He then ordered Berkeley, again, to return to England at once. No more at the [00:12:00] nearest conveniency. He was to return immediately and answer for his actions.
One of the important English politicians of the time also wrote to Governor Berkeley. In his letter, he stated that the king was indeed disturbed that the governor, who had been so loyal to the crown, had issued his own proclamation with the king's pardon, so that, in effect, it changed the king's pardon. The king was also unhappy with him for not returning the first time he had been ordered to do so.
He went on to say that the king had little hope of Virginia's people obeying their governor when their governor wasn't obeying the king. He urged the governor to obey the king and return to England, whether it was convenient for him or not.
But, before the letters arrived in Virginia, the governor had already left for England. Berkeley, now old and weak from the constant fights, became very ill on the way.
He arrived in England alive, but just barely.
Back in the colony, the king's men had become the voice of the [00:13:00] people. They were there to hear them, and deliver their complaints directly to the king. They had stood up to the governor and had ensured that he left the colony. They were also no friends of the Assembly, who was still largely made up of Governor Berkeley's allies.
The Assembly saw the king's men as a sort of enemy. One of the king's men would become governor while Berkeley was away, and being an enemy of the Assembly, this led to a lot of problems on its own.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the Assembly fought the new governor, Governor Berkeley's fate in England, and the assignment of a new permanent governor to replace Berkeley.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the king had ordered governor Berkley to return to England at the soonest "conveniency" to answer for the rebellion. The king wanted to know, more than anything, what had caused the rebellion. He sent a group of men to Virginia to investigate and ask the people directly.
The governor and the Assembly got in their way every chance they could. The governor also disobeyed the king's order to return to England by saying that the king's word "conveniency" meant that the king wanted him to return to England as soon as it was convenient for him.
The king's men tried to convince him that the king meant as soon as a ship was ready, which was now, but the governor had no intention of stopping his retaliation on the [00:01:00] rebels. If he could stay in Virginia longer and squeeze more punishment out of the rebels, he would. Even if that meant disobeying the person that mattered most to him - the king.
On top of that, the king had pardoned all of the rebels. The governor and the Assembly didn't want this pardon to go through because it meant they would have to stop punishing the rebels who had wronged them. The governor thought of keeping the pardon a secret. But, the king's men who had been sent over to investigate the rebellion, urged him to publish it.
The governor agreed. And he did publish it. But, he made his own proclamation that changed the pardon. He made a list of all the people he really hated that had a hand in leading the rebellion, and he declared that they were not part of the pardon.
The king's men were outraged that he would change the king's orders. They wrote to the king, detailing everything the governor was doing to disobey him. Then, the governor returned to the trials and executions of the former rebels.
Okay. So now, you have this guy, Herbert [00:02:00] Jeffreys, who was one of the king's men. Governor Berkeley was in England. And now, this guy Jeffreys, he was the Governor of Virginia.
The Assembly had already made a big show of the fact that they weren't friends of the king's men. They weren't going to participate in anything that king's men wanted to do, and they would actively resist any of their efforts.
You can imagine that they extended this feeling to the new governor. The king had chosen him as governor, only temporarily. He was supposed to step in only while Governor Berkeley was gone. But, Governor Jeffreys felt that he had the full power of the governor, and nobody should take his temporary status to mean that he didn't have full authority.
He made a declaration of this to the Assembly, who promptly didn't listen. They believed that Governor Berkeley was in England, pleading his case, and proving his innocence to the king. Soon, he would return. So, they might as well hold off on doing anything this temporary governor wants to do because Berkeley is just going to come back and change it all again.
[00:03:00] The truth is, Governor Jeffreys was even more temporary than just temporary. He was double temporary. Years before this, another man in England had been chosen to act as governor in Virginia if anything happened to Berkeley, or if Berkeley left the colony.
The problem was, this man was a Lord. A pompous, self-indulgent, used-to-the-life-of-riches-and-luxury type of Lord. He wanted no part of the Americas. So, what was supposed to happen was that when Governor Berkeley left, this Lord was supposed to go to Virginia right away to take his place. The king ordered the Lord to go to Virginia immediately. But, seeing as he hated the uncivilized new world, he made up excuse after excuse for why he had to delay his trip. So, this guy in Virginia, Governor Jeffreys, was like the backup to the backup. Not a pleasant position for him to be in. And one he probably hadn't planned on when he set out to Virginia.
Whatever his relationship with the Assembly was, his [00:04:00] other job was still to finish the investigations into what had caused Bacon's Rebellion. Berkeley was gone. And now, the king's men could finally ask the people what their complaints had been without the governor butting in and stopping them every step of the way.
They chose a man in every county whose job it was to hear the complaints of the people there. The complaints were to be written down and the king's men were to take these writings to the king.
Even though Governor Berkeley was gone, the Assembly was full of his friends. He had made sure they were elected on the elected side. And the other half of the Assembly was the Governor's Council, which he chose directly.
Plus, the people in the Assembly were the ones who had been hurt the most. They had lost houses, animals, money, servants, clothing, and in some cases, their entire farms had been destroyed by the rebels.
The king's men had been sent over to give an ear to the rebels and their supporters. The king wanted to know why they had rebelled. So, it makes sense that the Assembly members would continue to resist the king's [00:05:00] men, even with Governor Berkeley gone. It wasn't all just him who had been making the job of the king's men difficult.
The Assembly even went out of their way to remind the people that Governor Berkeley was sure to return. So, basically, if you're thinking of complaining about Berkeley, or us, remember all the people he had whipped, imprisoned, executed, and banished from the colony. And, don't forget that it's actually illegal to speak poorly of the governor or the assembly.
But, thking's gsmen assured the people that they had the king's protection. They could come forward and complain and the king wouldn't allow anyone to be punished for it.
We've seen how the king would send these kinds of orders for his men to talk to the people, and for his men to pardon everyone, and how the governor completely ignored these orders. So, people probably didn't feel too reassured that they would be safe.
However, many of them did come forward and gave an account of the beginning of the rebellion and why it had happened. They were sure to include the grievances against the governor and [00:06:00] the Assembly.
The Assembly lashed out and declared that the complaints were nothing more than the lies of the governor's enemies. The king's men didn't really care if the complaints were true or not. That wasn't their job. Their job was simply to hear the people and report what they had said back to the king. Berkeley was in England. And that was where the truth would be debated.
The next thing that king's men did, was to go to the Assembly House and ask the record keeper for the records related to Bacon's Rebellion. This would be a record of everything that was said and done during the rebellion. They wanted to bring that information to the king as well. But, the record keeper refused to give the records to them. He said that they could see the records, but they couldn't take them. The king's men weren't in the mood to be refused. So, they took the records by force.
This caused quite a problem with the Assembly. They sent a heated letter to Governor Jeffreys. They said that it was an enormous violation of their rights. The king controlled the colony, but that didn't mean that he, or his men, [00:07:00] could do whatever they wanted. This wasn't just true in the colonies. It was also true in England itself. The king's power was limited.
The Assembly felt they had a right to keep their own records. The king's men felt the king had a right to those records. It's something that could be debated for a long time, and probably would have, had the issue been taken to a courthouse. But, seeing as the king's men took the records by force, there was no need to debate. They already had the records.
The king's men left shortly after this. They returned to England, records and complaints in hand. Back to where the king would hear everything. Back to where Governor Berkeley was waiting to be heard. When they got there, Berkley was on his death bed. He was a weak, old man who had arrived in England very ill. He had been in constant battle for years with either the natives or the rebels, and he had beared the weight of the king's disappointment for at least half of that.
One of the king's advisors saw the state he was in [00:08:00] and said that Berkeley was so near death's door, that it would be cruel to interrogate him. This may have saved Berkeley from answering for his actions, if that's what he wanted. But, despite the fact that Berkeley had disobeyed the king, he still greatly loved the king. He pleaded for an opportunity to prove his innocence in causing the rebellion.
The king seems to have kept some warm feelings for Berkeley as well, and granted this request. He wrote a letter to the governor, ordering him to meet as soon as possible. But, the letter arrived too late. A few days later, Governor Berkeley died.
But, the story doesn't stop there. While the dying governor had laid in his bed in England, he told his brother, John Berkeley, about all the evil things the rebels had done. He told him that the king's men were enemies, and asked his brother to defend his name in court. His brother agreed.
