#195 Bacon’s Rebellion 3: Go Ahead, Shoot!

The History of the Americans

Jack Henneman

History

4.9 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nathaniel Bacon and his army of volunteers have returned from beating up on the friendly Occaneechees (Occaneechis) on the Roanoke River in southern Virginia. It is election day, and Henrico County will elect Bacon and his sidekick, James Crews, to the Virginia Assembly, which has been called into session on June 5, 1676. This episode describes the dramatic session of that Assembly, which began with Bacon’s arrest and ended with he and his army holding the Assembly at gunpoint. Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, demonstrates his own flair for the dramatic along the way, but by the end of this episode has taken refuge with other loyalists on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Oh, and there is a “manifesto.” Never a good sign.

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

James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia

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

Nathaniel Bacon, “Declaration of the People,” July 30, 1676

Nathaniel Bacon, “Bacon’s Manifesto,” July 1676

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 195.
0:11.0	I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on October 4, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
0:19.4	We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States
0:23.4	from the beginning without intentional presentism. One announcement, I'm more or less the last
0:31.6	person in the world to start a substack, which should be easy enough to find. And there's a link in the episode notes if it's not.
0:41.0	I will be writing on mostly history-related matters, but we'll no doubt have cranky musings
0:46.6	on other topics as well. Some of you have written asking whether there was a way to contribute
0:52.1	to the podcast financially.
0:56.6	I spend a few thousand bucks a year on it,
0:59.1	mostly in books and other research materials.
1:03.2	Insofar as I do not and will not run ads,
1:06.9	with the usual caveat that everybody has his price.
1:17.3	Paid subscribers are, therefore, extremely appreciated. In case it isn't obvious, your enjoyment of this episode will be improved if you have listened to the last three episodes, beginning with Notes on
1:23.7	Virginia, 1646 to 1675, if you've not already done or done recently.
1:31.3	It's May 25, 1676.
1:35.6	In New England, King Phillips War rages on, and on this day, the Algonquins will attack Hadley,
1:42.5	Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1:47.3	In Henrico County, Virginia, it's election day. Nathaniel Bacon and his men have returned from killing a lot of Okanichi Indians,
1:54.4	a nation historically allied with the English and essential to trade with the nations of the Carolinas,
2:03.2	on an island in the Roanoke River.
2:10.5	Bacon's men crowded into the small courthouse building, and he and James Cruz, one of the drinking buddies who pushed Bacon forward in early April, were elected as representatives to the
2:16.3	assembly. It's not clear whether Bacon and Cruz
	...

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