They enforce the law and defend the interest of the united states.
<span>
Bacon's Rebellion was the result of discontent among backcountry
farmers who had taken the law into their own hands against government
corruption and oppression. Many Virginians were debtors. Borrowing on
the strength of paper money was stopped by the British Government,
leading to more discontent against the merchant classes. Many of the
supporters of the rebellion were indentured servants and slaves, who
were a majority of Virginia's population.
Historians have pointed out that one of the most important reforms made
during Bacon's government was the recognition of the right to bear arms,
so that the common man could defend himself from hostile Indians but
also to oppose a despotic regime. After Berkeley's resumption of power,
this right was one of the first he repealed. Miller suggests it was
Bacon's Rebellion that may have served as one of the motives for later
colonists' insistence the right to bear arms. Historian Stephen Saunders
Webb suggests that Bacon's Rebellion was a revolution, with roots in
the English Civil War and with consequences including the American
Revolutionary War.
It was largely the slaves, servants and poor farmers (many of whom were
former indentured servants) who rebelled. Before the rebellion, African
slaves were rare in Virginia, mainly due to their expense and the lack
of slave traders bringing Africans to Virginia. Many Africans were
brought as indentured servants, becoming free after serving their term
of labor. While indentured servants from Europe continued to play a role
in Virginia after the rebellion, African slave imports grew rapidly and
new laws made slavery lifelong and passed on to one's children,
creating a racially-based class system with Africans at the bottom and
even the poorest European indentured servants above. This broke the
common interest between the poor English and the Africans of Virginia
which had existed during Bacon's Rebellion.
The rebellion strengthened the ties between Virginia south of the James
River and the Albemarle Settlements in present-day North Carolina, while
creating a long-lasting animosity between the two colonies'
governments. The Albemarle region offered refuge for rebels in the
aftermath. In the longer term, North Carolina offered an alternative to
colonists disenchanted with Virginia. </span>
