Seeds For Rebellious Class Struggle
...c to their cause; hence, developing disdain for the wealthy elite and their opulent lifestyle. When Bacon was elected to the House of Burgesses, Berkley publicly humiliates him and denies him such power. This course of action is significant because it solidifies the boundaries between the wealthy and the poor. Bacon’s violence, which trails the defamatory actions of Berkley, was largely caused by increased tension between classes. The wealthy weren’t directly affected by the occasional Indian attack on the rural Virginians, so the situation was a triviality; hence, the issue was ignored in the government. However, the Indian attacks were of great detriment to the rural Virginians and they felt their government should have stepped in. Since the Governor, and his legislative bodies, primarily consisted of people in the upper class, the issue wasn’t viewed as important. Elements of the distribution of wealth and authority contributed to Bacon’s rebellion. Discontent with such distribution drove him to take action and incited his uprising (C&C, pp. 34-36). While not as violent and based more on struggles over authority than Bacon’s rebellion, the Great Awakening incited exposed colonial society’s social divisions. In community after community, the Great Awakening created tension, discord, and factional rivalry. The movement was a movement regarding church authority more than an unequal distribution of wealth. New England Congregational minister, Jonathan Edwards, was among the leaders who carried out the Great Awakening movement. His sermons, most famously, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” were forceful and considered to be horrifying by some. Edward’s contribution to the Great Awakening was his message of divine wrath. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he proclaims that “His wrath toward you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire” (AS, pp. 67). Using Edwards as an example, the Great Awakening opened unprecedented splits in American Protestantism. New Light and Old Light Protestants were gaining members and caused a decline in the influence of Quakers, Anglicans, and Congregationalists. The movement empowered ordinary people to criticize authority and created divisions, which may have set the foreground for future political revolution (AS, pp. 64-68). Immeasurably unequal divisions of wealth, authority, and power between slaves and their affluent owners sparked the Stono River Rebellion in South Carolina. The most extreme example of social discontent, the Stono Rebellion feature...