His brother, John, was already an important man in England. He was one of the king's favorites. If he stepped into court to defend Governor [00:09:00] Berkeley, people would listen. His brother was true to his word. He went to the court and attempted to convince the king and his advisors that the governor was innocent. He claimed that the entire bulk of the complaints against Berkeley were all lies. He shouted at them and accused the king's men of causing his brother's death.
But, it was no use. The king's advisors sided with the king's men. They believed the report and that Governor Berkeley was guilty of at least having some part in Bacon's Rebellion.
With the advisors and the king on their side, the king's men who had been in Virginia now used their position in England to punish the record keeper who had refused to give them the Assembly's records. They told the king's advisors that he was an uneducated, vulgar, wicked man, and that he was unfit for a government position.
Back in Virginia, Governor Jeffreys had stayed behind. He was acting as governor until either Governor Berkeley returned, or the pampered Lord who was supposed to replace Berkeley, [00:10:00] could arrive.
Word of Berkeley's death hadn't yet reached the colony. The Assembly was just as resistant towards them as they had been before. Now his buddies, the other king's men, weren't there. They were back in England. He was kind of all on his own.
He tried to stop the resistance from his own government by kicking some of the members off of the Governor's Council. He also removed some of the members from the elected side of the Assembly. Fortunately for Governor Jeffreys, the Governor's Council realized that they could be dismissed at any moment by him. All of this anger and resistance towards the governor, did them no good. Jeffreys wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't trying to bowl over people's rights. He wasn't executing his enemies like Berkeley had done. It would be better to cooperate with him than to be on opposite sides.
However, some in the Assembly still hated him. And they made sure that everyone knew it. They called him weak and said that he was unfit for governor. They were eager to lash out at him [00:11:00] whenever they could. And they soon got their chance.
Governor Jeffreys was somewhat new to Virginia. He hadn't been there long enough to get what the locals called "seasoned" with the weather. Every winter, the weather would turn bad, just as it had in 1607, when the colonists first arrived in Jamestown. Governor Jeffreys hadn't developed an immunity to the sickness that had killed so many in the years before. He soon found himself bedridden with a terrible bout of sickness. The sickness was so severe, that he was utterly unable to attend matters of government for several months. And during this time, his enemies thrived.
His own Governor's Council worked with the rest of the Assembly to resume the trials against the rebels. Even though this had been declared illegal by the king himself, the Assembly seemed to stop at nothing to punish those who had wronged them and to repay themselves for their losses.
The Assembly was doing whatever it wanted. There was no one to stop them. They had disobeyed the king. [00:12:00] They had acted against the wishes of the governor while he was too sick to do anything about it. And they had betrayed the people of Virginia by continuously punishing them, rather than fixing the issues that caused them to rebel in the first place. And they did all of this because they believed that Governor Berkeley would return to Virginia and support their every move. Because they were also his moves.
Unfortunately, around this time, a letter came from the king. Just to clear up any confusion from the time that Berkeley was there, he was reissuing the pardon for all of the rebels. It could be made no clearer than it already had been that the Assembly was to stop the trials, the fines, the taxes, the confiscation, And any other punishments against the rebels.
Furthermore, the king was declaring that the pardon was legal from the moment the first one had been issued. This meant that not only did the Assembly have to stop taking from and punishing the rebels, they now had to give what they had [00:13:00] taken back to the rebels.
This was an outrage. This couldn't be allowed to happen. At this point, the Assembly was collecting huge amounts of money in a special tax. Instead of crumbling buildings and useless forts, the money from the special tax was going into the pockets of the Assembly members themselves. In some places, the tax was 150 pounds of tobacco. In other places, it was 3 or 400 pounds of tobacco. Were they supposed to just stop doing all of this? Were they not supposed to pay themselves back for the damages caused by the rebels?
So, much like Governor Berkeley had done with the first pardon, the Assembly decided to hide the reissuing of the pardon. If the people didn't know it existed, then they didn't have to give anything back. If they were already ignoring the first pardon, what's the big deal about hiding the second one? Why not just ignore this one too?
Well, this also had to do with Governor Berkeley. The Assembly still didn't know that [00:14:00] Berkeley had already died. They still believed that he would return and guide them forth on this path of revenge.
In addition to this, they believed that the pardon had only been reissued because those lying hacks, the king's men, had told the king terrible lies from the people. Surely, Governor Berkeley was there right now, speaking with the king, clearing all of this up. And he would return with new orders not to pardon everyone.
The Assembly members weren't rebels. They didn't want to disobey the king. They didn't want to break away from England. What they wanted, was the king to agree with them and allow them to continue their revenge.
Their hopes of Governor Berkeley swooping in to save the day and bring the king to their side would soon be dashed. And their fight with Governor Jeffreys would continue.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how word of Governor Berkeley's death brought on another series of governors.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this [00:15:00] episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Governor Berkeley had finally left for England where he'd face questions about his time as governor and how Bacon's Rebellion came about.
The king had sent a letter to the Assembly, confirming that all of the rebels were to be pardoned and the Assembly had hidden this letter. They were confident that Governor Berkeley would be able to get the king to cancel this pardon.
When word of Governor Berkeley's death reached Virginia it through all of the Assembly's plans into chaos. They had hoped and counted on the governor convincing the king that the rebels didn't deserve a pardon. They deserved to be punished. And that would allow the Assembly to remain loyal to the king while also recovering their losses from the rebellion.
[00:01:00] Because, remember the colonists and the Assembly still considered themselves full-on English citizens. They didn't want to go against the king. They really wanted the king on their side. But this wasn't the case. And with Governor Berkeley's death, all hope of speaking with the king to change his mind was now over. Their current governor was one of the men that king had sent over to investigate why Bacon's Rebellion happened.
He stayed behind to be temporary governor while the other king's men returned to England.
But, seeing as he was new to Virginia, he hadn't yet developed an immunity to the yearly sickness that came around in the winter time. So, he was deathly ill and unable to perform any of his government functions while he was sick. During this time, the Assembly took over control of the government and running things day-to-day.
But now, the temporary governor, Governor Jeffreys, was recovered from the sickness and he was strong enough to fight the Assembly. He had been too ill before this to make them follow the king's orders to pardon all of the [00:02:00] rebels. Now with his health in place, Governor Jeffreys started to make it clear to the Assembly that he would no longer tolerate their disobedience.
One of the things he did was to target a member of the Assembly who had insulted him while he was bedridden with illness. This man had called the governor a weakling in a fancy dumb wig. Not really that much of an insult, but back then it was considered pretty offensive. This Assembly member had also said that the governor was a bigger rebel than Bacon and had broken laws of Virginia and wasn't worth a penny back in England. This kind of talk was too much for Governor Jeffreys.
Free speech hadn't been given to the people yet and criticizing the government and the governor was still illegal. So, he placed the Assembly member on trial and charged him with speaking ill of the governor. The jury found him guilty and the Assembly sent the case to the king to ask what sort of punishment the man should receive. However, in the end, the man never really suffered any consequences. And later that year, [00:03:00] Governor Jeffreys died.
This is important because it kind of caused a series of events after the governor's death that shows just how out of control the Assembly was.
The Assembly was so furious with the governor for putting one of their members on trial, that they went after his wife. Think about that. They must have really hated him.
Back then, there were these things called debtors' prisons where people would go if they failed to pay their debts. So, what they did was they looked at Governor Jeffreys' bank accounts and noticed that he was in debt. This was only because he had been working for free as governor for 8 months. For eight months, he hadn't been paid his salary and he'd just been racking up all this debt to live off of while he waited for the money to come to him. He had every intention of paying off the debt of course. But when he died, his salary still hadn't arrived.
So, what the Assembly did was they threw his widow in debtors' prison. While she was there, she wrote to one of the king's [00:04:00] advisors and told them that she basically didn't think she was getting out of there alive. And begged him to stop the Assembly from doing anything else so that her son wouldn't be ruined.
Eventually, the governor's salary reached Virginia and his widow was freed from prison. But it just goes to show how much the tensions had been rising between the Assembly and the governor. It's an important part of the story in how the Assembly developed a sense of their own self, separate from the governor, and separate from England. Granted, this wouldn't come into play for almost 100 years, but the Assembly was definitely developing its own identity.
