Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 315 Bacon's Rebellion

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys A colonial American uprising that united white men who wanted to steal more native land, slaves, and indentured servants against a corrupt Governor. GET LIVE SHOW TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lions-led-by-donkeys-live-from-the-hague-tickets-912551134007 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lionsledbydonkeyspodcast7424 Sources: https://virginiahistory.org/learn/bacons-rebellion-virginia-years-1675-1676 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p274.html https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/bacons-rebellion-1676/ https://www.jyfmuseums.org/learn/research-and-collections/essays/a-history-of-bacons-rebellion-in-six-sources Tales from a Revolution: Bacon's Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America

Hey everybody, it's Joe. We have another live show coming your way at MusicCon in The Hague, The Netherlands, Saturday July 20th. The doors open at 19.30. You can get your tickets at the link below in the show notes as they are available. Hope to see you there. Hey everybody, Joe here from the Alliance Led by Donkeys podcast, but I guess you probably already knew that.

If you like what we do here on the show, consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com slash lions led by donkeys. Just $5 per month gets you every regular episode early, access to our community discord, a digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, as well as its audiobook, read by me, and over five years of bonus content. By supporting the show, you support us and allow us to keep our show as it has always been ad free. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Lions led by donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and with me deep in the tobacco fields of this episode that Tom knows nothing about is Tom. I'm not good at intros. How's it going buddy? It's all good. I, uh, my gym membership, my second gym membership has run out. So now I'm being forced to get up at 6 AM to go to the gym by my house, which I have a membership for, an active one, before work.

So get to go stand outside at 25 past 6 in the morning, wait for it to open, do my workout, go home and then come here. So see, this is this is all part of your natural arc of getting involved in a show that's only run by dudes who used to be in the military is now you also have to do 630 PT. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and it's part of the employment contract. Like you will work out, but we'll have to make it as awful as possible.

Yeah. Like the, my home gym, cause I have, like I was at home in Ireland for a bit and then I went to Switzerland and well, I went to eight different countries. To be fair, in that neighborhood, it's not too hard to do. Yeah. And then got back, went to the gym by the studio, which I had a membership for, and they were like, oh, it expired like a week ago. And I'm like, yeah, but you didn't email me to say it was expiring or anything. So and they were like, yeah, well, give us 15 pounds so you can go work out.

Went in, worked out, smelled really bad. Was too busy. I was like, you know what? I'm going to get up at six. I am home. No, it was it was just like it was too much like it's because like it's a it it like there's no ventilation. It was too busy. It was like whatever. And then went to my own one like yesterday or on sad. Yeah. Yesterday they've replaced like all of the static machines with hammer strength stuff.

And yeah, it's cool, but they got rid of the pull down machine sacrilege. They got rid of a pull down machine. So now they have like, you know, it's like the static pull down. So it's not like a cable. It's like two handles attached to arms that you pull down that like. Right. Right. Is the one where you put plates on? No, not even that. It's like so it's like, oh, it's even worse.

I know it's terrible. And I was like doing back today. So I did my pull ups, did my other stuff and then had to do pullovers. And then I was like, oh, there was dude using it. So I was like, I'll just go do pull downs and saw it. And I was like, this is and I thought because there's like a big like indoor running track downstairs that has like cardio equipment and some machines down there.

I was like, oh, maybe they'd like took all the old stuff and put it downstairs just to like split up the two, just so it makes it a bit easier if it's busy. Now they just threw it out. Sacrilege. Speaking of sacrilege, I have slowly been getting more into running again. So don't enjoy it, actually. I just happen to live like it's been a long time. So I live somewhere where I could just like go outside and run without being Annihilated by traffic or whatever and you know, there's nice little trails that go through

Forested areas near where I live. Like that's lovely. That sounds like a great place to run It's not It's to say nothing of the environment I'm just not one of those people like, those people, people get like runners high or whatever, they can just zone out. From the second I start running to the second I stop running, the whole time I'm thinking is I hate running.

Yeah. And the reason why is I messed my back up a little while ago, so I've been unable to play sports, which is my main mode of cardio. And so I was like, okay, I can go for a slow jog. I'm not trying to break any land speed records here. Got to say, not a huge fan, but I'm doing it.

I could say that I ran a five K the other day. And, you know, my time is close to where I was running five K's a few years ago, which either says that I started off running my 5Ks very slowly or I'm happy that I can keep my time close to where it was several years ago. Either or, it happened. Running sucks. Not a fan.

But I'm doing it. It's good for me. And that is what I tell myself to convince myself otherwise. Well, I suppose not good for you tobacco tobacco. We're going to be talking about a lot about tobacco today, something that I no longer use. I've cut to the chase. Both of us sitting here.

We don't use tobacco. We just use the nicotine portion. I barely even vape anymore. We don't use tobacco, we just use the nicotine portion. I barely even vape anymore now. Just imagine everybody in this episode, instead of working tobacco fields, they're working the vape fields, juicing succulent vape fruits into jars. When I say American Revolution, you probably think of the time a bunch of colonists got pissed about unfair taxes and the encroachment on their rights to own people as property,

rose up in arms against the British Crown, and eventually established the land of soaring bald eagles, country music, and unaffordable healthcare. However, what if I told you there was something of a revolution before the revolution, before the concept of the United States, and somehow it was even more fucked up than that last one Because we're talking about Bacon's rebellion Otherwise known as the time a man led an armed revolt in colonial America because the governor wouldn't let him and his followers steal More land from Native Americans. I Do you know what there's a first time for everything and I think this is the first time that's ever happened. It's rare where there's like a situation in colonial America when someone's like,

I want to fuck over the natives even harder. And the government's like, no. Yeah. There were pretty big fans of doing that just in general. Still kind of are. It's what they're best known for, arguably. But before we get into Nathaniel Bacon and his failed rebellion, we have to talk a little bit about life and times in Jamestown, Virginia, circa the 1600s. God, Virginia in 1600s, this is not going to be good. It's, uh, I mean, Virginia in 2024 isn't great, to be completely fair.

