Virginia Governor Sir William Berkeley has fled to the Eastern Shore with a small group of loyalist planters and a detachment of perhaps only fifty armed men. Nathaniel Bacon has occupied Berkeley&#8217;s estate near Jamestown, and dispatched men to capture loyalist ships anchored there. Bacon&#8217;s &#8220;navy&#8221; has out in search of Berkeley, but Berkeley turned the tables in an audacious amphibious attack and grabbed control of the Bay and the rivers. While Bacon was mucking around in the Dragon Swamp hunting notionally allied Pamunkeys, Berkeley recaptured Jamestown. Loyalist victory seemed at hand, but Bacon forced Berkeley to retreat from Jamestown a second time in part by grabbing the wives of loyalist planters and using them as human shields, and this time the rebels burn it to the ground.
At the end of the episode, it appears that the rebels had the upper hand. Little did they understand that the loyalist cause was far from lost, and the rebellion was, unbeknownst to anybody, on the brink of disaster.
<a href="https://jackhenneman.substack.com/">My Substack</a>
<a href="https://www.zazzle.com/store/thota_podcast">Check out the new merch store!</a>
X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – <a href="https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2">https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2</a>
Facebook – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans">https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans</a>
Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)
James D. Rice, <a href="https://amzn.to/4n5KqkO">Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America</a>
Wilcomb E. Washburn, <a href="https://amzn.to/4mlMdkx">The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia</a>
Various authors, for the National Park Service, <a href="https://www.dragonrun.org/uploads/1/4/0/9/140904387/mapping_the_dragon_final_report_2025.pdf">“Mapping the Dragon:AN INDIGENOUS HISTORY OF BACON’S REBELLION”</a> (pdf)
Charles McLean Andrews, <a href="https://amzn.to/4nusVdC">Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690</a>

Podurama

Home

Trending

Personal

Your Podcasts

New Episodes

My Files

Favourite Episodes

Tags (Folders)

Recently Played

Bookmarks

Followed Playlists

Bacon’s Rebellion 4: The Burning of Jamestown

The History of the Americans

AI Chapters

AI Insights

Reviews