So, now you had another governor who had died. And the guy who was supposed to come over to take over was a pampered Lord in England who didn't want to leave his life of luxury. The king had chosen this pampered Lord years ago. He was supposed to be Governor of Virginia. If anything ever happened to Berkeley or Berkeley ever left the colony.
Well, now Berkeley was dead. And so was the guy who had been running things while Berkeley was in England. [00:05:00] So this Lord was the next guy who was supposed to go to Virginia. But, since he was used to the fiancee and lavish life of England's high society, the muddy boring towns of Virginia seemed like a nightmare. In fact, he hated the idea of going to Virginia so much that he delayed his departure to Virginia for 2 years.
As an interesting point, this pamper Lord was actually already familiar with the colony. He was one of those noble guys that the king had granted all of Virginia to as a gift, and that Virginians had to buy parts of Virginia back from.
In a previous episode, we discussed how the Virginians had to get the permission of the king to buy Virginia back from these nobles.
Well, now one of those nobles was going to be their governor. This was Lord Culpeper. While Lord Culpeper waited and waited and came up with every excuse he could to delay his trip to Virginia, the colony needed a governor to run things. And they needed one they could trust.
The man they [00:06:00] chose had been one of Governor Berkeley's closest allies. Perfect. Everyone in the Assembly was one of Governor Berkeley's allies. They could totally work with this guy.
Another interesting point is that we sort of brushed up against this guy in a previous episode as well. Remember how Bacon's Rebellion was going on and Governor Berkeley assembled 500 men on horseback to go out against the natives who had been attacking the colonists, but at the last minute, the governor dismissed them all and told his army to go home? And historians have been baffled by this for centuries?
Well, the man who had been at the front of that army right under the command of the governor was a man named Henry Chicheley. And this was who the new governor would be while they waited for the pampered Lord to get on a ship and come to Virginia.
Henry Chicheley had been a soldier in the English army during England's civil war. He had fought on the side of the king and was a fierce supporter of the crown. In fact, he was knighted for his service to the king.
In addition to that, when Parliament executed the king and [00:07:00] came to power, they imprisoned Henry Chicheley in the Tower of London on suspicion that he was plotting against them. They eventually allowed him to go free and sail to Virginia so long as he didn't do anything rebellious.
So this Governor Chicheley guy was not only a strong Berkeley supporter, he was also a strong royal supporter. He could get along with both sides of the ocean.
And it's interesting to say that there were both sides here. Several generations before this, the Assembly was the same as England's government. I'm going to say it again, that they still very much considered themselves Englishman and had no desire whatsoever to break away from England. They also still recognize the authority of the king over them.
However, they found themselves in a situation where they were sometimes in disagreement with the king and they were no longer afraid to voice that disagreement.
So, the colony went along with this Chicheley guy who was actually a pretty good governor. He was mild-tempered and seemed [00:08:00] to have a genuine care of both the peoples and the Assembly's wellbeing.
It wouldn't last long however, because within 2 years, the new governor, the one who hated the idea of even being there, would arrive with new instructions from the king.
That's all for today.
Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss how the pampered Lord finally arrived in Virginia after being forced to leave England. And how the king began taking away some of the Assembly's most important rights.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
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Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that the guy who was acting as governor in Virginia had died. The king had chosen a man in England to be governor of Virginia if anything should ever happen to Governor Berkeley. The people of Virginia had already known him from a couple of decades before when the king had given all of Virginia to a group of nobles and Virginia had to get permission from the king to buy it back from the nobles. This man, the pampered Lord, was one of those nobles. His name was Lord Culpeper.
Governor Berkeley had died 2 years ago and this guy was still overseas, unable to pry himself away from the pampered life of English court. So, while the colonists waited for this Lord to come [00:01:00] be their governor, one of Berkeley's closest allies was running things in his place.
However, things were not well in Virginia. The Assembly was finding and taxing the people in order to compensate themselves for losses during Bacon's Rebellion. The king had told them to stop doing this, but they had ignored his order.
When the king learned that the Assembly was ignoring his order, he was furious. His advisors in England told him that the Virginia Assembly's refusal to follow his orders was a rebellion in itself. Remember, that this king, King Charles II had lived through the English civil war, which was kind of a rebellion in and of itself where Parliament executed the king, who was his father. Then, this king, after his father had been executed, fled England to save his own life.
He hid inside a tree and secret rooms under houses. And disguised himself as a peasant as he fled to France. He also spent time in battle fighting [00:02:00] Parliament's army. This king was no lover of rebellions. Any sort of rebellion would have brought back the feelings from the time that England's Parliament rebelled in the civil wars.
So, the king ordered the pampered Lord Culpeper to leave England and go to Virginia at once. Culpeper finally arrived in Virginia in 1680 and the temporary Governor Chicheley stepped down.
Culpeper told the Assembly that the king was very unhappy with them ignoring his order. And the Assembly told him that they didn't really care because they had good reasons to ignore it.
Culpeper, being weak and inexperienced as a leader, didn't put up much of a fight and allowed the Assembly to continue taxing and fining the people for the cost of the rebellion. Even though the king had ordered them to stop.
When the king had come out of hiding and had been placed back on the throne, he was very relaxed about how he ruled things. As he got more comfortable and the reality of running the colonies came into play, [00:03:00] he began to take a more controlling stance. His father had been executed by rebellious government. His own life had been in jeopardy from the rebellious Parliament soldiers. A colony's government ignoring the king could not be tolerated. Charles II began to clamp down on Virginia.
In the previous episode we discussed how he took back the power to appoint a Governor for Virginia. Virginia had won the right to choose its own governor just years before this. No longer could they do so.
He also told the Assembly that they could no longer hear court appeals. Up until this time, when someone appealed a court decision, the Assembly, half of which were elected by the people, heard the appeal. Now, the king said no more of that. He wanted control of that as well. Now, they were ignoring his order to pardon Bacon's rebels and stop taxing them to make up for people's losses. Something had to be done.
One of the next things King Charles did was to take away the [00:04:00] governor's right to call the Assembly together. This is important because the Assembly got together each year and made laws. They talked about issues facing the people and usually came up with solutions to the problems in Virginia.
But, in order to get together, they had to be called together. They didn't just show up at the same time each year. They had to actually be called by the governor at that time each year. England was very far away. It could take months to get a message back and forth. Sometimes, there were emergencies and even without emergencies, regular business still needed to be conducted.
Now, the governor was no longer allowed to call the Assembly together. The king had said that only he, the king, could call the Assembly together, if the king didn't forget about them due to being busy running other places. He might call them each year and he might not. He might tell the Assembly that they had no right together in a certain year. It meant that Virginia was once again, [00:05:00] completely dependent on the king for it to even function.
On top of that, the king made it clear that if he were to allow the Assembly to gather, they must obey him or he would tell them to pack it up and go home. Then, the king went a step further and said that if he did call the Assembly together and they went about their business in passing laws, they had to submit all of those laws to him for approval. This was extreme.
Before this, the king didn't ask to see laws in Virginia before they were past. They were just voted on by the Assembly and then the governor signed them into law just like today. But now, he was really exerting control over them. And remember, it could take months just to receive a response from the king all the way over in England.
It was so ridiculous for the Assembly to wait for the king to call them together, that Governor Culpeper disregarded this order. The colony simply couldn't run without being able to assemble every year at a moment's notice when emergencies [00:06:00] happened. Remember the part about the king canceling, the assembly's ability to hear court appeals?
Well, luckily for Virginia, Governor Culpeper never got around to making the Assembly do that. So, this whole time, the Assembly kept their right to hear appeals, even though the king wanted that right taken away from them.
Governor Culpeper, used to his luxury ways of life, had been far too busy, collecting money in these little conman schemes he had going on. We'll get to that in a moment.
For the time being, Governor Culpeper was ordered to find a way for Virginia to make more money for the king.
It had been long-established in the colonies, and in England, that people could not be taxed without their consent. Meaning, the people had to be able to vote on the representatives that would in turn, vote on taxes, like the way we do today. So, Culpeper got more money for the king by having the Assembly pass a new tax.
