Today in Labor History July 30, 1676: Nathaniel Bacon issued the "Declaration of the People of Virginia," beginning Bacon's Rebellion, an armed insurrection against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. It was the first insurrection in the American colonies and the first class uprising in North America. Thousands of indentured white Europeans united with free, indentured, and enslaved black people to demand rights and privileges they were being denied. They took up arms and drove Berkeley from Jamestown, burning the colonial capital to the ground. It took several years for the authorities to put down all the pockets of resistance. Bacon died of dysentery. However, Berkeley executed 23 of his followers. King Charles, disillusioned with Berkeley’s rule, recalled him to England. The king said "That old fool has put to death more people in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father."
The unification of poor blacks and whites scared the hell out of the ruling class. Consequently, they realized they needed to sow divisions between the poor, so they would fight among each other rather than unify in another uprising against the rich. This led to a hardening of the color lines and the development of the ideas of race and racial superiority. The ruling elite used the uprising to justify passage of the Virginia slave code of 1705 and many of the first laws that distinguished between black and white people. They shifted from their reliance on indentured white servitude to chattel slavery, and bestowed new status and privileges on poor and formerly indentured whites. Further, they used the uprising, and Bacon’s own hatred of Native Americans, to unify all white farmers, large and small, against the Indigenous peoples.