1676 (MDCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1676th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 676th year of the 2nd millennium, the 76th year of the 17th century, and the 7th year of the 1670s decade. As of the start of 1676, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Nathaniel Bacon was an English merchant adventurer who emigrated to the Virginia Colony, where he sat on the Governor's Council but later led Bacon's Rebellion. The Rebellion was briefly successful; but after Bacon’s death from dysentery the rebel forces collapsed.
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion held by Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley, after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native American Indians out of Virginia. Thousands of Virginians from all classes and races rose up in arms against Berkeley, chasing him from Jamestown and ultimately torching the settlement. The rebellion was first suppressed by a few armed merchant ships from London whose captains sided with Berkeley and the loyalists. Government forces arrived soon after and spent several years defeating pockets of resistance and reforming the colonial government to be once more under direct Crown control.
Sir William Berkeley was an English colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1660 to 1677. One of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina, as governor of Virginia he implemented policies that bred dissent among the colonists and sparked Bacon's Rebellion. A favourite of King Charles I, the king first granted him the governorship in 1642. Berkeley was unseated following the execution of Charles I, but his governorship was restored by King Charles II in 1660.
Middle Plantation in the Virginia Colony was the unincorporated town established in 1632 that became Williamsburg in 1699. It was located on high ground about halfway across the Virginia Peninsula between the James River and York River. Middle Plantation represented the first major inland settlement for the colony. It was established by an Act of Assembly to provide a link between Jamestown and Chiskiack, a settlement located across the Peninsula on the York River.
Curles Neck Plantation is located between State Route 5 and the north bank of the James River in the Varina district of Henrico County, Virginia. One of the great James River Plantations, Curles Neck has remained in active use for almost 400 years and remains a privately owned working farm which is not currently open to the public.
Cockacoeske was a 17th-century leader of the Pamunkey tribe in what is now the U.S. state of Virginia. During her thirty-year reign, she worked with the English colony of Virginia, trying to recapture the former power of past paramount chiefs and maintain peaceful unity among the several tribes under her leadership. She was the first of the tribal leaders to sign the Virginia-Indian Treaty of Middle Plantation. In 2004 Cockacoeske was honored as one of the Library of Virginia's "Virginia Women in History".
Nathaniel Bacon may refer to:
Colonel Thomas Ballard was a prominent colonial Virginia landowner and politician who played a role in Bacon's Rebellion. He served on the Governor's Council 1670–79 and was Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses 1680–82.
Colonel Augustine Warner Jr. was an American planter, military officer and politician. He served in the House of Burgesses from 1666 to 1677 and was its Speaker in two separate sessions in 1676 and 1677, before and after Bacon's Rebellion. Warner then served on the Virginia Governor's Council from October 1677 until his death. Warner is the last common ancestor of George Washington and King Charles III.
Jamestown, also Jamestowne, was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and served as the capital of Virginia until 1699, when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg. This article covers the history of the fort and town at Jamestown proper, as well as colony-wide trends resulting from and affecting the town during the time period in which it was the colonial capital of Virginia.
John George (1603–1679) was an early Virginia colonist, landowner, soldier, county court justice and legislative representative (politician). He served at least two terms as a burgess in the Virginia House of Burgesses in the 1640s and 1650s representing Isle of Wight County, Virginia.
Thomas Larimore was a privateer and pirate active in the Caribbean and off the eastern seaboard of the American colonies. After helping suppress Bacon’s Rebellion and serving as a militia leader he turned to piracy, his activities intertwined with those of fellow pirate John Quelch.
John Ingram was a settler in colonial Virginia who lived the settlement of Jamestown and became a member of Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion. He took the lead of the rebellion after Sir Nathaniel Bacon died from dysentery. The members of the rebellion consisted of 300-500 mostly indentured servants, but included a number of Black slaves. They had been upset at the treaty of 1646, which ended the Third Anglo-Powhatan War. The rebellion occurred throughout 1676, and resulted in Bacon's forces burning much of Jamestown to the ground.
The Widdow Ranter, or, the History of Bacon in Virginia is a tragicomic play written by Aphra Behn and first performed posthumously in 1689. It is a highly fictionalized version of Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, and is one of the first plays to be set in British colonial America. It is also the first travel play known to have been written not only by a woman, but by a playwright who had actually traveled to the Americas.
Sarah Drummond was a prominent member of Bacon's Rebellion, one of the first landowning ladies in America, and the wife of William Drummond, the first colonial governor of Albemartle Sound settlement, Provence of Carolina.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Herbert Jeffreys was an English Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the acting governor of Virginia in the immediate aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion. American historian Douglas Edward Leach described Jeffreys as a "chief troubleshooter" and "the most active and expert guardsman in the political police function of the courtier army."
Richard Lawrence was an Oxford University graduate who emigrated to the Virginia colony where after various real estate speculations, he married a wealthy widow and became a tavernkeeper in Jamestown. Lawrence became one of Nathaniel Bacon's closest confidantes during Bacon's Rebellion and briefly served in the House of Burgesses during that conflict, after which he vanished with two other men otherwise likely to have been sentenced to death for treason.
William Carver, a British merchant, mariner, planter and politician who represented Lower Norfolk County in the House of Burgesses from 1665 through 1669, is best known for his participation in Bacon's Rebellion, which led to his execution in 1676.
Otto Thorpe or Thorp(1630-winter of 1696/1697) was an English merchant who became a militia officer and politician of Middle Plantation in the Colony of Virginia. His home was commandeered during Bacon's Rebellion, and in April 1682, Thorpe briefly represented York County in the House of Burgesses, before returning to England, where he died more than a decade later.