This all seems very nice and well, and it wasn't a new tax, exactly. It was a [00:07:00] tax on tobacco leaving Virginia. And it was the same tax that already existed. However, the tax usually went to the Virginia government to pay for public things like police, roads, buildings, and other public services. Now, the tax money didn't go to the Virginia government. It went directly to the king.
The idea was that he would give some of it to England and all of his other colonies too. The colonists were already on edge about taxes and had played a significant part in the feelings that led to Bacon's Rebellion. It was taking money from Virginia to spread around the empire while the Virginians had been used to it going back into their own colony.
Governor Culpeper was also supposed to do a bunch of other things, like encouraging the production of things other than tobacco,, everything possible to convert servants and slaves to Christianity, and forbidding severe treatment of servants and slaves so long as they were Christian.
This is around the time that slavery began to explode in Virginia. It was really [00:08:00] around 1680 that it became a major business there. We might cover some of this in a later season, but as with many other things, we won't get too deep into stuff that didn't lead to the revolution.
Okay. Back to Culpeper's money schemes. Get this, British soldiers had been sent over from England to restore order in Virginia. And when Governor Culpeper arrived around 4 years after Bacon's Rebellion, there were still 2 groups of British soldiers in the colony.
The soldiers had remained dutiful to their purpose, but by the time Culpeper arrived, they had not received any pay for several months. And feelings of mutiny began to spread among them.
Before he left England, Governor Culpeper had been given money to pay the soldiers and he had been given money to pay the families that had been feeding and housing the soldiers. This is where it gets a little weird.
English coins at that time were extremely rare in the colonies. But, there were Spanish coins that were a little bit more common. Each [00:09:00] Spanish coin was worth about 5 small English coins. The name of the currency and the exact weight and all of that stuff is really unimportant. What's important to remember, is that each Spanish coin was worth 5 small English coins.
So, Culpeper arrives with this money and starts declaring that each Spanish coin is worth 6 small English coins, not 5. There was no reason for him to do this other than to pay people less money. So, if he owed a soldier 30 English coins, he was supposed to pay them 6 Spanish coins. But, since he randomly declared that each Spanish coin was worth 6 English coins, a soldier who was owed 30 English coins would now only get 5 Spanish coins.
I know it's a little complicated. But, basically, he said that Spanish coins were worth more than they actually were. So, he was sent over with enough money to give each soldier 6 Spanish coins, but he only gave them 5 Spanish coins each and Governor Culpeper kept each extra Spanish coin for [00:10:00] himself.
This is how we paid all the soldiers that remained in Virginia and how he paid the families who had been housing them. It's estimated that he gave himself around 1,000 pounds this way. Which is 185,000 in today's pounds and 234,000 in today's dollars.
On top of that, he managed to receive twice the salary that Governor Berkeley had received. Plus, he was also able to get England to send him money for his housing, his position as leader of the military, and remember, he was one of the two men whom the king had given all of Virginia to, and the Virginians were still paying him for some of that land back.
His position has governor was a great way for him to make easy money. And he didn't seem to do much or care much for the wellbeing of the colony.
As mentioned earlier, he was neglecting to deliver certain orders to the Assembly. He was agreeing to the Assembly's decision to disobey the king. He was cheating the soldiers and colonists out of [00:11:00] money.
This did earn him the Assembly's approval. They had been deeply insulted by the king not allowing them to place the rebels who had taken everything from them on trial. The king had pardoned everyone who had taken part in the rebellion. They were no longer allowed to punish those who had ransacked their houses and wronged them.
On top of that, the king wasn't allowing them to charge taxes in order to make up for their losses. Governor Culpeper wasn't really stopping them.
In addition to this, remember in previous episodes, the king had sent a group of men to the colony to investigate things? Well, 2 men in the Assembly had refused to cooperate with the king's men, and therefore, had refused to cooperate with the king. Because of this, the king had declared that these 2 guys were never allowed to have a seat in the Assembly again.
The problem with this, is that the Assembly members loved these men. They had considered them heroes for standing up against the king's intrusions on the Assembly's rights. The Assembly definitely wanted them back.
So, [00:12:00] Governor Colepepper actually agreed to let those 2 men come back to the Assembly, against the wishes of the king. Colepepper didn't seem to have any strong beliefs about government and order at all.
But, it wasn't all sunshine and roses between Culpeper and the Assembly. Remember the tobacco tax that normally went to the Virginia government, but the king wanted to take it and spread it around the empire?
Well, this was such a major issue that the Assembly refused to even debate it. They said that the colony should have control over where the colony's taxes were to be spent. But, Governor Culpeper was afraid of the king becoming angry and taking away the sweet job as governor from him. Culpeper was earning quite a lot of money from it.
He was less afraid of the Assembly members than he was of the king, and resorted to intimidation and bribery to get them to agree to spread Virginia's tax money around the empire. He threatened to collect all of the money from the colonists who owed years of back payments on the land they were renting from the crown.
This would have caused an enormous resistance, [00:13:00] and possibly new calls for rebellion. So the Assembly members agreed to allow the king to take their tax money and spread it around the empire.
Eventually, Culpeper felt that he had done his job in the colony well enough and he could return to the luxury life he yearned for back in England. The king had given him orders to not return unless the king himself gave him permission to return. But, for the Lord Culpeper, Virginia was just too backcountry for him, and he needed to be home, where he belonged.
So, just as soon as the Assembly was done with that year's business, he went off to England without the king's permission. He hadn't even been in Virginia for a full year.
While he was in England, Culpeper remained the official Governor of Virginia and the guy who temporarily ran things before he arrived, Henry Chicheley, once again ran the actual day-to-day things as though he were Virginia's governor.
Back in England, Culpeper delivered a report to the king that all was well in Virginia. But, this was not true.
Other than the fact that the Assembly was [00:14:00] still pretty angry over not being allowed to regain the losses they had suffered from the rebellion, and the people being pretty angry at some of the taxes that were a bit heavy, other things were causing disruption to the happy lives of the colonists.
The poverty that we discussed in previous episodes was still raging through the land.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the Assembly's efforts to fix the poverty and the tobacco riots that followed.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on why wars happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Lord Culpeper was finally forced, after years of dragging his heels, to go to Virginia, where he would serve as the governor. He was a pampered Lord who was used to the luxury life of English court and he hated being in the colonies.
He had been chosen to be the governor by the king, and didn't really want to be there other than to collect money from a bunch of scams he had going on. And he also got a lot of money just for being governor.
Seeing as the office of Governor of Virginia was nothing more than a way for him to make money, he didn't really care to make the Assembly follow the king's orders. He mostly didn't want the king to be mad at him and take away this sweet gig where he made all this income.
So, when the first years business was done in Virginia and the Assembly had closed, [00:01:00] Governor Culpeper headed straight back to England. He did this, even though the king had told him not to come back unless he was summoned. But, the riches and lavishness of England called for him.
While he was in Virginia, he hadn't done much to help the people with the issue of poverty. We covered in previous episodes that the low price of tobacco had caused rampant poverty all over the colony. England had created a couple of laws years before this called the Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts said that the colonists couldn't buy or sell from anyone other than England or English colonies. This meant that English ships coming in could sell their clothes, tea, sugar, and whatever else for extremely high prices because there was no competition. And they did. Sometimes they sold items at 2 or 3 times what they sold it for before the Navigation Acts.
Because the colonists had no choice. There was nobody else that they were allowed to buy from. It also meant that the Virginia farmers couldn't sell their tobacco to other [00:02:00] countries in Europe. Those countries had paid high prices for their tobacco. Now, they could only sell it to England and England paid them pennies for it.
Everyone in Virginia had a tobacco farm. The colony had tried and failed many times to produce things other than tobacco. But, the land either couldn't produce much of anything else, or they couldn't compete with Europeans who had been practicing other crafts for centuries.
Luckily, the people in Virginia were almost entirely farmers. Everyone had their own supply of food, milk, and water. So, famine wasn't a possibility. However, they were extremely poor. They couldn't afford clothes and other necessities for daily living. In addition to that, people were falling into debt. They were borrowing money to live off of and had no hope of paying it back.
On top of that, the Virginia government had been charging high taxes and either spending the money on terrible forts that never really worked to protect anyone or keeping a lot of the taxes [00:03:00] for themselves.
