Bacon's Rebellion Was Immensely Significant. This Sedition

¶ … Bacon's Rebellion was immensely significant. This sedition was one of the first truly national events that took place during the Colonial Period that would prove to have a lasting effect on the fledgling country well into the middle of the 19th century, when the Civil War was fought. Essentially, Bacon's Rebellion involved indigent farmer's from Virginia, who gathered together and actually rioted and burned a substantial portion of Jamestown -- the first American colony that actually lasted -- down to the ground.

The critical aspect about this particular rebellion is that it made a lot of large landowners in the southern areas of the country understand the inherent problem of utilizing Caucasians as sources of labor. It did not really matter whether those Caucasians were actually indentured servants or freedmen; they all believed that they had certain rights and privileges that, if they perceived them as being unmet, they would take violent, destructive means to attempt to procure.

The alternative to utilizing this source of labor, of course, was to use slave labor. Most colonialists did not view African or African-American slaves as human, let alone as being worthy to having rights or privileges. Thus, Bacon's Rebellion helped to set a precedent of sorts in which the preferred form of labor in the southern agricultural colonies transformed from Caucasians to slaves (Faragher et al., 2009, p. 41). Other potential sources of labor at this time involved Native Americans, which involved a degree of difficulty since Native Americans were naturally rebellious.

However, slaves were decidedly less so, a fact which is readily proven by the immense period of time in which chattel slave labor transformed and actually built the modern country of America. Essentially, mercantilism is the principle that a country's power and strength was based on its economic prowess and wealth (Cranny, 1998, p. 237). Thus, the mercantilist system was each country's attempt to procure its hegemony by maintaining a favorable balance of trade. Doing so requires one to export more than one imports.

There were definite effects of mercantilism on the original 13 colonies prior to 1760. For most of the colonists, mercantilism was a definite British principle. What it meant for the colonialists was that the colonies essentially functioned to produce wealth for Britain via commerce. The colonists were expected to trade primarily (and, for the British, exclusively) with England. In fact, many British economists and governmental figures saw the colonies' trade with Britain as their sole purpose, other than expanding Britain's territorial claims throughout the world.

Thus, in keeping with this aim, there were several different pieces of legislation that were passed all in the aims of helping the colonists to better trade with Britain, so that they could essentially support Britain's wealth. Once such piece of legislation was knows as the Navigation Acts which were passed in the 1650's. These acts were an attempt to bolster the British naval fleet, which were trying to keep up with more accomplished armadas such as the Dutch (Billett, 2012) and Spanish naval fleets.

With the passage of these acts, it became explicit and lawful for the colonists to trade primarily with Britain; these acts even set up a number of punitive measures that would prevent trade with foreign entities. The Navigation Acts were designed to increase the mercantilism of England by helping the colonies to export their raw materials to the Crown. As such, the colonists were dependent upon the British for finished products.

Additionally, the Navigation Acts increased the price of such goods because they had to come from England, and had an unofficial 'tax' on them. One particular benefit that the colonists gained from the Navigation Acts was the eminence of the fairly lucrative ship building industry, which was primarily centered in New England. The initial colonial reaction to this system of economics was mixed.

It was certainly not nearly as disgruntled as its reaction to the system after 1760, when the Revolutionary War was imminent largely due to the British's attempts to regulate all colonial activities -- including in economics and government. The Colonialists definitely considered themselves British subjects when mercantilism was initially imposed upon them. As such, they viewed the continuation of this British economic principle as somewhat normal and a regular part of ordinary life (Pincus, 2012, p. 3).

Yet as alluded to earlier, there were certain elements of mercantilism that produced effects upon the colonists that were less than desirable. The raising of prices for finished products certainly did not help the fledgling economy that was being built by.