rough draft #1 i know.. im behind -.-

Rough Draft #1
The Indians “before they would deprive them [the settlers] of their lives, they would take great deal of time to deprive them first their skins… with there teeth, tear the nails off [their fingers and their] toes.”The Natives were causing much heartache for the meager farmers and frontiersmen. They constantly harassed them and killed them with brutal tactics and methods. These facts and many others led me to believe that Native Americans were the major cause for Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion. The impacts that Native Americans had on the English settlers were that the high taxes that the Government subjected the people to so they could built better forts; the Indians killed 60% of the settlers; and the Indians killed Bacon’s dear friend that ignited Bacons hatred for the Natives.

During the 1600’s, the Native Americans were killing settlers because they were encroaching on their land. English colonies were soon overpopulated by natural increase and the overwhelming immigrants coming to America, thus causing the colonies to be crowded and have no land to offer new freed indentured servants and immigrants. These people needed land to survive, so they claimed land that was outside the treaty boundaries. At first the Indians were ok with the meager settlers’ houses popping up here and there and sometimes traded with them. But the Indians grew wary of the encroaching settlers.

On one fateful day”The trouble began in July 1675 with a raid by the Doeg Indians on the plantation of Thomas Mathews, located in the Northern Neck section of Virginia near the Potomac River. Several of the Doegs were killed in the raid, which began in a dispute over the nonpayment of some items Mathews had apparently obtained from the tribe. The situation became critical when, in a retaliatory strike by the colonists, they attacked the wrong Indians, the Susquehanaugs, which caused large scale Indian raids to begin.”(http://answers.yahoo.com/question /index?qid=20070920144315AA1GThS) the Indians were trying to send a message to the colonists telling them to stay off their land, but the colonists had a right to be there so they attacked back. The reason why they attacked the Mathews plantation was an argument over some un-paid for pigs. The Indians killed Mathew’s servant because Mathews supposedly didn’t pay for some pigs he bought from the Indians. One of the servants was Bacon’s dear friend, he didn’t do anything wrong to deserve to die. This really pissed off bacon. When Nathaniel Bacon when to the governor to ask permission to fight the natives he found out that “our present Governor monopolized a trade with the Indians and granted licenses to others to trade with them for which he had every 3rd skin, which trading with the Indians proved has proved so fatal to these parts of the world, […] [this trading] has also brought them [the Indians] generally to use of Fire Arms with such dexterity [.]”(Document #12) this meant that the Governor is protecting the Indians for his personal gain, the Indians also acquired fire arms and were becoming quite skilled with them. Bacon also states that “it has proved fatal” to trade with the Indians because the Indians would often ambush traders and steal what ever they had on them. “the murders and depradations they have committed here are horrible and continual, laying a great part of the country desolate, and forcing the inhabitants to fly from their dwelling to their ruin[.]”(Document #12) the Indians were killing the settlers and forcing them to run away from their homes into poverty, The fact that Indians were killing the poor settlers and the governor was not doing anything about it was the biggest catalyst for Bacons Rebellion.

Dictionary.com defines an act of war as: "an act of aggression by a country against another with which it is nominally at peace.” That’s what the Indians were doing when they “in a very short time had, in a most inhumane manner, murthered no less then 60 innocent people [.]”(Document #5) the Susuehannah Indians were going on a killing spree for no apparent reason. The Indians killed off about 60% of the settlers and immigrants, it would be a lie to say that the settlers did not fight back but the government didn’t want them to, they wanted to “keep the peace” But they were too ignorant and self-centered to care. But bacon saw what the Indians were doing and he had the balls to attempt to fix it.
Since the Indians were constantly attacking the fronteriesmen and colonists the king took over the government and started taxing the colonists so that they could pay for Indian proof forts. As said in Document #10, “We [the poor colonists] having a long time lain under great oppressions, and every year being more and more oppressed with great taxes, and still do load us greater and unnecessary burdens; it was enacted by the Governor and assembly for the building of our forts back in the woods upon several great man’s Lands, under pretense of security for against the Indians [.]” the colonists were being taxed so that the government could build useless forts because not only was the land that they used was wasted but the Indians were smart enough not to attack them.

In conclusion, Indians were the main contributing factor in the Bacon’s Rebellion. The Indians killed Bacons friend which ignited Bacon’s hatred for them, they cause the need for the populist to be taxed even more which cause the colonists to rally to bacons cause, and they killed 60% or the English colonies which rallied even more to support Bacons Rebellion.