They Say 2: Bacon's Rebellion

"A Young People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn and Rebecca Stefoff states that " Bacon's Rebellion was an uprising of angry, poor colonists against two groups they saw as their enemies. One was the Indians. The other was the colonists'...leaders"(35). Throughout chapter 3, Zinn and Stefoff discuss that these colonists were fighting over lands, but "Both groups claimed they owned the land," (48)which makes this conflict. Also, attempting to bring down corruption of the Virginian Government, affirming that they "...felt that the government had let them down," (36) and so did William Berkly, the Governor of Virginia. This book was recommended ultimately for younger readers, portraying that Bacon was a "hero." This is also portrayed in Robert Beverly's " The History and Present State of Virginia," where Berkly writes that Nathaniel Bacon " ...was young [and] bold," and that he was a " great Honor and Esteem among the People."

Bacon's Rebellion is also believed to have started because of tobacco and taxation's. " [The] extreme low Price of Tobacco, and the ill usage of the Planters in the Exchange of Goods for it...could not [be remedied]," says Robert Beverly in the " History and Present State of Virginia." Furthermore, he says " and the extravagant taxes [colonists] were forced to undergo," were all reason's for the start of Bacon's Rebellion.

"Whether They Be Friends or Foes" by Michael J. Puglisi was written more for older people, like historians. Pulglisi states an argument that " there has been a tendency in American history to see relations between Indians and American colonists purely in terms of conflict and separation" (76). Puglisi argues the criticism that American history puts towards Bacon's Rebellion. He describes the how the" traditional view has been to describe gap,"(76) between these two sides.