You know, hey, Virginians, if you're listening, don't be mad at me. You know, it's true. Yeah. And to the various FBI agents that are listening to this episode, you know, it's terrible as well. You had a hand in it. Yeah. Hello from Langley, Virginia. Jamestown had been founded in 1607, and the existence of the colonists was not an easy one. Jamestown was founded on marshes with no easy access to fresh water, and because of all of the swamps, it was a hive of disease.

This was made worse by the fact that the first settlers were horribly unprepared and completely unknowledgeable about the land that they intended to settle. That isn't even going into the relations with the local native tribes. We talked about a lot of that back when we talked about King Philip's War, so I'm not going to really touch on that too strongly. However, to make a long story short, some tribes hated the settlers and attacked them immediately, while others saw them in a more practical view of, yeah, we also hate them, we don't want them here, but also we should ally with them and kind of use them to strengthen our position against stronger

tribes. Either way, starvation, disease, and war were a constant. On multiple occasions within the first decade of the settlement, the entire population was very nearly wiped out by various waves of disease. The settlement survived despite this due to pretty much a never-ending supply of new bodies coming over from England. However, the English government believed the country was overpopulated, that being, you know, England, Britain, and saw the new colonies as a dumping ground. So as soon as one wave of settlers died off, a new one would arrive. And many of these were convicts, because early colonial America was effectively how most people think of Australia.

I was about to say, they were taking the Australian tactic of, you know, population increase. Yeah, well, I mean, not the only reason, but one of the many reasons why Australia ended up being colonized is like, the colonies were full of convicts already and they needed a new place for them. By 1619, things had stabilized to the point that the ever encroaching possibility of complete destruction was mostly gone. Jamestown had become a hub of tobacco cultivation, made cheap by easily available land either via diplomacy or outright theft from the native tribes and cheap labor in the form of indentured servants

who had been shipped over from the rest of the British Empire. And indentured servants are much different than what you think of slaves, right? British Empire. And indentured servants are much different than what you think of slaves, right? Many of these indentured servants were African, many of them were not, but the difference between indentured servants were that was a sentence and it had an end. At some point, you were either going to serve X amount of years as an indentured servant, or you could also buy your way out if you made enough money. So essentially, what we're talking about is contrary to people like absolute chuds believed as like, oh, the Irish were the first slaves. Like, no, we weren't. We were indentured servants that were sent to the Caribbean or to, well, if you were convicted, you would like get sent to Australia, the Caribbean.

Weirdly, there's a whole like ethno-linguistic thing that happened in the Caribbean and like with Patois. But yeah, Irish people were never slaves. Yeah. So think of that. Yeah. And this is more than a hundred years prior to, let's call it the British in Australia. So, generally speaking, at this point, if you're one of the people being sentenced to indentured servitude, you got kicked to the colonies. This was because, obviously, your virtually free labor would help build the colonies. Then you'd be freed after a certain period of time, at which point you would stay in the colonies. Yeah. Either way they got rid of you, and also there's also a third option,

you just die because of all the disease and everything. Either way the British like, you're gone. Fuck off. We've gotten rid of this issue. You know, the last one is always an option in every situation. You could just die. It is. It is. Now, this dependence on indentured servitude within the colonies would slowly change over time because the institution of outright slavery would become a centre point to the colonial

economy. And nobody wanted to or could afford to give this up. Because again, like a main problem, and when I say problem, I mean to like the plantation owners and whatever, with indentured servitude is eventually these people would be free. And they're like, well, fuck, we need more of them because the entire economic model is based on free labor.

Slavery is the answer for this problem. Because sometimes if you happen to be a filthy rich plantation owner, the only answer to your problems is something even worse. Yep. So all that tobacco needs to be picked and dried and... Oh yeah. It's very labor intensive for more reasons than... It's actually so labor intensive and part of the labor one of the reasons why it's so labor intensive is because they weren't that actually they weren't that good at farming and we'll get to that point.

This cycle continued to enrich a small strata of the colonists into the mid 1600s. Farmers expand into more and more lands, grabbing as many fields as possible for growing more and more tobacco. This did have a major drawback, however. Colonists, like I just said, were not the best farmers in the world. And it was the 1600s. What amounted to commercial farming, or what you might kind of call sustainable farming, was nowhere near what could be considered existing yet. Colonists would devastate the land with their farming methods. Yeah, do you know who's really good at living on the land? The people who are there originally, not you people like, oh, I want to start my, you know, off the grid tiny home. I'm like... It's like it's this scene from Idiocracy and they're and they're watering crops of Mountain

Dew and wondering why things aren't working anymore. Jedidiah, pour more surge coal on to the tobacco. But it's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave. It's got what plants crave. Yeah. I mean, like, listen, to be honest, we are probably 10 years away from Terry Crews being president, so. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, would honestly would would I forget his name in the movie arguably he can do a worse job. Yeah, like we'll have state instituted like HGH programs

for teenage boys. Yeah, we don't. We still have universal health care, but we do have universal trend supply. Instead of the pledge of allegiance, you have to pain and cough for three minutes. Yeah. Universal injection sites and needle exchanges, but only for gear. Yeah. Listen, this is how we get injection sites in the US is universal health care for fitness supplements. You're injecting, you know, your train, you're taking Anovar. You know, you're probably taking fucking like a windstroll as well, you know.

Oh, hell yeah. Get 80s with it. Take D-ball. Oh, God. We're taking D-ball. We're like, you know, doing the iron was like a Bob feels like I'm coming. Yeah, because nobody would be coming anymore. It's all of the steroids. I mean, listen, we've talked about pumping iron enough on this show, but like that scene

where, oh, they're at the competition in South Africa and then you're very violently reminded this is the 70s in South Africa. Oh, God. Yeah. They're all sitting on a dinner table being served by only black people and all the people sitting at the restaurant are white, but also everyone is staring at them because they're all body builders and they sit down like, I'll have four hamburgers please. And they deliver the burgers. They take all of the bread off of theirs, eating fistfuls of meat.

