#199 Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
This episode looks again at the causes of Bacon’s Rebellion in light of what we have now learned, before turning to the region of the Chesapeake in the years after the Rebellion.
There are two big themes in the post-Bacon Chesapeake. The first, the subject of this episode, is geopolitical. After Bacon, what changed in intercolonial affairs, in the relationship between the Chesapeake colonies and England, and between those colonies and the indigenous nations? The second theme, for part 2, is essentially domestic. How did Virginia itself change politically, economically, and socially, with a special emphasis on the terms of labor and the types of people performing it?
Along the way we look at the crazed conspiracy theories that roiled not only Virginia and Maryland, but England, how they affected the various protagonists, led to the negotiation of the “Covenant Chain” between the Iroquois and New York and the other English colonies of North America, and how the end of Bacon’s Rebellion unleashed explosive growth of the trade in enslaved Indians from the Carolinas and points south.
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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
Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom
Other episodes mentioned
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 199. |
| 0:10.9 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on December 4th, 2025, in Princeton, New Jersey. |
| 0:20.3 | We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without intentional presentism. |
| 0:29.3 | Useful prerequisites for this episode are the last seven, starting with notes on Virginia 1644 to 1675. |
| 0:39.2 | Not that there will be a test or anything. |
| 0:42.4 | You'll enjoy this episode more if you come to it in sequence. |
| 0:46.8 | At the end of the last episode, Bacon's rebellion had ended, at least formally. |
| 0:52.4 | Sir William Barclay had returned to London, anxious to plead his case |
| 0:56.4 | with King Charles II, but it died before having a chance to do. Colonel Herbert Jeffries was now |
| 1:03.8 | in charge in Virginia, but he too would die within a year and a half. It's possible to go into |
| 1:10.7 | great detail about the personalities |
| 1:12.9 | involved, as Wilhelm Washburn did in the concluding chapters of his 1957 book, The Governor |
| 1:20.1 | and the Rebel. We will spare you that story, however, since it's tough to read out loud, |
| 1:26.0 | as one does on a podcast. |
| 1:28.7 | Suffice it to say that Washburn does the job for Sir William Barclay that his family could |
| 1:33.9 | not. He largely vindicates the governor's decisions in the run-up to the rebellion and in the |
| 1:39.9 | suppression of it. In the immediate aftermath, Washburn argues the English government followed |
| 1:46.3 | Barclay's approach to the indigenous nations, distinguishing the friends from the foes and |
| 1:52.4 | treating them accordingly, and rejected the demand of the Baconistas for a campaign against |
| 1:57.9 | all Indians. Long term, though, it would be a different story, a topic to which we shall return soon enough. |
| 2:06.9 | I'm actually going to say that a lot in this episode. |
| 2:09.6 | I'm going to touch on something and then tell you we'll get to it later. |
... |
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