The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne

J >> Julian Hawthorne >> The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1

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Dutch settlers presently joined the English; a Scotch-Irish colony at
Port Royal was set upon by the Spaniards, who, in accordance with the
characteristic Spanish policy, massacred the inhabitants and burned the
houses. But later the revocation by Louis XIV. of the amnesty to Huguenots
caused the latter to fly their country and disperse themselves over Europe
and America; no higher or finer class of men and women ever joined the
ranks of exile, and they were everywhere welcomed. Colonies of them
settled all along the Atlantic seaboard; and around Charleston many from
Languedoc found a congenial home, and became a valuable and distinguished
part of the population. America could not have been complete without the
leaven of the heroic French Protestants.

Meanwhile the proprietors were gradually submitting, with no good grace,
however, to the inevitable. Their Model remained a model--something never
to be put to practical use. On paper was it born, and on paper should it
remain forever. The proprietors were kings, by grace of Charles II., but
they had neither army nor navy, and their subjects declined to be serfs.
They declined into the status of land speculators; the governors whom they
sent out did nothing but fill their pockets and let the people have the
rest. At last, it was enough for the proprietors to suggest anything for
the people to negative it, whether it were good or bad. They not only
avowed their natural right to do as they pleased, but deemed it due to
their self-respect not to do what was pleasing to their tinsel sovereigns
in London. And finally, when Colleton, one of the sovereigns in question,
tried to declare martial law in the colony, on the plea of danger from
Indians or Spanish, the indomitable freemen treated him as their brethren
at Albemarle had treated Sothel. The next year saw William and Mary on the
English throne; Shaftesbury had died seven years before; and the Great
Model subsided without a bubble into the vacuum of historical absurdities.

We left Virginia awaiting the return of the envoys who had gone to ask
Charles for justice and protection against the tyranny of Berkeley.
Charles, as we know, first promised the reforms, and then broke his
promise, as all Stuarts must. But before the envoys could return with
their heavy news, there had been stirring things done and suffered in
Virginia.

The character of Berkeley is as detestable as any known in the annals of
the American colonies. Many of his acts, and all the closing scenes of his
career, seem hardly compatible with moral sanity; in our day, when science
is so prone to find the explanation of crime in insanity, he would
undoubtedly have been adjudged to the nearest asylum. In his early years,
he had been stupid and illiberal, but nothing worse; in his old age, he
seemed to seek out opportunities of wickedness and outrage, and at last he
gave way to transports which could only be likened to those of a fiend
from the Pit, permitted for a season to afflict the earth. He was as base
as he was wicked; a thief, and perjured, as well as an insatiable
murderer. The only trait that seems to ally him with manhood is itself
animal and repulsive. He had wholly abandoned any pretense of
self-control; and in some of the outbursts of his frenzy he seems to have
become insensible even to the suggestions of physical fear. But this can
hardly be accorded the name of courage; rather is it to be attributed to
the suffusion of blood to the brain which drives the Malay to run amuck.

Virginia had been nurtured in liberty, and was ill prepared for
despotism. On the contrary, she was almost ready to doubt the wisdom or
convenience of any government whatever, except such as was spontaneously
furnished by the generous and magnanimous instincts of her people. There
were no towns, and none of the vice and selfishness which crowded
populations engender. Roads, bridges, public works of any sort were
unknown; the population seldom met except at races or to witness court
proceedings. The great planters lived in comparative comfort, but they
were as much in love with freedom as were the common people. This state of
things was the outcome of the growth of fifty years; and most of the eight
thousand inhabitants of the colony were born on the soil, and loved it as
the only home they knew.

The chief injury they had suffered was from the depredations of the
Indians, who, on their side, could plead that they had received less than
justice at the colonists' hands. Border raids and killings became more and
more frequent and alarming; the savages had learned the use of muskets,
and were good marksmen. They built a fort on the Maryland border, and for
a time resisted siege operations; and when at length some of the chiefs
came out to parley, they were seized and shot. The rest of the Indian
garrison escaped by night, and slaughtered promiscuously all whom they
could surprise along the countryside. A force was raised to check them,
and avenge the murders; but before it could come in contact with them,
Berkeley sent out a peremptory summons that they should return.