Yeah, I want the hamburger. See Americans can only conceptualize things in terms of hamburger. That's how I'm returning to my personal cultural traditions of only remembering pumping iron through burgers. Yeah, you know, this is why Arnold was the perfect personification of the American dream because he just ate burgers and eventually become a governor where he destroys public sector unions. But yeah, yeah, that is, that's effectively it. What is the economy like the perfect, un-unionized economy?

What is it except a burger with no toppings and no bun? Just lean meat, baby. Would you like some seasoning on that? I'd just like to sprinkle on my HGH on the top. Now, like, so the colonists, they are every piece of dirt they touch, they're ruining after a few crop rotations, right? But the incredibly high tobacco prices meant they would immediately move on to new lands, wrecking them just like the old ones, and this cycle required a constant unending theft of native holdings. This was made worse by more and more colonists simply surviving. Because their existence was kind of like, their norm was baked into the fact that so many of them were supposed to die every year from starvation, disease, whatever. And that was compounded with servants being released from their sentences, meaning more and more people were looking for lands of their own to get in on that sweet sweet tobacco cash. Also, there's actually more to this more money, but also to be considered land owners and therefore have any kind of rights

whatsoever within the colonial structure. Like, you know, when you think about it, like everyone got obviously mentioned like Americans can only conceptualize things in terms of a burger, but like tobacco is the most pure American product is like, it is a product that only does Harmon kills you. But Americans love producing it and like sending it all over the world.

And we get to stick to our guns. Also guns. Yeah. What are guns except metal burgers? Yeah, exactly. So this left people with two options to make money, only one of which would give them rights. Rent land from other colonists who had already stolen land at incredibly inflated prices that they probably just couldn't afford.

Or steal shit from more natives. Now this is obviously much cheaper and it ended with them owning the land, meaning they have rights. At the time the British crown had allotted a certain amount of land to the native population in a series of treaties in an attempt to not stop conflict as much as hit a pause button until they needed it. Right. To try and stem off a tide of blood and violence enacted by, you know, British colonialism.

Something that never changes. Yeah. And you know, only a certain amount of blood and carnage is good for business. If you have it all the time, you don't have enough time to secure the bag. And colonialism is, in its essence, how to secure the bag. Right. So it's a slow bleed rather than, you know, cutting the metaphorical throat. They're stealing little by little as they see necessary rather than inflaming this thing into a colony-wide war

that they just don't have the means to do right now. Because there's actually virtually no British soldiers in the colonies, you see. It's mostly just colonial militias and these colonies have very low populations. So they really can't just go forth and conquer say like the Susquehanna tribe. They just can't. But like it's something that I found so shocking when I learned about like how few

British troops were actually in continental America during like the 13 colonies period and the westward expansion is like it's actually insane that there was so few people there that like, yeah, like it makes sense that they're like, why are we going to fucking listen to you guys? Like, what are you going to do? There's like 30 of you. And I mean, even during the American Revolution, they're in the grand scheme of things where the American revolutionaries are fighting a small slice of the British military.

So, you know, shout out to France. The only time you'll ever give props to France apart from Napoleon. Now, Napoleon wasn't around yet. That was that was a little that was a little while in the future. But so despite the British colonial enterprise, they did have very strict rules. If you're a colonist, leave this land alone without explicit orders from England to do otherwise. Right? I'm gonna guess that they ignored this.

Oh, immediately. Now, because like, I cannot explain just how much money tobacco is worth at the time, right? It makes much more sense, because if you ignored the British crown, you'd just be fined. It's not like they wouldn't take their money, they wouldn't take their crops, and they would not take their land away from them. Here's your traffic citation for murdering that native family and stealing their farm. So not wanting to miss out on the tobacco bag, colonists had fucked the crown and began stealing that shit anyway. And this is made easier for them by the fact that natives in the area themselves were settling down into colonist style farming. This land had already been cleared and in many cases

already planted. So they just had to move in and kill the people who owned it or chase them off and convert it to farm tobacco. It's kinda like when you think about it like the whole rush to mine bitcoin. Well no because tobacco actually exists. Say what you will about how good or bad it is for people but it is a thing you can hold in your hands. Tobacco is inherently fungible.

Yeah, I'm gonna funge the fuck out of that token. I'm gonna fucking light it on fire and funge it right into my lungs. Exactly. I funged it so hard I have cancer. Yeah, with Bitcoin the only thing you're killing is the planet. Yeah. I mean, also, same with tobacco farming, I guess that is one thing they do have in common. Yeah. They're both pointless in existence and a net negative for everyone involved But look include me what I will say. I'm someone who stopped smoking that Sig in the morning with that first cup of coffee fucking hits so hard Look the only reason and I say this is a former smoker myself

the only reason anybody enjoys a good cup of coffee and a cigarette in the morning is because, you know what you really enjoy in the morning? A good shit. And that's the immediate take a shit button. Your body is like, I'm awake, I have caffeine, I have nicotine, let's get rid of everything else. See, Joe, this is why you'll truly never be European.

You know what, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that I'm fine with that. Two best cigarettes in the day first thing with that espresso in the morning and that 4 p.m. espresso and a cigarette. Both of those are for taking shits and you cannot convince me afterwards in the morning you're taking a good morning shit in the afternoon you're taking a good healthy shit before dinner clearing up the space. No the afternoon, you're taking a good healthy shit before dinner. Clearing up the space. You know?

No, this is because, you know, once again, Amerifats don't eat any fiber, so you know, you need to like have your cigarette and coffee to get your shit. Strong Hellenic fucking Europeans, like we have- You're Irish! I, I, you know, this is the, I, I am suddenly supporting the European Union, you know, like with pan European craft work was fucking right Like you're not even in the European Union Neither of your countries are Ireland is in the European Union doesn't count for visas bitch

Yeah, well, that's your fucking problem, not mine. I can go wherever I want. American passport. No visas ever my problem. But like Europeans sound off in the replies, sound off on Patreon, on the Discord. That four p.m. little coffee and cigarette. Best part of your day. Look, I don't disagree. I'm a fan of coffee. Best part of your day. Look, I don't disagree.

