The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

it was in fact an elite-led uprising. What Darrett and Anita Rutman described as a
“chronic enigma to historians,” the early rebellion was less an uprising of the
“oppressed against oppressors, but simply a venting of frustrations.” As researchers
have noted, it was not a rebellion of the lower sorts against the rulers, but rather an
elite-led conflict based on fear and hatred of American Indians. While Governor
Berkeley tried to keep peace with the Indians, frontiersmen feared them, desired to
expand to their lands, and wanted to take over their trade routes. 41 Nathaniel Bacon
was a cousin-by-marriage of the governor and Berkeley had even appointed Bacon
to the Governor’s Council. Despite those ties, Bacon led supporters to attack the
Indians and eventually battle the governor himself. Bacon issued handwritten
petitions, or manifestos, to both the House of Burgesses and to the public. Berkeley
ignored the petitions, and being handwritten, they lacked the authority, or political
legitimacy, that were inherent in printed documents. 42 However, Bacon had no real
message of governmental reform, and no desire for independence from England.
Without well-read popular prints and a real reform message, Bacon’s message did
not gain universal support. The rebellion collapsed when his death left it
leaderless. 43 An investigation by British authorities of the failed revolt supported a
broader political consciousness in the colony by recognizing the dissent as legitimate
grievances rather than treasonous sedition. 44 Following Bacon’s rebellion, Virginia
leaders had to struggle to maintain their hierarchical control. The early colonial
elites lacked the gentile manners and education of the traditional English gentry
41 Rutman, and Rutman, Place In Time, 86. Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the
Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia (Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early
American History and Culture at Williamsburg by the University of North Carolina Press, 1957).
42 On authority and political legitimacy of print, see Hall, “The Chesapeake in the
Seventeenth Century,” in Amory and Hall, eds., Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, 57-58, and
Copeland, Idea of a Free Press, 117, regarding petitions.
43Bridenbaugh, Jamestown, 89-103.
44 Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and
Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 173.
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