What was the explanation of this extraordinary step? Simply that the
Governor had the monopoly of the Indian trade, which was very valuable,
and would not permit the Indians who traded with him to be driven away. In
order to supply his already overloaded pockets with money, he was willing
to see the red men murder with impunity, and with the brutalities of
torture and outrage, the men, women and children of his own race. But the
Indians themselves seem admirable in contrast with the inhumanity of this
gray-haired, wine-bloated, sordid cavalier of seventy.

The troops on which the safety of the colonists depended reluctantly
retired. Immediately the savages renewed their attacks; three hundred
settlers were killed. Still Berkeley refused to permit anything to be
done; forts might be erected on the borders, but these, besides being of
great expense to the people, were wholly useless for their defense,
inasmuch as the savages could without difficulty slip by them under cover
of the forest. The raids continued, and the plantations were abandoned,
till not one in seven remained. The inhabitants were terror-stricken; no
man's life was safe. At last permission was asked that the people might
raise and equip a force at their own expense, in the exercise of the
universal right of self-protection; but even this was violently forbidden
by the Governor, who threatened punishment on any who should presume to
take arms against them. All traffic with them had also been interdicted;
but it was known that Berkeley himself continued his trading with those
whose hands were red with the blood of the wives, fathers and children of
Virginia.

Finally, in 1676, the report came that an army of Indians were
approaching Jamestown. Unless resistance were at once made, there seemed
nothing to prevent the extinction of the colony. Berkeley, apparently for
no better reason than that he would not recede from a position once taken,
adhered to his order that nothing should be done.

There was at that time in Virginia a young Englishman of about thirty,
named Nathaniel Bacon. He was descended from good ancestors, and had
received a thorough education, including terms in the Inns of Court. He
was intellectual, thoughtful, and self-contained, with a clear mind, a
generous nature, and the power of winning and controlling men. He had
arrived in the colony a little more than a year before, and had been
chosen to the council; he was wealthy and aristocratic, yet a known friend
of the people. Born in 1642, he was familiar with revolutions, and had
formed his own opinions as to the rights of man. He had a plantation on
the site of the present city of Richmond; and during the late Indian
troubles, had lost his overseer. Coming down on his affairs to Jamestown,
he fell into talk with some friends, who suggested crossing the river to
see some of the volunteers who had come together for defense. These men
were in a mood of excited exasperation at the sinister conduct of the
governor, and ready to follow extreme counsels had they had a leader with
the boldness and ability to put himself at their head.

The tall, slender figure and grave features of Bacon were well-known. As
he advanced toward the troop of stalwart young fellows, who were sullenly
discussing the situation, he was recognized; and something seems to have
suggested to them that he was come with a purpose. Conclusions are sudden
at such times, and impulses contagious as fire. He was the leader whom
they sought. "A Bacon--a Bacon!" shouted some one; and instantly the cry
was taken up. They thronged around him, welcoming him, cheering him,
exclaiming that they would follow him, that with them at his back he
should save the country in spite of the governor! They were fiery and
emotional, after the manner of the sons of the Old Dominion, and the
wrongs of many kinds which had long been rankling in their hearts now
demanded to be requited by some action--no matter how daring. Virginians
never shrank from danger.

Bacon had been wholly unprepared for this outburst; but he had a strong,
calm soul, a ready brain, and the blood of youth. He knew what the colony
had endured, and that it had nothing to hope from the present government.
He had come to America after making the European tour, intending only a
visit; but he had grown attached to Virginia, and now that chance had put
this opportunity to help her, he resolved to accept it. He would throw in
his lot with these spirited and fearless young patriots--the first men in
America who had the right to call the country their own. Standing before
them, with his head bared, and in a voice that all could hear, he solemnly
pledged himself to lead them against the Indians, and then aid them to
recover the liberties which had been wrested from them. "And do you," he
added, "pledge yourselves to me!" His words were heard with tumultuous
enthusiasm, and a round-robin was signed, binding all to stick to their
captain and to one another. That is a document which history would fain
have preserved.

