The Treaty of 1646, William Waller Hening’s Statutes at Large (Vol. 1, 1619–1660) preserves the wording of early Virginia laws and treaties.
“And it is further agreed, that in case any Indians of the said Necotowance shall be taken prisoners by any English, they shall be free from death, and the English may keep them or dispose of them as servants or slaves as their fortunes will permit.”
— Treaty with Necotowance, 1646, reprinted in Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. 1 (1823), pp. 323–324.
In September 1663, a group of bond laborers (mainly indentured servants and enslaved people (who at this time would’ve most likely have been amalgamated Amerindians populations from the affiliated Powhatan Treaty) in Gloucester County, Virginia, organized a secret plan to overthrow their enslavers.
They intended to march on local plantations, seize weapons, and demand their freedom from the county’s elite. The plan was coordinated among several plantations, suggesting communication and planning networks among the laboring class.
According to colonial records, the conspirators set a date to begin the uprising but were betrayed by an informant named John Berkenhead, an indentured servant who revealed the plot to the authorities in exchange for his freedom. Once exposed, the rebellion was swiftly suppressed before it could begin. The governor issued orders for the capture and punishment of the conspirators, and the colony rewarded Berkenhead for his “loyalty.”
Though the plot never reached open revolt, it marks the first documented conspiracy of servants and enslaved people in the English mainland colonies. It also occurred during a transitional moment when Virginia’s labor system was still fluid before slavery became fully racialized.
At the time, enslaved people and servitude often blurred lines between race, status, and class.
The Gloucester conspiracy demonstrated that resistance to colonial bondage was being organized long before Bacon’s Rebellion (1676).
1705 Virginia Slave Code, “all servants imported and brought into this country, who were not Christians in their native country … whether Negro, mulatto, or Indian.”
They’ve reconstructed history and use presentism. They teach a very distorted version of what was happening in these colonies. And who all these people were.
