rough draft restructured

The English government was corrupted and the English governor William Berkeley in Virginia shows it. It was started in 1693 when William Berkeley was appointed governor of Virginia. At the time he was a well respected man, but over time he became more and more greedy as his personality characteristics changed. In the 1600’s Virginia was suffering under England’s government horrendously. The English government was enduring them with taxes that served no purpose, other than to prosper. So that’s why I say, Bacon’s rebellion was the effect of a clash of wrongs and mishaps caused by unjust government with public security, and unsuitable taxes.

Back in 1645 Virginia had a poll tax that replaced the property tax. The poll tax was to tax people based on their income, but the English government did quite the opposite. The poor were being taxed more than the rich. In document #7 of the royal commissioners narrative states, “ [W]hereas there are some great persons both in honor rich in Estate and have several ways of gains and profit [that] are exempted from paying Levies and the poorest inhabitants being compelled to pay the great taxes which we are burdened with.” This means that people with a lot of land would be taxed less than the people without because they had more ways of earning profit. I think in this situation it was not only wrong to tax the poor more than the rich, but it was also stupid. If the English government were to tax the rich more, they would get more money out of them. This is only one of the worst things the government did to its people, but not the only one.

Another tax that the English government compelled on the Virginians was trade taxes, such as the poll trade tax. An example of a poll tax trade would be the beaver trade, which outrageously over charging colonists for the price of beaver fur. The only reason for this high priced fur, was simply because the English government had a monopoly on it. It was hard for the colonists to pay these taxes and it felt like their government left them sitting in the dark.

In addition, a way to show that England still did care about the settlers in the new world, they gave them a law called, ‘The Navigation Laws.’ Which required that the planters should buy from England all the European goods that might be needed, and should bring them over to Virginia in English ships. The effect was to compel the settlers to sell their tobacco at whatever price the English merchants were willing to pay out, and to buy their goods at whatever price the English merchant saw suitable to charge. English government shouldn’t be treating their people this way just because they are a 3 month trip away over water. These people still originated from England, their government should have cared for them more.
Nevertheless another tax came along. It was called the, “quitrent.” This is the origin of the modern system of land taxes in Virginia.

The quitrent was a land tax that the King originally imposed and that was regulated by acts of Parliament. The basic English land laws under which the people of colonial Virginia gained title to their land required the owners to pay to the English government a quitrent of two shillings for each hundred acres of land. If a landowner failed to pay the quitrent for a specific number of years, the English government had the right to take back the land and grant it or sell it to another person. The money raised by this tax went into the royal treasury and was used to pay the expenses of the royal government in the colony. The money being gained from these taxes were going right back to the government officials. The New World people weren’t receiving any benefit from these taxes.

Taxes in Virginia had gotten worse, even when the colony was in grave danger from all of the Native American attacks, Governor Berkeley didn’t let the people kill Indians. One of the reasons for this is because Governor Berkeley was gaining person wealth from trading with the Indians. With all of the selfishness of the government, it really looked like that their own government was against them.

Looking aside from all of these taxes, governor Berkeley without a doubt was still looking for ways to benefit himself. The way he did this without taxes was that he did not protect the new settled Virginia people from the savage Indians that were ruthlessly killing them. These Indians were killing indentured servants in planting fields but William Berkeley didn’t do anything about it because he wanted to keep having the people trading with the Indians because he benefited from it. Some would argue that the only reason why Berkeley did this was because he wanted the Native Americans to just get along to build the economy. Based on all that I’ve said before this, we all know Berkeley was thinking is, “Money talks.” Meaning that money is the only thing that is going to show his power, so that’s what he was headed for.

One man that was sick of the corruption in the government and the murderous Indians, his name was Nathaniel Bacon. He had sympathy for his fellow colonists and decided to take a stand against the Indians after they had killed a servant in his plantation. He took a stand for his colony and chose to call them on it. He was devoted to the pure patriotic liberty principle. Nathaniel Bacon did this by writing his own letter of complaints to King James. It was called, Nathaniel Bacon’s, ‘Declaration of the people.’

The following June Nathaniel Bacon assembled a group of five hundred men leading them into Jamestown in what comes to be known as bacon’s Rebellion. Nathaniel bacon had many supporters of his rebellion such as the Virginia planters. The Virginia planters supported this because their indentured servants were being killed in the planter fields.










http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/bacon.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0805681.html

http://www.virginiaplaces.org/military/bacon.html

http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwehave/local/va20_coltax.htm