I'm a fan of coffee. While I might not be European, I am Armenian and nobody drinks more coffee than we do. And I do enjoy a good afternoon coffee. But I still stand by the fact that the reason why that became a normal thing is because everybody wanted a set time to make the nastiest growlers of the day. No, it's also because Armenia is a country that does not exist before lunchtime. That's fair.

Yeah. The 4pm coffee is breakfast coffee. Yeah. Only place in the world that a phone shop will be open at midnight. Everything is open at midnight. It's the weirdest fucking thing. Then the choice for many of these colonists was very, very easy. Right. They needed land.

The crown wasn't giving them land and everybody, you know, again, the problem effectively comes back to landlords, but also what if tenants are being fucked over by landlords, but also all the tenants were inherently genocidal in nature? You know, yeah, it's a, it's kind's kind of a priori of you should kill your landlord. This podcast brought to you by Mouse a Tongue. As this happened, events continued to unfold not in the colonies, but in England itself with the end of the Civil War. The Empire quickly got involved in shit fits against the French and the Dutch though. This normally would not have been a huge problem for the colonies,

but it was a big problem for, was, the tobacco trade. Because you guessed it, you know who bought most of that tobacco? The French and the Dutch. Now the Dutch doing it because you know, they're tradesmen, they're always trade. That's how the Dutch built their power. And the French doing it because they smoked all of that shit before noon. Yeah. What, what exact year are we talking about right now, Joe? This is in the 1600s.

So yeah, at this time then, Dutch, French at war with England. England's about to send a guy called Oliver Cromwell to Ireland. Imagine they send Cromwell to the colonies instead. We'll all be like eating beans on toast. To be fair, we'd still be eating beans on toast if what happened a hundred years after this didn't happen. Yeah, true, true. We would effectively just be big Canada, or bigger Canada, I don't know.

Yeah, you would have been like tobacco and beans on toast. Yeah, you gotta have like the sugary white American bread at the bottom, a big tobacco leaf, then just slop a spoonful of beans on top. We call that a South Carolina breakfast. I'm rolling up my tobacco with fucking Wonder Bread. It's kind of harsh but man is it good. I'm smoking that Tyson Foods pack. Now things are bad because now there's war against the English, the British, and the Dutch and the French. The British Empire is now effectively going to war against the main outlet for the tobacco

crop. And then the British government says you can't do any more business with the French and the Dutch. This is a major issue because the entire colonial economy had bent itself around the cultivation of tobacco and the British themselves could only pay and not only could but would only pay a fraction compared to the Dutch and the French because they now claimed a monopoly over the trade meaning they could set a price that only benefited the British government which is a problem if for the entire colony. There's like one proto-Quebecois guy who's like I have a plan

we are going to bring it up to the's like I have a plan we are going to bring it up to the straight of Labrador we are going straight to France I need my lid I can't even smoke a cigarette right now because you will not trade it for me this is just small baguette I need my accent always slowly turns Russian I need my accent guy I need my won't you I need my accent guy. I need my Mon Dieu I need my petit café and my cigarettes at 2 p.m. I must take my 4 p.m. shit That's how cheese curds were born The Canadians are gonna be so mad that's fine It just means they apologize slightly more aggressively. So as Price has completely plummeted

down to dirt nothing, the anger and hate the columnists felt went directly on the shoulders of the Governor, a guy named William Berkeley, who had been in power for decades and had refused any and all elections previous to the Civil War. He had also been known for his intense, unrelenting corruption. He had been in power long enough that he not only ruined the early colonial power structure, but kind of just made it about him. They should have sent Ray Kroc back in a fucking time machine. He's kind of like that, but for tobacco. Yeah, instead of burgers, it's tobacco. Like he could have taken over all of the Virginia tobacco farms and like branded

them, you know. I think that's just the establishment of the United States as a whole. Burgers and tobacco. He had given prize land grants to his allies, friends and family. And over 30 years that he had been in power, he created a privileged social elite of rich landowners strangling off the lower classes from any upward momentum. And I should point out here, this is not just like an accidental endpoint of his corruption. He purposefully set out to do this because he was quoted as saying, quote,

I thank God there are no free schools nor printing and I hope we shall not have these for a hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience into the world and Printing has divulged them and libels against the best governments. God keep us from both He would just be working for like the Cato Institute today He's joining the Japanese Red Army What? You know, it's fucking, you know, readings bad.

He's he's also on that like Paul part tape is like fucking all you're wearing glasses. You can read fucking nerd. Get in the field. You don't need to read. Reading reading is decadence. You only need to pay your taxes to me, bitch.

Yeah, he kind of was Paul. Didn't want people to read. And it was obsessed with people being in the field farming. It's returned to the fields. But actually, anytime anybody says that, it's always terrible. There's no good way to say that. Although the idea of an American Khmer Rouge is terrifying. Yeah. I mean, any Khmer Rouge is bad. Um, say what you will about an American Khmer Rouge, but at least it wouldn't get off the

ground. It wouldn't even start. Problem solved. So yeah, he was that kind of guy. Meanwhile, shipping tobacco to England ended up costing more than what it was worth in the market. This created something of a feedback loop of death and destruction. Farmers barely able to feed themselves and their crop prices continued to plummet and their governor did nothing. So in order to make any profit between the prices of cultivation, shipping, and sales, it required more and more land to farm so they could squeak out just a little bit of profit. So they in turn pressed on the local native population to take their land. But so did other native tribes making a living in tobacco.

So it was only a matter of time before there was a blow up between the two sides that led to a lot of dead bodies. A group of natives raided a farm owned by a man named Thomas Matthews. Now we're not actually sure of the motivation for this raid. Some people have said that Matthews had not paid the natives and fucked them over in a trade while others said that isn't the case and Matthews, it was more of a situation of wrong place, wrong time. I would have, I think I believe the former.

I think both could be true. Like neither, neither would surprise me. Like it could have been, yeah, he fucked them over on a trade that happened all the time, and it could also have been that his farm happened to be close to a place where people were getting killed and then soon it ended up in his front door. Either way, people were dead on both sides by the end of the raid. Colonists were infuriated and they gathered their militia to raid a nearby native owned farm and now 14 more people were dead.