This poverty caused by farmers being forced to sell their tobacco for next to nothing had been going on for decades. At one point, the colonists tried to get Maryland and North Carolina to agree that all of them should stop growing tobacco for certain parts of every year. This would mean less tobacco available. And that in turn, would mean that the English ships that came to buy it would have to compete with each other over who gets to buy the small amount of tobacco that was grown. This would make the English buyers pay more for it to beat the other English buyers.
In a previous episode, we discussed how Governor Berkeley himself rode to Maryland to try and make this happen. And how it took a long time for North Carolina to agree to it. When they finally had the agreement between the 3 colonies to stop growing tobacco for a few months every year, everything seemed like it would work out. The major issue causing poverty would be solved for nearly everyone. All they needed was the king's signature approving it. And the king was actually going to give it [00:04:00] to them.
But, Bacon's Rebellion broke out and the king decided not to allow this while disorder and chaos ran wild in the colony. So, the poverty caused by too much tobacco being sold for too little continued.
The Governor's Council wrote that quote, "The people of Virginia are generally, some few excepted, extremely poor, not being able to provide against the pressing necessities of their families. The misery and poverty of the colony during this period resulted from the stagnation of the tobacco market after the passage of the navigation acts," end quote.
The Assembly wrote that if words were to, "describe the conditions that people were living under, it would bring sorrow and forced blood from the hearts of those who read about it."
Fearing another rebellion in the colony, the king's advisors wrote that quote, "Virginia is in great danger of disturbance. By reason of the extreme poverty of the people occasioned by the low price of tobacco which 'tis feared, may induce the servants to plunder the stores of the planters and the [00:05:00] ships arriving there. And to commit other. outrages and disorders as in the late rebellion and quote.
To address these issues, the people would once again ask the king for permission to allow the colonies to stop growing tobacco for certain parts out of every year. This affected the king directly as England, and he personally, received tax money from the selling of tobacco in the colonies.
The king needed more time to figure out what he wanted to do. So, his advisors told the temporary Governor Chicheley to not allow the Assembly to even gather to discuss this.
But, the Assembly seems to have pressed the matter with the governor hard enough that he agreed to call the Assembly together. Sounds great. At least for Virginia.
However, 5 days before the Assembly was scheduled to meet, a letter arrived from the king, specifically telling them that they were not allowed to gather. The reason for this was that Governor Culpeper was supposed to return to Virginia to run things. And he wanted them to wait until he got there.
He also mentioned that the [00:06:00] royal bank could no longer afford to keep the British soldiers there that had been sent to Virginia to maintain order after Bacon's Rebellion. But, the Assembly members were already on their way. They were arriving in town with grand expectations of finally bringing the overgrowing of tobacco to a stop.
Governor Chicheley accepted the king's orders not to gather the Assembly members. But, decided to get them all together for a small little casual chat instead. He did this to offer them the option of keeping the British soldiers in the colony at the colonies expense. That was the only reason that he was gathering them. Because of the king's orders, he wouldn't allow them to discuss anything else.
When the Assembly learned that they wouldn't be discussing the very thing of the center of all of their minds, they were outraged. Here they were ready to discuss the issue. The people needed them to discuss the issue. They themselves ran tobacco farms and they themselves needed to discuss the issue. First, the king hadn't allowed them to punish people who had plundered their homes. [00:07:00] Then, the king didn't allow them to tax people to make up for their losses. And now, the king wouldn't allow them to even talk about the issue of solving poverty due to too much tobacco being grown. The king didn't seem to care about them at all. The Assembly didn't seem to have control over their own lives.
They declared that they were there as a last hope of the people and that if they returned without solving the problem of too much tobacco growing, it would be like a death wound to the people.
But, temporary Governor Chicheley was not like governor Culpeper before him. He would not disobey the king.
He demanded to know the answer to, and only the answer to, the question of whether or not the colony would pay to keep British soldiers in Virginia. The Assembly refused to answer this. They hoped that doing so would convince Governor Chicheley to change his mind and allow them to discuss the tobacco issue.
Intense arguments ensued between Chicheley and the Assembly for a week with nothing having been accomplished by the end of it. So, [00:08:00] Chicheley dismissed the Assembly and told them to go home. Nothing else would be done for the moment. They could, he said, continue when Governor Culpeper returned several months down the road.
The Assembly didn't have a choice at this point. Because they had no authority to gather and make laws, anything that they did, wouldn't be legal. So, they did the only thing they could think of doing.
They wrote down everything that had happened during the meeting and voted to have a copy of the events read out loud to the public in every county. Everyone would know that they had not neglected the tobacco issue and that the only reason that issue hadn't been solved was due to the King's order telling them not to discuss it.
All of the king's efforts to maintain order in Virginia were in vain. The rebellion the king's advisers feared did come to pass. And that's where we find ourselves here - the tobacco riots.
When the Assembly members did return home and the people learned that they had accomplished nothing related to the stopping of growing tobacco, people began to call for action [00:09:00] themselves. In parts of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina people began to cut their own tobacco to pieces without the government's permission.
Soon, rampaging mobs engulfed the farms of their neighbors, chopping the tobacco to smithereens. The havoc spread from farm to farm and soon, not much of any tobacco was left in Gloucester County.
When news of the tobacco cutting reached Jamestown, Governor Chicheley sent one of his military officers to Gloucester to summon the military there and restore order. The military in Gloucester County quickly assembled and went after the rioters on horse, capturing 22 of them.
Two were placed on trial and the rest promised to stop rioting and were allowed to return home. The capture of these 22 men quieted the rest of the angry people in Gloucester County. However, news of the tobacco cutting had already spread to the other counties, and the other counties were full of their own angry citizens.
Like a flame in the forest, the people took to cutting their own tobacco, just like [00:10:00] they had done in Gloucester. And like in Gloucester, they trampled and cut the tobacco of their neighbors' farms.
This was only around 6 years after Bacon's Rebellion. Governor Chicheley, couldn't take the chances of letting it spiral into another near civil war.
He immediately ordered the military in each county to assemble and restore order and arrest the leaders of the riots.
But, the threat of the military didn't scare the people. They continued to destroy entire fields of tobacco throughout the day and the night.
When the king's advisers in England finally heard about the tobacco cutting, the king once again forced the pampered Lord Culpeper to return to Virginia without delay. He was given instructions to once again, become the governor and find and punish the leaders of the riots.
As far as the riot leaders go, there were certainly regular everyday people who were at the front of the mobs, but there was one person in particular who was believed to be the most guilty of being a riot leader.
Remember when [00:11:00] Governor Chicheley had allowed the Assembly to meet, even though the king had told them not to? Well, even though he had only allowed the Assembly to discuss the matter of whether to continue paying the British soldiers to stay in Virginia, it was still against the king's orders to assemble it all. And the Governor's Council believed that it was the Assembly's own record keeper that had helped convince the governor to allow the Assembly to meet.
Beyond this, the Governor's Council now believed that the same record keeper was one of the riot leaders. According to them, he had been spreading the idea that people had a right to cut their own tobacco.
This was the same record keeper who had refused to cooperate with the king's men who had been sent to investigate the causes of Bacon's Rebellion. It wasn't a stretch to imagine him acting against the king's of wishes now. So, the king ordered his arrest and he was soon imprisoned in a Virginia jail.
A large portion of Virginia and saw this record keeper as a sort of hero, or a voice of the people. This made the jail keepers extremely [00:12:00] nervous at the idea that some of them might try to break him out. Not only that, but it was still just 6 years after Bacon's Rebellion. The people were once again up in arms. Who's to say that another Bacon's Rebellion wouldn't break out?
Many people on both sides of the rebellion were still feeling the effects of their homes being plundered or their loved ones being hanged. This fear was worsened by what the rebels did next. They cut up the military leaders tobacco in retaliation for imprisoning the record keeper.
An act that cost him around two to 300 pounds, which is anywhere between 40 to 60,000 pounds in today's money or 50 to $75,000 in today's money.
The record keeper was kept under strict guard aboard an English ship. As an extra measure of security, the guards didn't allow any letter going in or out of his cell and he was only allowed to speak in the presence of the ship's captain.
But, the fear of the people breaking him free and the record keeper leading another rebellion, was still too [00:13:00] great. So the governor ordered him to be moved to a farther away location in a part of Virginia that was made up mostly of people who were intensely loyal to the king.
