We consider Virginia’s tumultuous rise to wealth and prominence as the so-called “Old Dominion” and one of the largest European settler colonies in the world –from the colony’s dangerous stand in the English Civil War, through the subsequent demographic boom, and the codification of chattel slavery – as all the while, social tensions escalated, with the growing underclass of smallholders and landless laborers chafing against gentry rule. We disentangle how a trade dispute between planters and the Doeg Indian tribe on the Potomac River touched off a massive rebellion that overthrew the royal governor, laid waste to Jamestown and many of the great plantations, and threatened to destroy the English colonial enterprise, before order was restored, and the colony was set a new path towards becoming a slave society.

Please become a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including “Virginia, pt. 1,” on Jamestown and the creation of the colony: www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Suggested further reading: Morgan, “American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia”; Wertenaber, “The Planters of Colonial Virginia”; Kupperman, “The Jamestown Project”; Billings, Selby, & Tate, “Colonial Virginia: A History”

Image: Depiction of Nathaniel Bacon & the burning of Jamestown, from Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

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Releasedatum: 28-4-2026 15:15:50