ABSTRACT
This chapter describes seventeenth-century Chesapeake's history revolved around interrelated questions of power, land, and labor. As English settlers moved to the region, an ocean away from long-established political institutions and social hierarchies, they would have to determine who would rule. It written in spring 1676, a group of English settlers appeal to the governor of Virginia for protection against these Indian attacks. His unresponsiveness eventually sparked a frontier rebellion that threatened to overthrow Virginia's government. In June 1676, Bacon led a body of about 500 armed men into Jamestown, driving Berkeley from power and burning much of the colonial capital to the ground. After Bacon's death a few months later, however, the rebellion disintegrated, and Brekeley resumed power. During the last quarter of the seventeenth century, white Virginians increasingly relied on enslaved Africans to produce export crops. It written in 1705 represents the efforts of Virginia lawmakers to synthesize and systematize the large body of slave law already in place.
