I've been rereading the Wikipedia entry on Bacon's Rebellion with the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. I'm struck by the following:
My 8th great-grandparents, William and Sarah Drummond, where notable supporters of the rebellion. William was hung for his efforts. He should have been handed over to the surviving Occaneechi.
- When Sir William Berkeley refused to retaliate against the Native Americans, farmers gathered around at the report of a new raiding party. Nathaniel Bacon arrived with a quantity of brandy; after it was distributed, he was elected leader. Against Berkeley's orders, the group struck south until they came to the Occaneechi people. After convincing the Occaneechi warriors to leave and attack the Susquehannock, Bacon and his men followed by killing most of the Occaneechi men, women, and children remaining at the village.
- Edmund S. Morgan's classic 1975 American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia connected the calamity of Bacon's Rebellion, namely the potential for lower-class revolt, with the colony's transition over to slavery: "But for those with eyes to see, there was an obvious lesson in the rebellion. Resentment of an alien race might be more powerful than resentment of an upper class. Virginians did not immediately grasp it. It would sink in as time went on."[31]
My 8th great-grandparents, William and Sarah Drummond, where notable supporters of the rebellion. William was hung for his efforts. He should have been handed over to the surviving Occaneechi.
