1676 Editorial: Bacon’s Rebellion – A Justified Action or Personal Power Grab? Many of you understandably sympathize with Nathaniel Bacon and his supporters. Bacon does present some legitimate gripes: for certain, Governor William Berkley has been unfairly favoring his own ilk in the creation of lucrative trading partnerships and coalitions with the local Indian population. While targeting the root cause of corruption in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the methods being used by Mister Bacon are untenable, ill advised, inappropriate, unethical, and contrary to the values we hold dear. It is time to take a stand against Bacon and condemn his rebellion for what it is: a personal power grab by a belligerent elite posing as a populist.

Let us consider the bad blood between our Governor Berkley and Mister Bacon. Did you know the two are related, albeit not by blood but by marriage? These two men are from the same social class (Beverly). Bacon is not the man of the people as you might have been led to believe, but a member of the very same elite as Berkley, albeit a jealous and childish one. Yet unlike our honorable governor, Nathaniel Bacon “was a troublemaker...

It would seem his father had high hopes that the colonies would change his prodigal son, but alas, the move did nothing to change Bacon’s bad ways. He continued to be a troublemaker and a schemer in the worst ways, and now wreaks havoc on the people of the Commonwealth. Bacon can now be deemed responsible for countless deaths of Indians and colonists alike, creating anarchy in our province.
Yes, we do acknowledge that Governor Berkley is a man driven by his own self-interest. But it is not Berkley who is causing death, destruction, and despair. Berkley has done his best to calm the rebellion, but to no avail; Bacon has so effectively riled up the populace that a mob mentality has prevailed. Certainly, the rebels have a cause for discontent. We know that the prices of tobacco have declined to a level that precludes many of us from making a viable living. We also know that Berkley and his cohorts in Britain conspire to control market prices of goods, divesting our Virginia farmers from having control over their own labor and the prices of their own…