Bacon's Rebellion was the largest popular uprising prior to the American Revolution. The rebellion began as a dispute among English settlers in Virginia over American Indian policy. At its height, however, it erupted into a civil war pitting anti–American-Indian western settlers (including many servants and slaves) against Governor William Berkeley and his allies who encouraged more conciliatory policies toward indigenous peoples. Although the rebellion took the name of Nathaniel Bacon, who arrived as young man in Virginia in 1674 and was immediately welcomed into elite society, the causes and consequences of the rebellion, like all wars, were more profound than the ideas and leadership of a single man.

When Bacon migrated to Virginia in search of personal gain he entered a precarious world wherein American Indians, free and enslaved blacks, and English colonists (including many indentured servants) struggled to coexist. By the...