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| English: "Flagmen of Lowestoft: Vice-Admiral Sir William Berkeley, 1639-66," oil on canvas, by the English artist Sir Peter Lely. 1270 mm x 1015 mm. Courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The Gloucester County Conspiracy, also known as the Servants' Plot or Birkenhead's Rebellion, was a plan by indentured servants to rise up against authorities in Gloucester County in 1663. Nine men—John Gunter, William Bell, Richard Darbishire, John Hayte, Thomas Jones, William Ball, William Poultney, William Bendell, and Thomas Collins—met in the woods and planned an operation whereby they would collect arms and ammunition and, with perhaps as many as thirty recruits, later march on the governor's mansion at Green Spring. There they would demand that Sir William Berkeley release them from their indentures. A servant named Birkenhead betrayed them, however, and a number were arrested and four hanged. Afterrewarding Birkenhead with his freedom and 5,000 pounds of tobacco, the General Assembly declared that the day of their planned insurrection be celebrated annually.
Background
By the 1660s, the Virginia colony had transformed into an enormous tobacco-producing operation dependent largely on the labor of English and Irish indentured servants and, to a lesser extent, enslaved Africans and Virginia Indians. Approximately four out of five servants were men, and they suffered a high mortality rate due to disease and ill treatment. In fact, their masters' treatment of them was so poor as to provoke an aside in a 1657 act otherwise concerned with runaways by which servants were granted the right to take to the courts complaints of "harsh and bad usage, or else for want of diett or convenient necessaries."
In 1661, forty servants in York County, angered by the lack of meat in their diets, conspired to rebel rather than take their case to court. Led by a servant named Isaac Friend, they planned to use force of arms to secure their freedom, but they were betrayed and arrested. The York County Court delivered stern warnings to Friend and to his master, who was encouraged to keep closer watch on his servants. That same year the General Assembly passed two acts, one requiring better treatment of servants on their way to Virginia and the other requiring better treatment once they arrived.
Only two years later, when another conspiracy was uncovered to the north, in Gloucester County, did colonial officials became truly alarmed.
The Conspiracy
On September 1, 1663, nine indentured servants met secretly at a small house belonging to Peter Knight in the woods near Cooks Quarter in Gloucester County. After appointing William Bell and John Gunter their leaders, the men agreed to meet again at midnight the following Sunday, September 6, at a place called Poplar Spring. Each would bring what weapons he could scavenge and steal in the hope that they could eventually arm a company of thirty men. From Poplar Spring the group would then march to the home of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Willis, a member of the governor's Council, to seize arms and a much-needed drum, the group having recruited a drummer from the militia company commanded by Major John Smith, another councillor.
The servants may also have planned to raid the nearby home of the widow Katharine Cook—indeed, William Budell later testified that they had intended to "march from house to house"—but all agreed that their ultimate destination was the Green Spring mansion of Governor Sir William Berkeley. Thomas Collins told authorities that, with weapons brandished, they would make clear to Berkeley their "desire to bee released of one year of their tyme w'ch they had to serve," and, should the governor refuse, "that then they would goe forth of ye Land if they Could to an Island." Budell even implied that they might be prepared to kill Berkeley should it come to that. In any event, their plans set, the nine pledged "an oath of secresie," according to Budell, the violation of which would result in death.
The men's attempts at secrecy failed, however. A servant named Birkenhead revealed their plans to the governor, who arranged for the conspirators to be ambushed at their meeting place, a result that Berkeley later attributed to "Gods hands," which had delivered "so transcendent a favour as the preserving all we have from so utter ruin." The General Court tried the captured servants for treason, accusing them of attempting "utterly to deprive, depose, cast downe and disinherite" the governor and, further, to wage war against Virginia in an attempt to "wholy submit and distroy" the colony. According to Robert Beverley Jr., four were hanged.
Dates
The History and Present
State of Virginia
Most of what is known about the Gloucester County Conspiracy comes from a handful of primary documents and a single secondary source, The History of Virginia, written by Robert Beverley Jr. in 1705. These sources agree on some of the important dates associated with the conspiracy, but not on others. For instance, all agree that the conspirators first met secretly on Tuesday, September 1, 1663, with the intention of carrying out their insurrection the following Sunday, September 6. All sources similarly agree that the conspirators were arrested as they congregated again, but before they could carry out their plans. But these sources imply that day was September 13, not September 6. What's more confusing is that the depositions of the arrested conspirators are dated, variously, September 8, 9, and 13. One possible explanation for this discrepancy is that the plotting servants were, in fact, arrested on September 6, with their depositions taken a few days later. If that is correct, then colonial records that suggest September 13 as the date of arrest do so in error.
