#192 Notes on Virginia 1644-1675

The History of the Americans

Jack Henneman

History

4.9 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We are back in Virginia, finally! In my defense, offered in response to the many listeners who have asked for “more Virginia,” the thirty years before the Third Anglo-Powhatan War and Bacon’s Rebellion are almost blank spaces on published timelines of Virginia history, most noting only the legalization of slavery in 1661. Well, we are now on the brink of the civil war known as Bacon’s Rebellion, which was ramping up as the tide was turning in King Philip’s War in the spring of 1676. To understand that sorry state of affairs, however, we have to step back and look at the evolution of Virginia in the years between 1644, the onset of the last Anglo-Powhatan War, and 1675. How was it that civil war broke out among the English of Virginia during the tumultuous 1670s? This episode explores the root causes of the civil instability that led to Bacon’s Rebellion, and will therefore be more thematic than narrative. Along the way we consider the severe gender imbalance in Virginia, the sorry state of indentured servants, the persistance of a brutally high death rate into the second half of the century, the relentless efforts of Virginia’s great planters to control the growing population of “masterless men” who roamed the colony, and the arrival in the region of the Susquehannocks, much reduced from the peak of their power mid-century, but still a formidable military force.

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

Matthew Kruer, Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America

“The Sadder But Wiser Girl For Me” (YouTube)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast episode 192.
0:11.6	I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on Labor Day, September 1st, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
0:29.2	We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without intentional presentism.
0:39.4	It's been a long time since we focused on Virginia. Apart from a couple of interviews, James Horn and Joseph Kelly, both were awesome,
0:47.0	and tangential references in episodes mostly about Maryland or the Carolinas or even the Anglo-Dutch Wars,
0:58.0	we haven't devoted a timeline episode to Virginia in roughly 55 episodes since Opa Cancana's last stand in 1644.
1:07.2	Many of you have noticed and sent emails asking for more Virginia. In my defense, the 30 years before the third Anglo-Poitan War and Bacon's Rebellion are almost blank spaces on published
1:14.6	timelines of Virginia history, mostly noting only the legalization of slavery in 1661.
1:22.7	Well, we are now on the brink of the Civil War, known as Bacon's Rebellion, which was ramping up as the tide was
1:29.4	turning in King Phillips War in the spring of 1676. To understand that, sorry, state of affairs,
1:37.3	however, we have to step back and look at the evolution of Virginia in the years between 1644 and
1:43.7	1675.
1:46.2	How was it that Civil War broke out among the English, and it must be said, the indigenous
1:51.8	peoples, of Virginia? This episode, therefore, will be more thematic than narrative.
1:59.2	Fortunately, I'm aided in that by Edmund Morgan's landmark, American Slavery, American
2:05.3	Freedom, which for my money is the book to bead on this otherwise understudied period.
2:11.8	Link in the show notes.
2:14.7	The 30 years between Opa Cancana's last stand and Bacon's rebellion were shaped by the governorship of Sir William Barclay,
2:23.3	who would first be appointed by Charles I in 1641, and serve as governor for all but eight years until 1677.
2:32.8	He would reach Virginia in early 1642, lose his office in 1652 with the victory
2:39.7	of Oliver Cromwell and the establishment of the Commonwealth of England, and then be reappointed
2:45.0	in 1660 by Charles II. He would eventually be recalled after the turmoil of Bacon's rebellion.
	...

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