Nathaniel Bacon never intended to declare independence from England. Despite attacking royal governor William Berkeley, Bacon and his group fully imagined themselves as Englishmen who just happened to live in Virginia. They knew that Virginia would fall prey to other colonial powers, the Dutch, the French, and the Spanish, had they not been under England's protection. They also knew their livelihoods depended on English markets.

So why did Bacon's group erupt in rebellion? It was mostly due to large planter versus frontier frustrations. The catalyst to the rebellion was the governor's refusal to let them kill Indians during a war between Virginian settlers and the Susquehannock Indians. In hit-and-run raids the Indians had killed some families on the frontier and the frontiersmen wanted permission to retaliate against all Indians, even those who were peaceful. The governor refused as all out war would hurt the deer trade that was profitable to him and his friends. Also, as Professor Alan Taylor says, "Berkeley also understood that a controlled, gradual frontier expansion better served the interests of the wealthiest planters, who wanted to retain common men as laborers and tenants rather than permit their dispersion to an open frontier as settlers."^1 So, the inability to expand, resentment that the governor monopolized the Indian trade, coupled with ever-decreasing tobacco prices and a belief that the eastern planters did not represent their interests led to the rebellion where Bacon and his men ended up burning down Jamestown. Although Bacon used servants and the ilk in his small army, he did not intend to completely overthrow the social order. He was not an egalitarian. He just thought his group should be at the top. He ended up dying of dysentery. After which, Berkeley returned, hanged the remaining 23 rebel leaders, and put down the rebellion.

As for those in London, they viewed that Berkeley was at fault for overreaching his hand. King Charles II quickly dispatched an army to restore order. He wanted keep tobacco revenue flowing. In the end, "the monarch agreed with Nathaniel Bacon on one thing: the newly rich Virginia elite was unworthy of its power. Determined to maximize the crown's share in the profits of Tobacco, the king disapproved of the competing exactions by the planter elite."^2

^1 Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North American (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), 148.

^2 Taylor, 150.