The risk was still great there, but moving him here considerably lessened the chances of a prison break. But, things don't always work out as planned.
While the plans for his transfer were being made, he managed to escape and fled home to Middlesex, Virginia. He was recaptured not long after this and efforts to keep him under guard were increased. The people protested. The record keeper, likewise, protested. The matter was turned over to the king for a decision on what to do.
The king agreed to let him out of prison, if he would pay 2,000 pounds as a type of bail. Upon release, he had to stay in the Middlesex area and was not allowed to hold any government position. By the time he was released, he had been in confinement for 2 years.
Okay. So back to Governor Culpeper. He finally reached Virginia, and this time, [00:14:00] unlike the first time he had arrived, he actually carried out the king's orders. He launched an investigation into the riots to find the leaders and bring them to trial.
Although accusations were high, there wasn't enough evidence to prove that the record keeper was responsible for encouraging people to riot.
Stopping the riots and punishing those responsible was one thing. Fixing the reason the riots occurred in the first place was another. And Governor Culpeper had no intention of doing this.
He actually had permission to stop the growing of tobacco and Maryland was ready to join them. But, he pretended to have not received this permission. He even went so far as to encourage the growing of more tobacco. He reported to England that if the season were favorable, there would be more tobacco grown than had ever been grown in the history of Virginia. He reported that he was confident that England would receive a sum of 50,000 pounds more than it usually did. That's 9 million in today's pounds and nearly 12 million in today's dollars. That [00:15:00] amount would be on top of what they usually received. So, the most likely reason for Governor Culpeper encouraging the planting of tobacco, was that the king, England, and he himself, were making tons of money on all the tobacco that was sold.
Governor Culpeper was well-aware of the problems this would create for the people in Virginia. In part of his report, he mentioned that he was aware that increasing the amount of tobacco would make it sell for even less. And would therefore make the people in Virginia even poorer. He also promised to stomp out any rebellion due to the increased poverty that arose from growing more tobacco.
All of Governor Culpeper's efforts were focused on punishing the tobacco cutters. And punish them, he did.
To his great disappointment, he found that the man who had run the colony in his place, Governor Chicheley, had been soft on the rioters. He had pardoned many of them and allowed many others to be released on bail. The effect was that there was no real punishment for the rebels. And Governor Culpeper had already [00:16:00] seen the chaos and ill blood that came from pardoning, the rebels in Bacon's Rebellion.
To counter this, he ordered the arrest of 3 of the most famous tobacco cutters. Then, he ordered them to be put on trial. 2 of them were executed. And the third was pardoned because he was only 19 and was thought to have only been acting on the influence of others around him.
Eventually, the king decided that Governor Culpeper wasn't very effective and had been a poor choice as governor. So, he declared Governor Culpeper to no longer be the Governor of Virginia and declared that a new choice had been made. A man named Lord Howard would be the new governor.
Culpeper returned to England and remained there for the rest of his life.
Culpeper had been a bad governor. He wasn't as terrible as Governor Berkeley ended up being. But, he had carried out scams and had fully neglected the needs of the people.
At times, he ignored the king's orders. And at other times, he had fully enforced the king's orders, against the wishes of the Assembly. If the Assembly hadn't been so united in resisting him, he [00:17:00] might've crushed the elections as Berkeley had done. He might've terrorized the people as Berkeley had done.
Now that he was gone, Virginia was about to receive a new governor. But, it wouldn't be the relief they had hoped for.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss Virginia under Governor Howard and how his rule inched the colony closer to the revolution.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that people were rioting and cutting up tobacco on farms all over Virginia to try and make it so that there would be less tobacco. The idea was to raise the price of tobacco by making it rarer. The government was no help in this. So, the people took the matter into their own hands.
Their governor, Governor Culpeper, wasn't helpful at all. He actually encouraged more tobacco growing and reported to the king that England, the king, and he himself, would all make a ton of money from all the tobacco growing now. The people were the last care on his mind.
But ,the king knew Governor Culpeper was ineffective as a governor. And wasn't really a great choice. So he fired Governor Culpeper and chose a new man [00:01:00] to be the governor. This was Governor Howard.
So, we're still only 7 years or so after Bacon's Rebellion had ended when Governor Howard arrived in Virginia. Upon his arrival, he was almost immediately thrown into arguments with the Assembly.
First, came the issue of whether the Assembly had the right to hear appeals from court cases. This right had remained in the hands of the Assembly for many years and was considered to be a way that people had a voice in their own justice. They could elect people who would later hear their appeals.
But, the new governor had arrived with orders from the king stating that the Assembly was no longer able to have this right. The king's advisors had convinced him that the Assembly's power to hear appeals was the source of some of its arrogance. Basically, this power was making their ego too big. And this was part of why they felt they could disobey some of the king's orders. So, the king took the power away from them.
Remember that Governor Culpeper had arrived in Virginia with the same [00:02:00] orders. But, being completely full of himself and way too busy with this money-making schemes, he didn't really enforce it.
He did at one point, write to the king, telling him that he hasn't allowed any appeals to go to the Assembly. But, it was a much weaker way of going about this than just straight up telling the Assembly that they no longer have this right at all.
Governor Howard was a much tougher, sterner man that Governor Culpeper was. He was a fierce defender of the king and he wasn't afraid to say it. So, shortly after his arrival to Virginia, he stood before the Assembly and made it clear that the king ordered the right to hear appeals to be taken away from the Assembly and that in no way, shape, or form, will they be hearing any appeals from now on.
The Assembly was really upset about this. From now on, appeals of court cases would be heard by judges who were chosen by the governor. The judges couldn't be relied on to make fair judgements, because they had to answer to the governor, not to the people. As they had seen before with Governor [00:03:00] Berkeley, people appointed by the governor usually do whatever the governor tells them to do. The Assembly themselves behaved this way when the elections were rigged to choose only those the governors wanted to be chosen. So, they knew that this was the way it would work. Anyone who didn't have to answer to the people couldn't really be relied on by the people.
The Assembly requested that the governor joined them in sending a letter to the king, asking him to change his mind. Governor Howard told them that the king was quite happy with his orders the way they were. So, no thanks. I won't be joining you in your letter to him.
The Assembly went ahead with the letter anyways. In it, they didn't just ask for the right to hear appeals. They went a step further and also declared that the king had no right to change their laws at all.
In the past, the king had in fact canceled some of the Assembly's laws and made some of his own laws. But now, the Assembly was stating that he didn't have the ability to do this. So, they kindly, in the most respectful way possible, [00:04:00] reject his order to take away the right to hear appeals.
Now, here's where the real issue begins. It was bad enough that the governor was going along with the king and refusing to side with them. But now, Governor Howard, in his feelings that the letter would upset the king, withheld the letter and wouldn't allow it to even leave Virginia.
The Assembly was outraged at the governor's own arrogance. So, they wrote the letter again in secret. And in secret, they sent the letter with 2 Assembly members who traveled to England with it.
When the letter got there, the king's advisors weren't impressed. The king wrote to Governor Howard telling him that he had heard about this secret letter given to his advisors by unknown people. He had heard that Governor Howard had withheld the official letter and basically told the governor that he had done the right thing by refusing to send the letter.
In addition to that, the king also ordered Governor Howard to punish the men who had delivered the letter. After that, the 2 Assembly members who had [00:05:00] sailed to England with the letter in secret were kicked out of the Assembly and all other employment that they held.
Roughly 2 years later, King Charles II died and his brother, King James II, now sat on the throne. James II was a good king, or a bad king, depending on who you ask. But in regards to Virginia, he was more good than he was bad. And this was a great stroke of luck for the Assembly because the year that James II became king, another issue arose in the Assembly. One that's always caused great debates and violent rebellion - the issue of taxes.
The issue had its beginning on the rent people were supposed to pay to the king. Everyone who had a house on any land in Virginia was supposed to pay a tax for using the land. The tax would go to the king or various other people that had rights to it.
For almost the entirety of Virginia's existence, the collection of this rent had been too difficult and unpopular to go through with. So, generations of people were [00:06:00] used to not paying this tax at all. Now, the king was insisting that it be paid.
