People's History: Inequality (Chapter 3)
Music: Guitar Chords
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Summary Against the rich men of Virginia struggling whites rebelled. With shock and apprehension men of property beheld events, and schemed to turn poor whites against the treachery of England, saying "let us all unite for liberty." Chapter Late sixteen-hundreds, on the burgeoning frontier, Nathaniel Bacon, joined by struggling whites whose fear of Indians was matched by anger at the rich aristocrats, and joined by slaves resolved to switch allegiance from the men who stole their lives, rebelled against Virginia government -- the rich beheld events with shock and apprehension, passing laws to punish those involved, but looking past the cause: a feudal system ruled the colonies (John Locke's philosophy), so little wonder aftershocks occurred, for fifty men owned almost all the land. Yet many civic leaders couldn't understand, while sipping wine and peering through a looking-glass of gold, how common men of mean and vile and crass condition joined as one, why men who baked the bread or hammered shoes or milled the grain or weaved the thread could go on strike, and why the Jamestown poorhouse filled so quickly. When at last the populace was stilled the scheming upper class resolved to turn the blacks against the Indians, and numerous attacks occurred. They'd also turn the lower class of whites against the blacks, with jobs and land and other rights beyond the reach of slaves. And with a mastery of propaganda they'd deflect a good degree of anger from themselves, insisting by decree that all Americans unite for liberty. |