With an army of three hundred Virginians, Bacon set forward against the
Indians. Meanwhile Berkeley, enraged at this slight on his authority,
called some troops together and despatched them to bring back "the
rebels." Thus was seen the singular spectacle of a government force
marching to apprehend men who were risking their lives freely to repel a
danger imminent and common to all.

But Berkeley was going too far. Bacon's act had the sympathy of all
except such as were as corrupt as the governor, and the men of the lower
counties revolted, and demanded that the long scandal of the continuous
assembly should cease forthwith. Berkeley was intimidated; he had not
believed that any spirit was left in the colony; he recalled his men, and
consented to the assembly's dissolution. By the time Bacon and his three
hundred got back from their successful campaign, the writs for a new
election were out; and he was unanimously chosen burgess from Henrico. The
assembly of which he thus became a member was for the most part in
sympathy with him; and though, for the benefit of the record, censure was
passed upon the irregularity of his campaign, and he was required to
apologize for fighting without a commission, yet he was at the same time
caressed and praised on all sides, returned to the council, and dubbed the
darling of Virginia's hopes. The assembly then proceeded to undo all the
evil and clean out all the rottenness that had disgraced the conduct of
their predecessors. Taxes, church tyranny, restriction of the franchise,
illegal assessments, fees, and liquor-dealing were done away with; two
magistrates were proved thieves and disfranchised, and trade with Indians
was for the present stopped. Bacon received a commission; but Berkeley
refused to sign it; and when Bacon appealed to the country, and returned
with five hundred men to demand his rights, the governor was beside
himself with fury.

Private letters and other documents, made public only long after this
date, are the authority for what occurred; but though certain facts are
given, explanations are seldom available. Berkeley appears to have been
holding court when Bacon and his followers appeared; it is said that he
ran out and confronted them, tore his shirt open and declared that sooner
should they shoot him than he would sign the commission of that rebel; and
the next moment, changing his tactics, he offered to settle the issue
between Bacon and himself by a duel. All this does not sound like the acts
of a man in his sober senses. It seems probable either that the old
reprobate was intoxicated, or that his mind was disordered by passion.
Bacon, of course, declined to match his youthful vigor against his
decrepit enemy, as the latter must have known he would: and told him
temperately that the commission he demanded was to enable him to repel the
savages who were murdering their fellow colonists unchecked. The governor,
after some further parley, again altered his behavior, and now overpowered
Bacon with maudlin professions of esteem for his patriotic energy; signed
his commission, and sent dispatches to England warmly commending him. A
formal amnesty, obliterating all past acts of the popular champion and his
supporters which could be construed as irregular, was drawn up and
ratified by the governor; and the clouds which so long had lowered over
Virginia seemed to have been at last in the deep bosom of the ocean
buried. To those whom coincidences interest it will be significant that
this victory for the people was won on the 4th of July, 1676.

Operations against the Indians were now vigorously resumed; but Berkeley
had not yet completed the catalogue of his iniquities. Bacon's back was
scarcely turned, before he violated the amnesty which he had just
ratified, and tried to rouse public sentiment against the liberator. In
this, however, he signally failed, as also in his attempt to raise a levy
to arrest him; and frightened at the revelation of his weakness, he fled
in a panic to Accomack, a peninsula on the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay.
Word of his proceedings had in the meantime been conveyed to Bacon by
Drummond, former governor of North Carolina, and Lawrence. "Shall he who
commissioned us to protect the country from the heathen, betray our
lives?" said Bacon. "I appeal to the king and parliament!" He established
himself in Williamsburg; at Drummond's suggestion Berkeley's flight was
taken to mean his withdrawal from the governorship--which, at any rate,
had now passed its appointed limit--and a summons was sent out to the
gentlemen of Virginia to meet for consultation as to the future conduct of
the colony. It was at this juncture that the envoys returned from England,
with the dark news that Charles had refused all relief.