The Assembly argued that people simply didn't have the money to pay this rent. Especially with the rampant poverty caused by the king's laws forbidding trade with other countries. Paying this rent would ruin people.
The real issue wasn't just having to pay the land rent. It was that real money coins was extremely rare in the colonies. So, all taxes and rent and the like was paid in tobacco. The government would then take the tobacco and sell it. And that's how the government got paid it's tax money. The law stating that people had to pay this land rent was written decades before this. In that law, it stated how much each pound of tobacco was worth. And therefore, how many pounds of tobacco each person had to pay in order to pay the tax.
Now, tobacco was nearly worthless. Not even close to what it was worth when the law was written. People were allowed to pay tobacco as though it were still worth a lot of money. But, if the king tried to sell this [00:07:00] tobacco, he would get nearly nothing for it.
What he wanted, was what he felt he was owed. So, he ordered the governor to stop collecting payments in tobacco and start collecting payments in actual coins.
Setting aside the fact that actual coins were almost impossible for the people to get their hands on, coins were worth a lot more than tobacco. People would have to pay 4 times as much tobacco for a coin than they would if they were just paying in tobacco.
Look at it this way. Let's say you pay your mortgage, or your rent, in dollar bills and each month you pay $4,000. Now, the government suddenly comes in and says that they need more money. And that they believe you should be paying more.
On top of that, they tell you that you now have to pay your mortgage, or rent, in solid gold bars and that you can't split the gold bars up. Each gold bar cost $16,000. So now, your monthly payment is $16,000, not $4,000. It would be almost impossible to buy a gold bar every month and pay [00:08:00] far above what you normally had been paying.
The Assembly refused to write the idea that you have to pay in actual coins into a law. They asked the governor to stop this and allow the old arrangement to continue. The king wasn't very happy with their refusal, once again, to obey his orders. Who did these Assemblymen think they were? So, the king declared the old law gone and the new law requiring actual coins to be the current law.
The Assembly was even more outraged than before. The king was asking something of them that would not only ruin everyone, it would actually be impossible to do. Money just wasn't present in the colony.
On top of that, the king was making and canceling laws as though he had power to overrule the Assembly. And to this, the Assembly would not agree. They refused to obey any part of these orders. They were so disagreeable to it that governor Howard was finally forced to make a compromise.
In the compromise, they agreed that the rent and taxes would continue to be [00:09:00] collected in tobacco, but at double the amount. This meant that after all of that, the people were in the same condition they were before. Except now, they had to pay double what they were paying. This was especially hard on the people as the level of poverty was still extreme and widespread.
If this weren't enough to ignite a fire between the Assembly and the governor, there was another issue at play that caused almost as much bitter anger and disagreements. This is the issue of ports. Ports are where the ships come in and go out of the colony.
From the time of Virginia's first settlement, nearly 100 years before this, to now the question of where ships came and went was a matter of what the captain felt like that day or what he was used to doing.
Usually, it was private docks that ships anchored in. This may not seem like it's related to the revolution and the struggles of government, but just stick with me here.
The issue started with the fact that the colony had rivers in areas that touched water everywhere. This meant that it was hard to enforce trade laws [00:10:00] and hard to catch anyone smuggling anything illegal. It also meant that it was hard to properly collect taxes. If captain John was pulling a ship into the private dock of Mr. Wilson. Who would even know that captain John had been there at all?
To counter this chaos, the government wanted to make it so that all ships coming into and going out of the colony had to do so at official government docks. This wasn't a new issue. Over the course of the previous 100 years, attempts had been made to make this happen, but they had all failed. The private dock system was better for the colonist who received items from the ships at his doorstep, and better for the traders on the ships who could deliver their supplies directly to the people without having to deal with the middleman. However, the Assembly considered it to be a wild, rambling way of life. Several years before this, Governor Culpeper had been ordered to create a system of official docks. One that didn't end up working out. A couple of years after that, the Assembly ordered a town in every county to create an official port [00:11:00] for the coming and going of ships.
But, when the ships arrived, they found there were no buildings set up where they could keep their items safe from the elements. So, the ships continued in the old way of using private docks.
Eventually, some of the people were prosecuted for returning to the old way. This angered the people so much that the king was forced to put a pause on the law and people were allowed to return to the private dock system.
In the meantime, a compromise was made. All right. So stick with me here. The elected side of the Assembly wrote a law and sent it to the Governor's Council side of the Assembly to sign. The council side agreed, but made some changes and sent it back to the elected side. The elected side, agreed to these changes and added some of their own changes and then sent it back to the council side to sign. The council once again, agreed to this and also added a few changes. Then they sent it back to the elected side. And this is where it gets weird.
When it came back to the elected side, [00:12:00] this time, something different happened. The record keeper, that very same one we discussed in previous episodes that was the hero of the people and had been in prison for 2 years, well, that record keeper decided to do a little something on his own. He went into the documents and removed the paper containing one of the changes the council side had placed there.
So, when the elected side read through it, they agreed to everything, not knowing that part of it had been removed. The council side had thought that the elected side agreed to this removed part and everything was set up for a perfect explosion of misunderstanding.
When it reached the governor's desk to sign into law, he read it through and noticed the part that was missing. His council had put it there. So, he had been well-aware of its existence. And now, he saw that it was gone. So, he refused to sign it.
The Assembly claimed that even though they didn't notice part of the law had been removed when it was agreed to, it had been agreed to. By both [00:13:00] parts of the Assembly. And therefore, it had the power of a law. All they needed was the governor to sign it. The governor did have the power to refuse to sign it, but he didn't have the power to declare that the law agreed to in the Assembly should be changed in any way. Only the king and the Assembly had this power.
So, Governor Howard claimed that he could do this because he was the voice of the king. The Assembly strongly rejected this. They said that it basically gave the governor double powers and they wouldn't accept this in any way.
The Assembly refused to back down. And Governor Howard, likewise, refused to budge. The Assembly further protested this by refusing to set aside the normal money to pay for public things like police, judges, streets, bridges, and jails.
The governor reacted in his own protest and wrote to the king, asking him to dismiss the entire Assembly.
Governor Howard himself had the power to do this. But, he told the king that it would be much more of a wound to the Assembly if the [00:14:00] king were the one to do it. So, shortly after the letter was received, the king sent an order dismissing the entire Assembly.
With what was probably great pleasure, Governor Howard had the order read aloud to the Assembly. He told them that they were the first Assembly to be dismissed this way. And he hoped they would be the last to deserve it. He also ordered copies of the Kings dismissal of the assembly to be taken to the courts in every county so that people could know how displease the king was with them.
The Assembly no longer had the ability to gather in any official way and had to go home. The governor then declared that he wouldn't call the Assembly together as often in the future.
Okay. Now back to the Assembly's, record keeper. The king ordered that he be fired, and that from now on, the governor, not the Assembly, would choose the record keeper. This made some sense, seeing as such a position where one could take out entire parts of laws without anyone noticing, required a person that could be trusted. The problem with this was that it would [00:15:00] be a person that the king and the governor would trust.
The Assembly members strongly protested this. The record keeper had to be a person the Assembly trusted and felt comfortable around. The record keeper recorded all of the things said and done in their meetings. Sometimes, these meetings had to be kept secret so people could speak freely. Sometimes, they discussed things the governor was doing and how the Assembly should respond to him. At times, the governor was outright tyrannical and acted against the interests of the Assembly and the people. The Assembly had to feel as though they absolutely trusted the record keeper to not report back to the governor things that were meant to be kept secret.
They said that if the governor chose the record keeper, they would feel as though their record keeper were a spy working for the governor in their midst.
However, they knew that the king had the right to give this power to the governor. And so, they agreed. But, they required the record keeper to take an oath of secrecy. To this, Governor Howard agreed. And all seemed [00:16:00] settled for the moment.
The Assembly was no longer the puppet of the governor as they have been when Governor Berkeley was in charge. But, they had been stripped of many of their previous rights. They no longer had the power to choose their own record keeper. The governor had used double power by claiming that one of his votes was from him and his other vote was from the king.
The Assembly had been dismissed by the king when they protested this. And the Assembly had also lost the right to hear the appeals from court cases.
And things only got more intense with the governor from here.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the escalating tensions between the Assembly and the governor, the removal of Governor Howard, and the Glorious Revolution in England that changed the way it treated Virginia.
