Bacon's Rebellion, Slavery, and Colonial Mercantilism

Bacon's Rebellion and the Shift to Slave Labor

Bacon's Rebellion was an immensely significant event in early American history. This uprising was one of the first truly national events of the Colonial Period and would prove to have a lasting effect on the country well into the middle of the 19th century, when the Civil War was fought. Essentially, Bacon's Rebellion involved indigent farmers from Virginia who gathered together, rioted, and burned a substantial portion of Jamestown — the first enduring American colony — to the ground.

The critical aspect of this particular rebellion is that it caused many large landowners in the southern colonies to recognize an inherent problem with relying on white labor. It did not matter whether those workers were indentured servants or freedmen; they believed they possessed certain rights and privileges, and if they perceived those rights as being denied, they were willing to take violent and destructive action to secure them.

The alternative to this source of labor, of course, was enslaved labor. Most colonists did not regard African or African-American slaves as fully human, let alone as people deserving rights or privileges. Thus, Bacon's Rebellion helped set a precedent in which the preferred form of labor in the southern agricultural colonies shifted from white workers to enslaved Africans (Faragher et al., 2009, p. 41). Other potential sources of labor at this time included Native Americans, though they presented considerable difficulties, as they frequently resisted subjugation. Enslaved Africans, by contrast, were far less able to resist — a fact borne out by the long period during which chattel slave labor built and sustained the foundations of the modern United States.

Mercantilism and Its Core Principles

Mercantilism is the principle that a nation's power and strength are rooted in its economic wealth and output (Cranny, 1998, p. 237). Under this system, each country sought to secure its dominance by maintaining a favorable balance of trade — that is, by exporting more than it imported. National prosperity was therefore measured in the accumulation of wealth, particularly through commerce and controlled trade networks.

Mercantilism's Effects on the Thirteen Colonies

There were definite effects of mercantilism on the original thirteen colonies prior to 1760. For most colonists, mercantilism was understood as a distinctly British principle. In practice, it meant that the colonies functioned primarily to generate wealth for Britain through commerce. The colonists were expected to trade primarily — and, from the British perspective, exclusively — with England. Many British economists and government officials viewed the colonies' trade relationship with Britain as their sole economic purpose, beyond expanding Britain's territorial claims throughout the world.

In keeping with this mercantilist aim, Parliament passed several pieces of legislation designed to channel colonial commerce toward Britain. One such measure was the Navigation Acts, passed in the 1650s. These acts were intended to strengthen the British naval fleet, which was struggling to keep pace with more powerful armadas, such as those of the Dutch and Spanish (Billett, 2012). With the passage of these acts, it became legally required for colonists to trade primarily with Britain, and a range of punitive measures was established to discourage trade with foreign entities.

The Navigation Acts

The Navigation Acts were designed to increase England's mercantile wealth by ensuring that the colonies exported their raw materials to the Crown. In turn, the colonists depended on Britain for finished goods. This arrangement also raised the price of such goods, since they had to be imported from England, effectively placing an unofficial surcharge on them. One tangible benefit that colonists did gain from the Navigation Acts was the growth of the shipbuilding industry, which flourished primarily in New England and became a relatively lucrative sector of the colonial economy.

The initial colonial reaction to this economic system was mixed. It was certainly not nearly as hostile as the reaction after 1760, when the Revolutionary War became imminent largely because Britain sought to tightly regulate all colonial activities — including those involving economics and governance. In the earlier period, colonists still considered themselves British subjects, and as such they viewed the continuation of British economic principles as broadly normal and a regular part of their lives (Pincus, 2012, p. 3).