Narne
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. Date
UNIT3
WORKSHEET 3
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Close-up: Bacon's Rebellion-and Others
Sometimes, the colonists' disagreements with their governments erupted into
violence. Tensions boiled over in Virginia in 1676. Tobacco farming required a lot
of land and labor, which meant owning slaves. Large growers soon became wealthy
plantation owners. Growers of smaller farms couldn't compete. When their soil gave
out, they had to move on to new lands in the colony's western frontier. The Indians who inhabited
those lands naturally resisted.
The aristocratic plantation owners ran Virginia's government. They looked down on the west­
ern planters. The westerners resented this. In 1676, they asked Virginia's haughty governor, Sir Will­
iam Berkeley, to authorize an action against local Indians. Berkeley refused. The planters' leader
(and Berkeley's nephew), Nathaniel Bacon, led a force of about five hundred against the Indians
anyway. Then Bacon marched his forces on Jamestown, got the governor's authority to fight Indians,
marched back west to do that, and then returned to Jamestown and burned it. Governor Berkeley
and his supporters had to flee, while Bacon's men looted and burned some of their plantations. The
rebellion ended when Bacon died suddenly of a fever. Berkeley soon regained control. In revenge,
he ordered 23 of Bacon's followers executed.
Leisler's Rebellion
.....
Bacon's was not the only colonial rebellion......
In 1689 Jacob Leisler, a militia leader, seized
control of the New York governm~nt after King
James II abandoned his throne. Leisler was
a merchant who resented English' rule. As New
York's leader, he restored local elections and
the elected assembly. He lost power in 1691
and was hanged for treason. (His sentence was
later reversed.)
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Carolina Regulators
North Carolina, too, had a violent rebellion.
Frontier settlers, the Regulators, demanded
more representation in the colonial assembly.
They also protested too-high taxes and
corrupt local officials appointed by the royal
governor. The low-country, coastal-area colo­
nists, who ran the assembly, sent troops to
fight the Regulators. They defeated the rebels
in 1771 at the Battle of the Alamance.
A,~
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Paxton Boys' Uprising
In 1763 settlers on Pennsylvania's western frontier rebelled. They were outnumbered in the colo­
nial assembly. They couldn't get assembly members from eastern Pennsylvania to spend money to
fight Indians in the west of the colony. A group called the Paxton Boys massacred a village of
peaceful Indians. Then about six hundred western frontiersmen marched toward the capital, Phila­
delphia. They surrendered when a group of officials led by Benjamin Franklin agreed that they had
a right to complain about their representation in the assembly. The uprising ended, but
the westerners' problems weren't solved.
© 1997 J. Weston Walch, Publisher
35
Focus on U.S. History:
The Era of Colonization and Settlement
Name
_
Date
UNIT3
WORKSHEET 4
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Colonial Rebellions
Directions: Several different factors combined to cause the colonial
rebellions you've just read about. Use what you've learned to fill
in this chart.
Political
Factors
Economic
Factors
Social
Factors
Geographic
Factors
Bacon's
Rebellion
Leisler's
Rebellion
Paxton Boys'
Uprising
i
Carolina
Regulators
,
Do you see a pattern to these rebellions? Describe it:
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Extra Challenge:
With classmates, role-play the part of colonists debating these questions: Was Bacon's Rebel­
lion a justifiable attempt to change an unresponsive government's policies? Or was it a lawless
attempt to overthrow a legally established government? Your role-play could be the trial of
Bacon's followers, or you could be Bacon's children trying to prevent the royal government from
taking all of your father's property because of his "treason."
© 1997 J. Weston Walch, Publisher
36
Focus on U.S. History:
The Era ofColonization and Settlement