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Hello, and welcome to Why Wars Happened. A weekly history podcast, where we talk about what led to war in history. I'm your host, Emily Ross. And today we're going to be discussing the things that led to the American Revolution. With a focus on Virginia this season.
Okay. So where we left off in the last episode was that Virginia's new governor, Governor Howard, had arrived from England and immediately got into quarrels with the Assembly.
He had arrived with the orders from the king taking away their power to hear appeals from the courts. He worked with the king to take away their right to choose their own record keeper. He had gotten the king to dismiss them entirely and tell them to go home. And he was using his own vote, plus the vote of the king, to basically give himself 2 votes on any piece of law.
The Assembly had protested these things vigorously. When they tried to ask the king for help, Governor Howard had kept the message and refused to let it leave Virginia. So, they sent a secret message to the king asking him to [00:01:00] restore their powers.
This backfired and the king thought that it was highly disobedient for them to go around the governor's back. In response, he told the governor that it was a good idea for him to have kept the letter from being sent to him. He told the governor to find the men who had gone to England to deliver the secret message and kick them out of the Assembly and all other employment.
Back in Governor Berkeley's time, around 20 years before this, the governor had controlled the Assembly completely. He had chosen police and his police forces had intimidated voters into voting for certain people. He had also made sure that the elections only returned the votes for the people that he wanted elected. On top of this, he had given huge gifts of land and excessively high salaries to the Assembly members. He also chose the judges. Everyone did whatever he wanted and nobody dared to disagree with him.
In previous episodes, we discussed how this changed over time and how we got to where we are now with the Assembly [00:02:00] members, being those who were actually elected by the people, and the whole system not really answering to the governor like they had before.
In addition to this, arguments with the king and with the governor said had come and gone since Berkeley, had given the Assembly a sense of independence and that identity as the voice of the people who stands against the total rule of the king and his governor. The Assembly, once mere puppets, now had power. And they weren't going to give it up so easily.
Now, in addition to resisting the governor, there were summoning him to answer for some of the things he was doing.
One of the first things they summoned him for was to answer for the high fees his office was charging people. One of the government offices was charging 200 pounds of tobacco for a signature on documents allowing people to buy land. Another government office was charging 1,000 pounds of tobacco for settling issues of unclaimed property. Another office was charging 30 pounds of tobacco for recording measurements of land.
The [00:03:00] fees in themselves weren't really the issue. The issue was that the Assembly considered them to be taxes on the people that hadn't been voted on. This was an attack on one of Virginia's oldest and most dear laws - the right of the people that vote on whatever taxes they had to pay.
This is brought up again and again, because it was the legal reason for the American Revolution just under 100 years after this.
These fees had been chosen by the governor without any votes from the people. It was illegal and couldn't stand.
In addition to this, the fees were high enough that it discouraged people from buying land or using the government services that charged them these fees.
That wasn't the only issue. The other issue was that the king was declaring laws, long since deactivated by the Assembly, to now be active again. With the wave of his hand, he was basically making the Assembly powerless. Sure, they could be elected and vote on things. But if the king wanted something else, he could just declare [00:04:00] it.
To no one's surprise the Assembly strongly protested this. They said that the king was stretching his will as far as he pleaseth. And that if he were allowed to do this, then all laws might as well have the beginning and their end with the king's word.
Here's where it starts to get a little spicy between the elected side of the Assembly and the governor side of the Assembly.
The elected side wrote a long document for the governor, in which they detailed their many grievances. Before giving it to the governor, the elected side wanted to see if the Governor's Council side would join them. The Governor's Council side refused to join them, and went a step further by claiming that the elected side's complaints were nothing more than childish tempers.
The elected side realized that the governor would be of no help to them. His council made it clear that they, and the governor, were not open to discussion. So, they decided to once more go to the king directly.
They wrote a document outlining the issues and [00:05:00] begging for his Majesty's help. They gave the document to one of their members who, like the 2 members before him, sailed to England to deliver it. It reached the king's desk just 2 months before the king's own disaster would arrive at his doorstep.
As the letter set on the King's desk, tensions were brewing in England.
There were some issues with King James II in that he was Catholic. There were many reasons this came about, despite England's widespread hatred for Catholicism.
And that's its own podcast series that we might cover in the future. But the fears about King James II being a Catholic were kind of muted by the fact that his daughter and her husband were Christians.
The people of England had but to wait for James to die and they would have a Christian ruler again. But, things changed when James' son was born.
New fears ignited over the fact that his son was likely to be Catholic as well. And therefore, England wouldn't get a Christian leader for who knows how long. This couldn't be [00:06:00] tolerated.
The tensions didn't last long, because shortly after this, the husband of James' daughter invaded England, with an invitation from parliament to do so. And James fled the city. He literally threw the King's Seal into the River Thames as he ran away.
Parliament considered this to be an official act of giving up the throne. And therefore, they placed his daughter Mary on the throne as queen and her husband William on the throne is king.
This whole revolution and change of thrones happened without any bloodshed. And was therefore called the Bloodless Revolution, or more commonly, the Glorious Revolution.
Now, a new king was on the throne. One that didn't have a personal relationship with Governor Howard and one that would have a much different attitude towards the colonies than James did.
The first major difference in attitude was when the new king, King William, read the letter and invited the Assembly member who had delivered it to come and have a talk about it. This was a stark contrast to the previous King James II, who had not [00:07:00] only refused to listen to the Assembly's grievances, but had ordered the men who delivered the grievances to be fired from the Assembly.
King William welcomed the Assembly member with open arms and listened to everything he had to say on behalf of Virginia. He then ordered his advisors to look into the matters that had been brought to his attention.
Another display of this difference in attitude was when it came to Governor Howard. The governor had arrived in England on private business around this time. While he was there, he appeared before the king's advisors to dispute the Assembly's accusations against him.
He defended himself well enough. He lost some matters and one others. In the end, the fees the Assembly had complained about were abolished. But, the advisers confirmed that the king did, in fact, have the right to make and cancel any law he wished without the Assembly's approval.
Even though the Assembly had won the small victory over the matter of fees imposed without first voting on them, this wasn't enough for the Assembly member in [00:08:00] England. He went again before the king's advisors and argued that Governor Howard had been taking tax money and using it for unauthorized things. And that he had even created special courts that were not approved by the people.
The governor may have had a good reason for what he did. And he doesn't seem to have been particularly vindictive like Governor Berkeley had been. But, it really didn't matter because the advisors heard the complaint and decided to dismiss Governor Howard from this position. Sort of.
He was allowed to remain the official Governor of Virginia, but was ordered to stay in England. In Virginia, a secondary governor would act as governor in his absence.
Governor Howard got to keep half of his yearly salary, despite the fact that he was doing nothing to earn it. And he seemed just fine being rid of the headache of actual governing.
In comparison to those who had come before him, King William's reign saw the advancement of rights, cooperation, and a soft touch. The progressive spirit during King William's time dominated England and the [00:09:00] colonies for around 25 years, until the next king came along - King George.
But while George's harsh and overbearing manner brought the spirit of progression to a halt in England, England was too far away to have much of the same effect on the colonies. In Virginia, the progressive way of liberty and freedom continued and gave strength to the foundation that would become the American Revolution in the time of George's grandson.
Between King William's time and the time of the last British king to rule America - George III, there would be other governors who tried to rule Virginia with a cold iron fist. But, none could ever beat them into submission the way previous governors had. The spirit of independence and American liberty had been planted and was now impossible to uproot.
Efforts to squash the spirit of independence had taken place in more colonies than just Virginia. These efforts to squash independence mostly failed in Virginia because of the resistance of the elected [00:10:00] representatives.
While the Assembly had lost its right to hear appeals from court cases, it had lost its ability to choose its own record keeper, and over the years, it had even lost the ability to choose its own governor, it held on tight to the right to decide which taxes would be placed on the people.
Throughout the century, it had been confirmed over and over again that only the Assembly had the right to place any taxes on the population. This would be at the very center of the reasons for the American Revolution in the coming century.
That's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Join us next week when we discuss the French and Indian War and how its aftermath led to a bitter resentment against the king.
Subscribe, so you don't miss the next episode and comment your thoughts on this episode below.
See you next time on Why Wars Happened.
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