Before one native survivor ran out of a nearby cabin and told the militia commander George Mason the first, like hey dickhead we're not even part of the same tribe who killed that guy, we're your allies. The militia said, whoopsie daisy, packed up their muskets and went home. However, one man, Nathaniel Bacon, a cousin of the governor through marriage, said, fuck that, gathered more men and led another unofficial attack against that same allied tribe, insisting, we can't trust them, they must be responsible anyway, and killed several more of them. So we're doing the six degrees of Nathaniel Bacon.

All of the six degrees are people being murdered with muskets for the rest of this episode though. His real motivations probably had nothing to do with the attack on Thomas Matthew. He simply wanted the land that the natives had and hoped to chase them away and steal it in direct violation of the governor's and the crown's orders because this was an allied tribe, the Susquehannock, who they had a land parcel. They were effectively part of the colony and then he just fucking raided them for no reason. However, at this point the Susquehannock had seen enough.

They rallied their men together to strike back and killed a hundred people across several different colonies and soon other tribes, non-allied and allied alike, were joining in seeing the fuck the white guys train was leaving the station and they didn't want to miss out. Yeah, fuck the white guys. Despite him being a corrupt dickhead, he had done a lot of work to put all of this diplomatic work together, this network of allied tribes where things would work without people murdering one another until of course the time would come when

he would murder them. But in this scope, in the context of this episode, he had helped put all of this together and Bacon effectively strolled in there and blew it all up without any kind of permission to do so. And this was very much on brand for Bacon. You see, because he had been a shithead his entire life, born to a rich family in Suffolk, England, he had caused so much trouble that his father bought him two estates in Virginia

and effectively banished him over to the colonies just to get rid of him so he wouldn't be causing problems in England anymore and because he was an aristocrat related to the governor he was given a seat on the city council however Berkeley was never a fan of him because He always seemed to be starting shit Bacon believed that there should be no natives in colonial lands and they should drive them all out in order to steal everything for themselves while Berkeley pointed out, I don't disagree, but we literally cannot

do that. Like we need the natives to survive. They need us to survive. We have created this network that ensures our continued survival. Yeah. It's kind of like proposing a kind of only easy peace should last. Knowing there will be a war at some point in the future. But this gets us through the immediacy because, like, Berkeley had been in the colony long enough to remember when that was not the case. Yeah. Now, this did not stop the governor from immediately going to war, you know,

because Bacon started it. But he decided on a defensive war, that is constructing forts, garrising said forts against raiding parties and protecting farms, not going on any offensives and hoping that in a short amount of time, you'd be able to talk to the tribes again, be like, hey, some guy fucked up, let's talk it over. We didn't launch any offensives against you. We don't want this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That was his plan.

He also officially reprimanded Bacon for launching his raid in the first place. And the main punishment was he lost his commission in the colonial militia during the war. He would not be able to officially lead any men into combat. And Bacon took this as a personal slight rather than do punishment.

So he simply decided to form his own militia without any official permission or commission to do so, and then dubbed himself a general. He rounded up 200 dudes and went marching out to fight the sesquihannic. We love to see self-appointed generals. Now, Tom, when I tell you that this guy started a war fighting the wrong people, do you think after he marched out to find those wrong people all over again that he found them?

Nope. Yeah, you're right. He didn't find the Susquehannock. Instead, he just went to war against any natives that he saw regardless of tribes. Yeah, like, you know, the negotiated piece between like different tribes of Native Americans is like very tenuous at the best of times during like this period in history. Can't imagine like a load of white guys rolling in saying like, yeah, we don't really care who you are, you're Native, like whether you're

allied with us or not, we're gonna kill you. Getting the musket. Yeah, I don't think this is going to end well. And remember, like I kind of set the scene. And remember, there's a lot of inter tribal warfare as well. And there always was because every tribe has their own politics and agency and goals and everything. However, when you drive into the middle of that and just start shooting everyone,

you know what you do? You ally all of those tribes against you. Yep, the enemy of my enemy. We fucking hate one another, but that Bacon motherfucker, we hate him even more. We'll settle this later. When the governor sent him a message telling him to cut that shit out and come back, Bacon responded by demanding payment for his illegal militia. The governor at this point was virtually speechless. He had clearly

an illegal armed body that was refusing his orders, so he demanded that the militia return at once, and those that did would face no repercussions for their actions, but the ones that didn't would be deemed rebels, and their properties and lands would be confiscated by the colonial authorities. And since the vast majority of Bacon's men were landowners and therefore liable to lose everything, many packed up and went home. Bacon, however, refused, as did 57 other men. You know, it's great that over, what, a hundred years later, some morons thought that it was a good idea to enshrine the right of these groups of morons to exist? Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, the morons with the monopoly of force are always the ones

that end up writing things called constitutions. Being labeled rebels didn't even slow them down. Instead, they continued their march into native land. They met one tribe's chief outside of their fort. It was near the James River and Bacon tells them, look, we need supplies and we'll just continue on our march. The chief was like, yeah, sure thing, buddy. Don't really, you seem like you got crazy eyes, but I'm gonna go inside.

I gotta talk to my sub-chiefs and we'll come to some kind of number of things that we can spare for you, right?" This took days and Bacon suddenly became paranoid that, you know what? This chief, he must be working with the governor and he's gonna tell on us. So he killed them. He slaughtered a hundred and fifty people, including the chief and his entire family. Word eventually got back to the colony and all hell broke loose in two very different ways. The governor and generally most of his government were shocked. They had already declared that his men were rebels and he kept going everywhere and expanding the war. And not that colonial governments are ever against the death squads, but this was

an illegal one. And they were making the war bigger and bigger by every passing day. Yeah, this is definitely not going to come back and bite him in the ass. Well there was also another thing that happened. A lot of people in the colony heard about Bacon's actions and they went, fuck yeah. And they embraced him as a hero because the governor had for years, you know, been seen as soft on Native Americans, not taking their land, not letting people steal whatever they want. And, you know, meanwhile, this is in the middle of a war that Bacon started.

