Much has
been said recently about the New York Times 1619 Project, but how many folks
know about another year in that century -1676?
Warning-
real talk about real history lies ahead.
I am
speaking of Bacon’s Rebellion. Some of you may have never heard of it; those
who have may only recall a sentence or two in a long-distant high school
history book. It is, however, one of the most important events in the history
of race in this country, and in fact one of its most important events, period.
I’ll
summarize quickly: Nathaniel Bacon was a privileged young man in his late
twenties who had recently emigrated to the Virginia colony from England. He was
upset that he did not get the sort of important position he felt he deserved.
He made common cause with the poor white people of the colony –many of them
former indentured servants who had been promised land when their labor contract
was up, only to find all the land had been claimed by the elites. Bacon stirred
them up and became their spokesman in demanding that the colonial government
kill more Indians so their land would be available. The governor refused, and
the people rebelled. The rebellion was a surge of long-bubbling fury against
the wealthy and the government. The poor whites were soon joined by large numbers
of free black folks and runaway slaves.
The
rebellion collapsed when Bacon died of dysentery –but it came close to working,
and to toppling the political and financial status quo. The capital city of
Jamestown was burned to the ground. The people in charge of the colony knew
they could not afford to let such a thing ever happen again –specifically, the
large numbers of white poor and black poor joining forces. So they started
passing laws restricting the rights of black people, and illegalizing interracial
marriage, thus driving a wedge between the two groups. A color line, really.
They told poor whites “you are on the top side of the line, with us, and are
better than them.” Even the free
ones.
It was the
beginning of legalized racism in this country, and has provided the template
ever since.
It works
like this: imagine you have three men at a table with ten cookies. The wealthy
white man with eight cookies tells the poor white man with one cookie, “Watch
that black guy, he wants to steal your cookie.” So the two poor working guys
turn on each other, and the first guy gets all
the cookies.
It’s a scam,
to maintain the status quo and keep the elite in power.
And
working-class people are still falling for it.
Meanwhile… does any of that sound familiar in a different
context?
Nathaniel Bacon was the first populist demagogue in
American history. Let’s define that word, demagogue, using the Oxford
dictionary: “a political leader who seeks
support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather
than by using rational argument.”
Think of the irony there:
this privileged, wealthy man led a popular revolt against the elite big-shots.
And he did it by saying, essentially, “I know how mad you are! They have lied
to you, and not followed through with their promises, because they think
they’re better than you. They’ve cheated me, too, so I understand.” (Of course,
in his case they had simply not given him the amount of wealth and power he
thought he deserved). The solution he offered: Burn it all down!
The events of January 6,
2021, at the nation’s Capitol may have seemed unprecedented… but it wasn’t,
really. Bacon’s Rebellion is the closest thing in our history to the Trump
phenomenon. It even centered on taking land away from Indians, which was also a
big component of Trump policy in the form of privatizing formerly protected
areas sacred to local tribes. The big difference, though: Bacon appealed to
both white and black poor people. The Powers-That-Be in Virginia made sure that
didn’t happen again, by driving a social and legal wedge between the races that
still holds almost 350 years later. Populists come and go, but none have
managed to breach the racial divide- though some have tried.
You may know there was a
Populist Movement in the 1890s that led
to the Progressive Era in the 1900s. In that case, it was farmer’s alliances
joining forces with labor unions to undercut the power of the robber barons of
the Gilded Age. Part of their strategy was to try to convince white and black
farmers and workers in the South to join forces and work together to demand
their rights.
And do you know what else
happened in the 1890s? Jim Crow laws were upheld by the Supreme Court, making
segregation the law of the land in the South. Those two things happening at the
same time was not a coincidence.
Why did so many people
support Trump, many to the point of violence? Why is there still so much racial
division in America?
Understanding Bacon’s
Rebellion is a step toward better understanding those questions. Our nation’s
first demagogue, Nathaniel Bacon, stirred up the common people –who had
suffered much –by stoking their anger and fear against the elite establishment
and also against an Other who allegedly stood in the way, Native Americans.
Bacon told the governor, and I am only slightly paraphrasing, “you love your
Precious Indians more than you love your own people,” implying that the
governor was a traitor for not persecuting Indians. And in the aftermath of the
rebellion, of course, the government passed strict race laws designed to keep
poor whites and blacks from cooperating again.
History – without
whitewashing –is the key to everything.
Do you think that’s why
Trump tried to control how it is taught…? Perhaps you recall (it was only a
short time ago) that the former president condemned the concepts of critical
race theory, white privilege, and so on, forbidding federal training programs
to reference them. By extension, he was trying to forbid all of America from
honestly looking at its past. This came as no surprise, since he daily tried to
forbid the world from honestly looking at the present (or anything else).
Instead, his administration encouraged a view they described as “patriotic,”
meaning one that never said anything that could remotely be considered criticism.
Well, that may be
nationalistic, but it is not patriotic. Nationalists insist their country is
perfect no matter what; patriots want to make their country better because they
love it. You can’t make anything better by ignoring it and refusing to even
talk about it.
In my opinion, it is my job
as a historian to help people face the past even when they don’t want to, even
when it is uncomfortable, in order to better understand the present and to make
a better future.
Come to think of it, maybe
that’s everybody’s job. Let’s start doing it, together.
