Bacon's Rebellion and the Racial Calculus of Slavery

Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia united poor white indentured servants and Black enslaved people against the planter elite. The alliance terrified Virginia's ruling class. In its aftermath, planters systematically replaced white indentured servitude with African slavery and extended small privileges to poor whites — binding them to the racial hierarchy rather than class solidarity. Historians consider it a turning point in the formation of American racial slavery.