Aftermath
Gone were the days when the colonial government might merely shake its finger at a reputed rebel like Isaac Friend. Upon thwarting the Gloucester County Conspiracy, the House of Burgesses rewarded Birkenhead "his freedom and five thousand pounds of tobacco," making sure to compensate his master for the loss of his labor. The House also declared "that the thirteenth of September, the day this villanous plot should have been putt into execution, be annually kept holy."
The historian T. H. Breen has suggested that Virginia's response to the conspiracy "appears excessive unless one considers it in the context of the strained relationship between the major tobacco planters and colonial laborers." Robert Beverley's history provides another clue to the motives behind the response. He writes that the servants included "several mutinous and rebellious Oliverian soldiers," or supporters of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil Wars. The loyal subjects of Charles II, whosefather had been beheaded by Cromwell's men, may have been wary of such an element in their midst, and the historian Anthony S. Parent gives credence to these concerns by pointing out that the servants appeared to have military training: "The plot's martial structure betrayed its New Model Army provenance: companies were formed, captains elected, drummers recruited, marching orders given, and arms and ammunition strategically collected." Although the servants' politics and training are not mentioned in any of the surviving government documents, Charles II was sufficiently alarmed, according to Beverley, to command that a fort be built at Jamestown to protect the governor. Still, Beverley reports that "the country, thinking the danger over, only raised a battery of some small pieces of cannon."
The rebels also may have included convict laborers, or criminals swept from English jails to work in Virginia. On April 20, 1670, Berkeley issued an order prohibiting the worst felons from being imported to Virginia, citing "the horror yet remaining amongst us of the barbourous designe of such villaines inSeptember 1663."
The Gloucester County Conspiracy occurred during the uneasy transition in Virginia from a reliance on indentured labor to an even greater reliance on enslaved labor. Whether the Gloucester rebels included enslaved Africans or Virginia Indians is unclear, but when authorities in Westmoreland County uncovereda planned uprising in 1687, the culprits by then were only slaves. The General Assembly responded swiftly and firmly.
In 1898 Mary Johnston wrote the romantic novel Prisoners of Hope, set in Gloucester County in 1663. The book's servant conspiracy is led by "Oliverian soldiers" and includes convicts, slaves, and Indians. The leader, a man aptly called Landless, is both an Oliverian and a convict. Echoing how historians often interpreted Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677) as an early cry for liberty, Johnston portrays him as a proto–Founding Father.
Time Line
March 1658 - The General Assembly passes laws revising the required time of service for servants without indentures; granting servants the right to take complaints to court; and adding time to indentures, in the case of pregnancy and secret marriages, to both male and female servants.
January 24, 1661 - The testimonies of several indentured servants and one overseer are entered into the record of the York County Court. They reveal a plot in which the servants, angry about the lack of meat in their diet, planned to rebel.
September 1, 1663 - Nine indentured servants meet secretly in Gloucester County to plan an uprising. They arrange to meet the following Sunday, September 6, and march to the governor's mansion to demand their freedom.
September 6, 1663 - A group of armed indentured servants meets in Gloucester County with plans to march on the governor's mansion. The men are ambushed and arrested. Some records indicate that the arrests actually take place a week later, on September 13.
September 8–9, 1663 - A group of indentured servants, arrested in Gloucester County on charges of treason, provides testimony to the General Court about their conspiracy.
September 13, 1663 - This day is declared an annual holiday by the General Assembly, which describes it as when a "villanous plot" by armed indentured servants in Gloucester County "should have been putt into execution."
September 16, 1663 - William Berkeley and the House of Burgesses agree to reward the servant Birkenhead his freedom and five thousand pounds of tobacco for revealing a plan to rebel by servants in Gloucester County.
April 20, 1670 - Virginia governor Sir William Berkeley and the governor's Council issue an order prohibiting the importation of certain English convicts as servants. They cite the Gloucester County Conspiracy of 1663 as one reason for the action.
October 24, 1687 - Nicholas Spencer informs fellow members of the governor's Council, as well as Governor Francis Howard, baron Howard of Effingham, of a suspected slave conspiracy in Westmoreland County. Effingham creates an oyer and terminer court, with Spencer, Richard Lee II, and Isaac Allerton to serve as judges. The trial's results are unknown.
1898 - Prisoners of Hope, a romantic novel by Mary Johnston, is published. Its dramatization of a conspiracy of servants is based on the Gloucester County Conspiracy of 1663. The hero, a man aptly called Landless, is portrayed as a proto–Founding Father.
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Gloucester_County_Conspiracy_1663#start_entry Link back to original article.
We have the book, Prisoner's of Hope in our library of ebooks and will be posting it later today.