At the conference, after full discussion, it was voted that the colony
take the law into their own hands, and maintain themselves not only
against the Indians and Berkeley, but if need were against England
herself. "I fear England no more than a broken straw," said Sarah
Drummond, snapping a stick in her hands as she spoke: the women of
Virginia were as resolved as the men. Pending these contingencies, Bacon
with his little army again set out in pursuit of the Indians; hearing
which, Berkeley, with a train of mercenaries which he had contrived to
collect, crossed from Accomack and landed at Jamestown, where he repeated
his refrain of "rebels!" He promised freedom to whatever slaves of the
colony would enlist on his side, and fortified the little town. The crews
of some English ships in the harbor assisted him; and in the sequel these
tars were the only ones of his rabble that stayed by him. The neighborhood
was alarmed, fearing any kind of enormity, and messengers rode through the
woods post haste, and swam the rivers, in the sultry September weather, to
find and recall their defenders, and summon them to resist a worse foe
than the red man. Before they could reach the young leader, the Indians
had been routed, the army disbanded, and Bacon, with a handful of
followers, was on his way to his plantation. They were weary with the
fatigues of the campaign, but on learning that the prime source of the
troubles was intrenched in Jamestown, and that "man, woman and child" were
in peril of slavery, they turned their horses' heads southeastward, and
galloped to the rescue. They gathered recruits on their way--no one could
resist the eloquence of Bacon--and halting at such of the plantations as
were owned by royalist sympathizers, they compelled their wives to mount
and accompany them as hostages. This indicates to what extremes the
violence of Berkeley was expected to go. It was evening when they came in
sight of the enemy. But the moon was already aloft, and as the western
light faded, her mellow radiance flooded the scene, giving it the
semblance of peace. But the impatient Virginians wished to attack at once;
and a lesser man than Bacon might have yielded to their urging. Knowing,
however, that the country was with him, and feeling that the enemy must
sooner or later succumb, he would not win by a dashing, bloody exploit
what time was sure to give him. He ordered an intrenchment to be dug, and
prepared for a siege. But there was no lust for battle in the disorderly
and incoherent force which the frantic appeals and reckless promises of
the governor had assembled; they were beaten already, and could not be
induced to make a sortie. Desertions began, and all the objurgations,
supplications and melodramatic extravaganzas of Berkeley were impotent to
stop them; the more shrilly he shrieked, the faster did his sorry
aggregation melt away. When it became evident that there would soon be
none left save himself and the sailors, he ceased his blustering, and
scuttled off toward Gloucester and the Rappahannock.

Bacon, Drummond, Lawrence and their men occupied the abandoned town, in
which some of them owned houses, and burned it to the ground. The act was
deliberate; the town records were first removed; and the men who had most
to lose by the conflagration were the first to set the torch.

Jamestown at that time contained hardly twenty buildings all told; but it
was the first settlement of the Dominion, and sentiment would fain have
preserved it. A mossy ruin, draped in vines, is all that remains of it
now. The ascertainable causes of its destruction seem inadequate; yet the
circumstances show that it could not have been done in mere wantonness.
Civilized warfare permits the destruction of the enemy's property; but the
enemy had retreated, and the expectation was that he would never return.
That Bacon had reasons, his previous record justifies us in believing; but
what they were is matter of conjecture. As it is, the burning of Jamestown
is the only passage in his brief and gallant career which can be construed
as a blemish upon it. Unfortunately, it was, also, all but the final one.

He pursued Berkeley, and the army of the latter, instead of fighting,
marched over to him with a unanimity which left the governor almost
without a companion in his chagrin. The whole of Virginia was now in
Bacon's hand; he had no foes; he was called Deliverer; he had never met
reverse; he was a man of intellect, judgment and honor, and he was in the
prime of his youth; in such a country, beloved, and supported by such a
people, what might he not have hoped to achieve? Men like him are rare; in
a country just emerging into political consciousness, he was doubly
precious. There was no one to take his place; the return of Berkeley meant
all that was imaginable of evil; and yet Bacon was to die, and Berkeley
was to return.

In the trenches before Jamestown, Bacon had contracted the seeds of a
fever which now, in the hour of his triumph, overcame him. After a short
struggle he succumbed; and his men, fearing, apparently, that the ghoulish
revenge of the old governor might subject his remains to insult, sunk his
body in the river; and none know where lie the bones of the first American
patriot who died in arms against oppression. His worth is proved by the
confusion and disorganization which ensued upon his death. Cheeseman,
Hansford, Wilford and Drummond could not make head against disaster. On
the governor's side, Robert Beverly developed the qualities of a leader,
and a series of small engagements left the patriots at his mercy. Berkeley
was re-established in his place; and then began the season of his revenge.