Now natives are raiding colonial holdings because they're at war. So now more colonists are being chased off their lands. And the governor was not going on the offensive and building up forts and all these things, garrisoning them with militia required him to tax people more. And that's on top of the complete implosion of the tobacco trade. So now they see Bacon going out there and being like Colonial Icehead's group and and they're like, we fucking love that guy. That is our guy.

That is how we should fight this war. Yeah, it's because it's the birth of the real American, aka the person who loves stochastic violence against minorities. That is true. Yeah. The formation of the the the American cultural identity happened here. That's not true, but it wouldn't surprise you. Right. Joe, could you explain what you meant in terms of a burger? Fuck off. The cheese has not yet been put on top of the patty, alright? So when elections for the House of Burgesses came up, Nathaniel Bacon won his seat in a landslide

representing Henrico County. This is despite the fact being he wanted fucking rebel for leading an unsh-sanctioned death squad. Hearing about his electoral victory, Bacon and his men boarded a few ships and set sail for Jamestown, planning to come ashore knowing that they're wanted rebels but thinking that the voice of the people was so loud the governor would not be able to do anything about it. Well, the ships were immediately fired upon, ran aground, and Bacon and his men were arrested. But to be fair, Bacon was partially right. The governor immediately set Bacon free on parole because he thought if he didn't, he might get lynched.

Though there was no secret what he wanted to do, having previously told Bacon's wife that he would make sure that her husband would be swinging by the end of the rope when all of this was finally over. Then Bacon went into the assembly, on parole, as an elected member, and the rest of the assembly promised him an official commission into the militia parole as an elected member and the rest of the assembly promised him an official commission into the militia for his services and a pardon. Though the governor wasn't really on board with either of those things and issued another arrest warrant for him, forcing Bacon to flee Jamestown, making his way back home to Enrico

County where he was welcomed again with open arms as a hero. Now there he had a different spin to his story. Bacon had been voted into the House of Burgesses by his people, and then the governor and the assembly betrayed him. On top of everything else, he became a beacon for all of the complaints people had of Berkeley's government. The corruption, the taxes, his policies, the land issues. Everything is like Bacon is our hero to deliver us from this governor. Soon he had 500 men at his back, all of them furious with the governor for various different reasons. Most were farmers up to their tits in debt,

others were freed servants denied land and forced to rent at insanely high prices. Bacon galvanized them saying if the governor let them steal more land from the natives, all of their problems would be solved. But instead, he loves the natives more than he loves you. He said that's literally like he'd live like one of his speeches. He called him, you know, I'm not going to say the word, but effectively a native lover like, you know, American politics has never changed in what? 400 years. Like coming into the next, like, you know, election cycle,

definitely going to have like Trump saying that like Biden loves Mexicans or some, something like that. I'm pretty sure he's already said that. He probably has. Yeah. But like, I mean, to be fair, Nathaniel Bacon would be able to hold a house seat today for sure Jesus Christ, I'd be you know down to the wire between him and Marjorie Taylor green for that seat Or who's the fucking dude who got his eye blown out and fucking? Afghanistan oh yeah the guy from Texas yeah, but Texan insanity is a little bit different

So they marched on Jamestown word quickly got back to the governor who ordered militia to stop Bacon, but he quickly learned that the vast majority of his militia was actually on Bacon's side in the confrontation. So now worried about a possible coup, the governor ordered all those still loyal to him to hide their cannons and then he himself ran to the state house just in time for Bacon and his men to walk into town. Bacon's demands were simple, he was promised a god damn commission and now he wanted it. The governor summoned the assembly together and quickly got them to approve it. They delivered the paperwork to Bacon who looked over and decided, you know what this

isn't good enough, now I want to be the overall commander of all of Virginia's armed forces. The governor was like, alright hold the fuck on buddy. He, then he tore open his shirt, exposed his bare chest and told bacon, if this isn't good enough, he might as well shoot him dead right there on the spot. I got a, I got a hazard against that. He shot him. No, actually he didn't. Coward. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, uh, this, this would be a much shorter thing.

And then we just have like Governor Bacon for 30 years after this. But no, he said, I'm not going to shoot you. I'm not going to hurt you at all. And then he just walked away. The governor retreated back into the assembly's chambers while Bacon decided they were taking too long and stormed in a short time later. And the assembly said fuck it, okay fine you're the commander of Virginia's militia, just don't kill anybody,

you kind of got that look in your eye again, just take the promotion. However now that wasn't good enough for Bacon because remember he had been declared a rebel, an outlaw, all those things but not just, but in official letters back home to the king. And he demanded an official public apology and a letter fixing it. The governor refused. Not only was he obviously embarrassed by the entire situation, you know, probably worried that he might set some kind of precedent of an armed man simply getting whatever he wanted by threatening the government, the assembly was worried Bacon would kill them, and they just signed the letters anyway. These letters forgave everything Bacon had done and went so far as to say he had the full authority in doing everything

he had done so far of the colonial government. And now he was the commander of Virginia's military. And since he had done so via strong arming, this effectively makes it the first in arguably only successful coup of a state government in American history, pre-American history, but American colonial history. And the people fucking loved him for it. They cheered his name and the governor abandoned the state house, fully ceding power to Bacon and the governor abandoned the state house, fully ceding power to Bacon and the militia. Bacon, now in control, had completed his preparations for his coming campaign against the native

tribes in case you thought he wasn't going to do that anymore. And by late July of 1676, he had gathered well over 1,000 men and supplies. He heard that Berkeley had run to Glauster gathering his own men and declared Bacon's commission illegal due to the fact that, you know, he made me sign it because he pointed a gun at my face. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, signing legal documents under duress is admissible in court and blah blah blah. Yeah, it's the argument that he used as well. But, you know, he couldn't really form an

army, you see, because Bacon was a fucking hero, and once people in Gloucester heard why he was forming the militia, they wouldn't join Bacon instead. Bacon then issued what was known as the Declaration of the People of Virginia. Denouncing the governor as corrupt and illegitimate, saying his unjust taxation and refusal to prosecute the war against the native peoples to an end meant that he had abandoned his duty to protect the people of the colony. Bacon also declared Berkeley in his inner circle rebels, traitors and worse still, Native American lovers.

