Nathaniel Bacon was a colonist of the Virginia Colony, famous as the instigator of Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, which collapsed when Bacon himself died from dysentery. Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion held by Virginia settlers that took place in 1676. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley. It was the first rebellion in the North American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part (a somewhat similar uprising in Maryland involving John Coode and Josias Fendall took place shortly afterward). The alliance between European indentured servants and Africans (a mix of indentured, enslaved, and free blacks) disturbed the colonial upper class. They responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.[2][3][4] While the farmers did not succeed in their initial goal of driving the Native Americans from Virginia, the rebellion resulted in Berkeley being recalled to England.
The British thought the colonists should help pay for the cost of their own protection. Furthermore, the French and Indian War had cost the British treasury 70,000,000 and doubled their national debt to £140,000,000.
