Nathaniel Bacon


Bacon, Nathaniel

 

Born 1642 or 1647; died 1676. Leader of an uprising by farmers in the English colony of Virginia in North America.

Bacon was born in England into an impoverished aristocratic family. In 1673 he immigrated to North America and founded two small plantations. In 1676 he headed an uprising against the English colonizers, thus becoming a herald of later actions by the North American colonies in their demands for independence. Bacon died at the height of the uprising. (According to recent evidence of American historians, he was poisoned by hired assassins.)