Why America's First Colonial Rebels Burned Jamestown to the Ground. Bacon's Rebellion was triggered when a grab for Native American lands was denied. Jamestown had once been the bustling capital of the Colony of Virginia. Now it was a smoldering ruin, and Nathaniel Bacon was on the run.
In 1930, severe droughts in the Southern Plains brought high winds and dust from Texas to Nebraska, killing people, livestock and crops. The “Dust Bowl” inspired a mass migration of people from farmland to cities in search of work.