Then he declared himself General by consent of the people. Oh yeah, that's how military commissions work. For sure. He set up a new administration, new elections, and set about cementing his power by capturing a ship that was owned by the British Navy that was in port and pressing it into service. Which had to be a strange career arc for all those bored sailors who thought they were on like nothing duty. Like god I'm caught up in a fucking coup now, what the fuck is happening?

I mean probably happened more often than you think. So he kind of saw something shiny along the way rather than cement his power, like go to Gloucester, find Berkeley or, you know, even make sure this ship that they just catch from the British Navy would listen to him. He marched off to continue his demented genocide of the native people. Well, I mean, he was plotting his war against Berkeley, but he couldn't do both things at the same time. And despite the fact he was going to war against his own governor, and by extension, the crown,

he still insisted he was loyal to the King of England. So like, there's a lot going on here. Bacon led his men in person, abandoning his administration to lead his demented genocide, and stormed into a native camp and captured an old woman, demanding that she act as their guide to attack a different tribe. The old woman smiled and agreed, but in reality, she was much smarter than Nathaniel Bacon. She simply led them out into the middle of the woods, far away from anyone and anything, miles away from any other tribe.

And it took days of walking before Bacon realized, like, I think she's making us look like idiots. But, you know, they shot her. And now him and his men were hopelessly lost, tired, and hungry. While all this is happening, the sailors of the captured Royal Navy ship sailed downriver to where the governor was and joined him. It's like, hey, that motherfucker's not in the city anymore. We should go and recapture it. Now bolstered with an armed ship and several dozen men, the governor sailed to Jamestown and took it back without firing a shot.

Because Bacon and his entire homemade militia were all gone, being forced to eat their own horses and shit lost in the woods. Cutting bits off my boots, make my own jerky. Boiling some candles, making the forbind soup. Bacon finally emerged emerged from the forest only discovered what was happening back in what he thought was his administration and he began to march back to his home county to tell them. Backed by 800 men he once again marched on Jamestown only to find the governor had prepared this time. Armed ships were in the river, he had built defensive works throughout the entire town and now it was very well supplied, while Bacon and his men were mostly starving to death after getting conned by an old woman.

Bacon ordered his men to begin digging in and sent a cavalry to raid nearby towns, kidnapping relatives and, to include the wives of Berkeley Loyalists, threatening to use them as human shields. God. This turned out to be an empty threat, he never did use them as human shields, even if he did kidnap them, so decide his relative guilt on your own part. Berkeley ordered some of his men to attack, trying to break out of Bacon's encirclement, but failed, and this led to Berkeley's assembly to advise him that they need to abandon the

town altogether rather than submit to a prolonged siege, hoping, look, if we just pull out, we save the town from combat, eventually the British will show up and help us and crush these rebels, but we just need to fuck off for a bit. So he did, and once again, Bacon marched right back in and took Jamestown.

Though the second he did, he got word that another one of Berkeley's loyalist commanders was on his way with more than a thousand men and ships. Bacon knew he could not get trapped in Jamestown in a siege and decided, burn it all, statehouse included. Jesus. Then he moved on to confront that Berkeley Loyalist commander who was leading in the reinforcements, a guy named Colonel Brent who was leaving Gloucester. Though there was no battle

because when the men that were in that army figured out who they were fighting, they just deserted Colonel Brent. Though Bacon was coming up against the wall, he had finally gone too far. He pissed off the one group of people he could not afford to piss off. Not the Native American allies he had butchered, not Berkley's administration, not even the British crown really. Wealthy plantation owners. He fucked with the bag. He fucked with the bag. The plantation owners were more than happy to play Bacon's game because as you can imagine, they were fully on board with his idea of

outright genocide and stealing land from the natives. They knew full well at the end of the day despite what all the things that Bacon was saying they would benefit because what would probably happen is all these poor men would buy this land, they wouldn't be able to administer it, the plantationers would come in and buy it from them and start the entire cycle over again. However, when that motherfucker set Jamestown on fire, they knew, oh god, the crown's gonna come and deal with this now. Like the plantation owners were so on board with Bacon, they were funding his militias.

They later framed it as like he forced us at gunpoint to pay him quote-unquote Taxes as the administrator, but they were funding his militias and then when they when he went and torched the fucking State House and Now the British Army was on its way with the naval support there. They're like, oh god, we're done We're not giving you any more money. Yeah, please please fuck off You're gonna like when you start swinging from a rope, we're next if we come to... Just leave us alone. We got the back of the grow.

Yeah. And they pulled their money away from his militias. They stopped paying him so-called taxes. So now he couldn't afford to pay anybody. However, that isn't the most serious thing that would happen to Bacon. You want to guess what it was? Let's see. So plantation owners have stopped funding his militia. Militias and guns for hire are known to be extremely loyal in lieu of payment. I'm going to guess his own men

turned on him. So let me set the stage for you. The British are coming. Governor Berkeley is forming an army. The plantation owners have turned against him. His backs against the wall. And then he catches this and Terry shits himself and dies. I mean, look, it's a it's a death befitting the 1600s. Yeah, it was going to come for it comes for everybody eventually.

Yeah, he managed to come for everybody eventually. Yeah, he managed to escape any and all justice from this because he catched what they called the bloody flux and he shit himself to death on October 26th, 1676. Then they took his body out back and set that motherfucker on fire and they scattered his ashes to parts unknown, burying a casket under his name but it was actually just full of rocks. Command of the rebellion fell to a guy named John Ingram who was voted in by

the rest of the bacon officers but it was all but over. They had no money, they had no food, everybody's shitting themselves and dying now, the British are coming and by the time the British Army and Navy showed up a few months later the rebels had pretty much all burnt out. They'd the British Army and Navy showed up a few months later, the rebels had pretty much all burnt out. They'd packed it up and gone home. A few of their leaders though, kind of assuming, I'm definitely going to get executed for everything that I did, ran from the colonies.

