Bacon's Rebellion

having beene within the space of about 12 months before,
neer 300 Christian persons murder’d by the Indians Enemy.
What care the Assembly tooke to prevent these massacres was
onely to build Forts¹ at the heads of each River and on the
Frontiers and confines of the country, for erecting of w’ch and
maintaining Guards on them a heavie leavy was laid by act
of Assembly on the People; throughout the country univer-
sally disliked before the name of that Imposture Bacon was
heard of, as being a matter from which was expected great
charge and little or noe security to the Inhabitants, the Scitua-
tion of the Virginian Plantations being invironed with thick
woods, swamps and other covert, by the help of which the
enemy might at their Pleasure make their approaches undis-
cover’d on the most secure of their habitations, as they have
often done not onely on the Frontiers but in the very heart and
centre of the country, their sculking nature being apt to use
these advantages.

      The Murders, Rapines and outrages of the Indians became
soe much the more Barbarous, fierce and frequent, by how
much the more they perceived the Public Preparations of the
English against them, Prosecuting their mischiefs upon the
extreem Plantations thereby forcing many to dessert them to
their Ruines, and destroying those that adventur’d to stay
behind.

      The unsatisfied People finding themselves still lyable to the
Indian Crueltyes, and the cryes of their wives and children
growing grievous and intollerable to them, gave out in Speeches
that they were resolved to Plant tobacco rather than pay the
Tax for maintaining of Forts, and that the erecting of them
was a great Grievance, Juggle and cheat, and of no more use
or service to them than another Plantation with men at it,
and that it was merely a Designe of the Grandees to engrosse
all their Tobacco into their owne hands.

      Thus the sense of this oppression and the dread of a comon approaching calamity made the giddy-headed multitude madd,

     ¹ In 1675-1676 a series of forts was erected at the upper waters of the
rivers, along the frontier. Beginning with Stafford County on the Potomac, the
forts, seven in all, extended southeasterly to the Nansemond. The expense and
uselessness of these forts constituted a wide-spread grievance (Cal. St. P. Col.,
1674 – 1676, §§ 909, 939).