Archaeology and the Rappahannock Tribe’s Refuge During Bacon’s Rebellion

On Sunday afternoon, June 29, at 4PM, Professor Julia King of Saint Mary’s College of Maryland will be speaking in the court room on the second floor of the Old Courthouse in Saluda about her recent archaeological work in the Dragon Swamp, which lies on the southern border of Middlesex Country.

Professor King’s talk will focus on the impact of Bacon’s Rebellion (1676-77) on Indigenous Tribes in the Middle Peninsula.  The Rebellion, in which Nathaniel Bacon led frontiersmen, indentured servants, and enslaved people in an uprising against the colonial government of Governor William Berkeley, was in protest of what Bacon regarded as government failure to protect settlers from attacks by Native Americans.  Bacon’s forces attacked both Jamestown and nearby Native Americans (though not the tribe that had recently attacked settlers).  One of the local tribes, the Rappahannocks, fled to the Dragon Swamp to avoid Bacon’s troops.  Professor King and a group…