Nobody knows what happened to them. They ran into native-held land and two things could have happened. The natives fully remember who the fuck they were and they were immediately massacred or they just kind of moved in with a tribe. Both have happened before. Now backed by the British army and navy, Berkeley went on a reprisal rampage. He executed dozens of rebels and the remaining leadership all without trial. He also personally seized their property without any kind of procedure and had the army raid anywhere where they thought rebels and sympathizers might be hiding. Royal representatives told Berkeley to simply forget about the whole thing like

let bygones be bygones, we gotta go back and you know a lot of fucking damage was done over the last couple years, we really need to get back and start rebuilding you know and your killing spree is really slowing that down and Berkeley looked them and then it's like fuck you I'm doing it anyway it's like we're busy we've got tobacco to grow yeah like we have to rebuild Jamestown we have all this land we need to rebuild from the war we need to repopulate these farms and settlements and whatever oh oh fuck he's hanging more people. Shit. Finally, he went too far for the British government and Berkeley was fired, being recalled from

the colony with King Charles II saying, quote, that old fool has put more people to death in that naked colony than I did here for the murder of my father. Oh, God. here for the murder of my father. Oh god. Berkeley died in 1677 virtually as soon as he stepped foot back in England, thus ending the weirdest goddamn thing to happen in colonial American history that we've covered so far. One man shits himself to death, the other man loses his job and dies. Now Tom, we do a thing on this podcast called Questions from the Legion. If you'd like to ask us a question from the Legion, you can donate to the show.

You can ask us a question on Patreon in our DMs or on Discord where we have a dedicated channel for this kind of thing and we'll answer it on there. What documentary did you watch that you knew was full of shit? Oh, I fully. If I was thinking about this a lot the other day, because I love watching documentaries like I watch a lot of documentaries and I feel like for the past couple of years, like so many documentaries have just been kind of shit. That was like this could have been a YouTube video.

Like there's so many incredible document. I think the streaming platforms as all these things that was like this could have been a YouTube video. Like there's so many incredible documentarians. Think the streaming platforms as all these things that be like YouTube doc you essays are now just like a six part Netflix series. Yeah, like under so many incredible documentarians on YouTube who are doing stuff for essentially for free, aside from like ad revenue and some sponsorship deals. And like Netflix is like really stretching the gruel theme with like every documentary series where it could be like,

this could have been a 40 minute YouTube video. And I think that obviously the classic answer is Super Size Me. That's what I was going to fucking say to man. So Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock, and we won't talk a lot about what Morgan Spurlock has done in his personal life because that is a grim subject to get into. Let's just say he's a piece of shit. But Super Size Me is so bad because despite the fact, yes, we can all agree that living off of fast food is probably not the best idea, health or otherwise. However, one of the main things that like Super Size Me takes away from this entire

thing is like it caused liver damage. And it turned out Morgan Spurlock had been a crippling alcoholic for decades at that point and just didn't tell anybody. And like there's a scene in the movie where the doctor's like, wow, I expect to see this liver in it. This is like a drinker's liver. It's because I fucking was. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like that's the classic example. Like, oh, and there's other parts where he's like, oh, man, I haven't eaten McDonald's.

I'm shaking like, no, dude, you're withdrawing from alcohol. Oh, it's so bad. I actually, you know, when I go home after work, so I'm going to watch it again. I'm just going to be so mad. It's such a bad word. I mean, there's other ones as well. Like there's been a documentary that Netflix released

pretty recently that they use like a eye for pictures of people involved, which is deeply fucked up. There is like Sarah Koning's serial podcast about Ednaan Syed that like kind of played fast and loose with a lot of details. Oh, God, if we're talking podcasts, she's not going to be here for another hour. I'm only bringing up serial because it's like the it is. I feel like it's like a lot.

It's like the seed of a lot of where of of like true crime documentary podcasts and videos come from today and serial made podcasting effectively what it is today in a lot of ways as as the platform as a whole. Obviously, there's no quality control there as we can both attest to because we have a job. But I mean, like, yeah, like there's two podcasts that are kind of like, I suppose, the Promethean fire of the medium and it's serial and Joe Rogan and like you can see what effect those have had. Yeah, yeah. There's you know, there's also a lot of documentaries that are obviously like purposefully skewed in a specific way,

like they're fucking political hack jobs or whatever but like Super Size Me I believe is like the perfect example because it was so fucking Popular and when the main things of the entire thing other than again Morgan Spurlock being a dogshit garbage human being Who should almost certainly be in prison is that the main takeaway of the entire? documentary is alcoholism is bad for you, but like he just didn't say anything about it. No, the other answer, and I feel like we should watch this just for the podcast in general, because I feel like it will make you both of us so insanely angry, is Bill Maher's

Religious. Oh, I've definitely seen that one and it's egregiously bad because I mean, yeah, exactly. The whole problem behind that documentary is in the title of Bill Maher. Yeah. He's a fucking piece of shit. Yeah. Recent fucking addition to Bill Maher being a piece of shit is that like Steve-O got invited on his show and Steve-O, who has been sober for a long time now. Very public sobriety journey and more power to Steve-O for that. Yeah. And Steve-O said like, yeah, I'll go on it.

My only request is that you like don't smoke weed while I'm there because obviously Bill Marr fucking loves smoking weed. And like they just, and he was like, look, I'm sober. It's really important to me. And it's, you know, the only thing that you'll have to do to get me on. And they're like, nah, fuck off. And he was like, I mean, that amongst like, you know, literally an infinity of things is a perfect example of why Bill Maher is the terrible human being. Like if you're an ass, if you're the type of person who is either friends

or in a group or invites someone, a sober person with addiction problems in the recovery journey over to your place and then starts consuming one of those substances in front of them, you're a piece of shit. Like, I cannot stress that enough. And I mean, that is a that is obviously of all the things that Bill Marra does that barely even cracks the top 10. But like, yeah, fuck that guy and fuck everything. Stachina, fuck Morgan Spurlock.

Fuck Morgan Spurlock. That's been the show. Tom, you do another podcast. Plug that podcast beneath the skin show about the history of everything told through the history of tattoos. And I am the producer of Glue Factory, a comedy podcast on YouTube and all other platforms. Also, this show is on YouTube now as well. You can't see us, you can hear us. This is the only show that I do.

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