Week 10 · OPT Chapter 3
Your Aim Response requires OPT quotations. Use at least three quotes from the original text, with OPT page numbers and explanations. YPT can help you understand the story, but YPT quotations do not earn quote credit.
Begin with OPT 58–60. All suggested quotations below are checked against OPT.
Start with OPT 58–60. Read OPT 57 for the setup and OPT 60–62 for the planters’ response after the rebellion. Page numbers are the printed OPT book pages.
For each group, note what it wanted, what stood in its way, whom it joined or opposed, and the evidence for that interpretation.
| Group | Interest | Choice or action | Question and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Established planter elite | Protect desirable land, labor, and political control. | Use the assembly to lengthen indentures; defend the colonial order. | How do the laws protect both land and labor interests? OPT 58 |
| Small farmers, landless freemen, and indentured servants | Gain or defend access to land and improve their condition; servants also seek release from bondage. | Some join Bacon’s militia and rebellion against Berkeley. Their circumstances and interests are not identical. | How does restricted access to land help explain discontent? OPT 58–59 |
| Enslaved Black people | Escape lifelong bondage. | Black men join the armed rebels; many later accept a false promise of freedom. | Why is freedom an especially consequential stake for someone bound for life? OPT 59–60 |
| Nathaniel Bacon | Lead an armed campaign in the backcountry and challenge Berkeley’s authority. | A planter leads poorer colonists, attacks Native communities, and then marches on Jamestown. | Why does Bacon’s planter status complicate a simple rich-versus-poor account? OPT 59–60 |
| William Berkeley | Maintain the colonial government and social order. | Oppose Bacon; suppress the rebellion with reinforcements. | Why could an armed group of poor colonists seem more threatening than the enemy it proposed to fight? OPT 59–60 |
Native communities also had interests in their land and survival. Bacon attacked both hostile Susquehannahs and friendly Occaneechees. Opposition to Berkeley did not make the rebellion a movement for everyone’s freedom. OPT 59
Write the relationship in words: because a group wanted something, it chose an action or alliance; however, the alliance could carry a cost or fail to deliver the promised benefit.
Longer indentures protected planters’ labor supply and limited competition for land → poorer colonists became discontented → an armed alliance challenged colonial authority. Explain each connection with OPT 58–60. Do not assume every participant had the same motive.
These quotations come from the original text. Read the surrounding passage, choose evidence that fits your claim, and cite the printed page as (OPT 58). Use at least three OPT quotations in your Aim Response.
“In this way, they minimized competition for lands and at the same time maximized the supply of white laborers by keeping them in servitude for as long as possible.”
Takaki’s narration · OPT 58
What it can show: Longer indentures gave planters more labor while delaying servants’ opportunity to compete for land. Lawmaking protected the economic interests of the people who controlled it.
Think further: How could the same law benefit a planter and harm a servant?
“Poor Indebted Discontented and Armed”
Governor William Berkeley, quoted by Takaki · OPT 59
What it can show: Berkeley described a large population with debts, grievances, and weapons. Their economic position could make them willing to challenge the government he led.
Think further: Why would Berkeley worry about arming people who wanted to improve their condition?
“They realized that they had a greater stake in the rebellion than their fellow white rebels, for many of them were servants bound for life.”
Takaki’s narration about the Black men joining Bacon’s army · OPT 59
What it can show: A person bound for life stood to gain freedom from an alliance against colonial authority. Shared opposition did not mean Black and white rebels faced identical conditions.
Think further: How did lifelong bondage make the stakes different for Black rebels?
“pardoned and freed from their Slavery”
Captain Thomas Grantham’s false assurance, reported by Takaki · OPT 60
What it can show: Most rebels accepted the offer, although others held out. Grantham then returned captured servants and enslaved people to their masters. The false promise reveals both the appeal of freedom and the authorities’ use of deceit.
Think further: What could make surrender seem to serve a rebel’s interests—and why was that expectation betrayed?
Economic forces shape history: explain how interests in land, labor, and freedom shaped an alliance or a law. For example, the same extension of an indenture could increase a planter’s labor supply and postpone a servant’s independence. OPT 58
Race is socially constructed: for an extension beyond the immediate alliance question, examine how planters reorganized labor and how lawmakers restricted Black people’s rights after the rebellion. OPT 60–62
Ideas are weapons: test how Bacon’s claim to defend the colony or Grantham’s promise of freedom helped someone gain cooperation. Identify who used the idea, the audience, and the action it encouraged. OPT 59–60
Return to OPT 58–60 when a claim needs support.
Use a connector to explain a relationship; do not simply add it to a repeated idea.
alliance · bell · elite · rebellion · self-interest
Use the assigned words to make your explanation more precise. An alliance is cooperation toward a goal; self-interest concerns what someone hopes to gain or protect.