His victims were the gentlemen of Virginia; the flower of the province.
He had no mercy; his sole thought was to add insult to the bitterness of
death. He would not spare their lives; he would not shoot them; they must
perish on the gallows, not as soldiers, but as rebels. When a young wife
pleaded for her gallant husband, declaring that it was she who persuaded
him to join the patriotic movement, Berkeley denied her prayer with coarse
brutality. When Drummond was brought before him, he assured him of his
pleasure in their meeting: "You shall be hanged in half an hour." One can
see that mean, flushed countenance, ravaged by time and intemperance, with
bloodshot eyes, gloating over the despair of his foes, and searching for
means to torture their minds while destroying their bodies. Trial by jury
was not quick or sure enough for Berkeley; he condemned them by
court-martial and the noose was round their necks at once. Their families
were stripped of their property and sent adrift to subsist on charity. In
his bloodthirstiness, he never forgot his pecuniary advantage, and his
thievish fingers grasped all the valuables that his murderous instincts
brought within his power. But the spectacle is too revolting for
contemplation.

"He would have hanged half the country if we had let him alone," was the
remark of a member of the assembly. It was voted that the execution should
cease; more than two-score men had already been strangled for defending
their homes and resisting oppression. Even Charles in London was annoyed
when he heard of the wasteful malignity of "the old fool," and sent word
of his disapproval and displeasure. A successor was sent over to supersede
him; but he at first refused to go at the king's command, though he had
ever used the king's name as the warrant for his crimes. He had sold
powder and shot to the Indians to kill his own people with; he had
appropriated the substance of widows and orphans whom he had made such; he
had punished by public whipping all who were reported to have spoken
against him; he forbade the printing-press; but all had been done "for the
King". And now he resisted the authority of the king himself. But Charles,
for once, was determined, and Berkeley, under the disgrace of severe
reprimand, was forced to go. The joy bells clashed out the people's
delight as the ship which carried him dropped down the harbor, and the
firing of guns was like an anticipation of our celebration of Independence
Day. He stood on the poop, in the beauty of the morning, shaking out
curses from his trembling hands, in helpless hatred of the fair land and
gallant people that he had done his utmost to make miserable. In England,
the king would have none of him, and he met with nothing but rebuffs and
condemnation on all sides. The power which he had misused was forever
gone; he was old, and shattered in constitution; he was disgraced,
flouted, friendless and alone. He died soon after his arrival, of
mortification; he had lived only to do evil, and to withhold him from it
was to take his life away.

It is not the function of the historian to condemn. Berkeley was by birth
and training an aristocrat and a cavalier, and he was a creature of his
age and station. He had been taught to believe that the patrician is of
another flesh and blood than the plebeian; that authority can be enforced
only by tyranny; that the only right is that of birth, and of the
strongest. He was early placed in a position where every personal
indulgence was made easy to him, where there was none to call in question
his authority, and where there was temptation to assert authority by
oppression, and by arrogating absolute license to act as the whim
prompted, and to lay hands on whatever he coveted. Add to these conditions
a nature congenitally without generous instincts, a narrow brain, and a
sensual temperament, and we have gone far to account for the phenomenon
which Berkeley finally, in his approaching senility, presented. He was the
type of the worst traits that caused England ultimately to forfeit
America; the concentration of whatever is opposite to popular liberties.
His deeds must be execrated; but we cannot put him beyond the pale of
human nature, or deny that under different circumstances he would have
been a better man. We may admit, too, that, in the wisdom of Providence,
he was placed where, by doing so much mischief, he was involuntarily the
cause of more good than he could ever willingly have accomplished. He
taught the people how to hate despotism, and how to struggle against it.
He wrought a mutual understanding and sympathy between the upper and lower
orders; he led them to define to their own minds what things are
indispensable to the existence of true democracy. These are some of the
uses which he, and such as he, in their own despite subserved. He and the
young Bacon were mortal foes; but he, by opposing Bacon, and murdering his
friends, aided the cause for which they laid down their lives.

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