Bacon's Rebellion: A New Racialized Society

In the 1676 “Declaration of the People”, Virginian elite Nathaniel Bacon enumerated the black and white labor force’s grievances against Governor William Berkeley and the ruling elite. “We the Comons of Virginia doe declare, desiering a firme union amongst our selves that we may joyntly and with one accord defend our selves against the common Enimy” This union, along with the rebellion it orchestrated, was put down after the death of Bacon. During post-rebellion Virginia, elite legislatures passed an onslaught of reforms attacking the black body and white female sexuality. Examination of Virginia’s slave codes demonstrate that in order for the elite class to preserve their power after Bacon’s Rebellion it became necessary to create a new racialized society which would herald in the Antebellum South. In the aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion, rich planters began a campaign to divide and conquer their labor force. Recognizing that the last Baconians to resist were …show more content…
The colony’s head patriarchs monitored sexual behavior in order to prevent the birth of mulatto children which had the potential to confuse the divide between blacks and whites. “That for the time to come, whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free shall intermarry with a negroe, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free shall within three months after such marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever.” Prior to Bacon’s Rebellion interracial sex was legal, but by 1691 white women who engaged in biracial sex faced increasing punishment. White women who partook in miscegenation faced banishment and their children were forced into indentured servitude until the age of thirty. It is important to note that these laws did not restrict sexual relations between white men and black women. This distinction is