Virginia Cavaliers ( historical ) Virginia Cavaliers were royalist supporters in the royal colony of at various times during the colonial period of the United States . Historical background . In 1624 , the Virginia Company , after a severe struggle with the Crown , was deprived of its charter . The chief cause of this was that the Puritan element , which formed the backbone of the opposition in Parliament , had also gained the ascendency in the Virginia Company . Nor did James I like the action of the company a few years before in extending representative government to the colonists . The result was the loss of the charter . Virginia became a royal colony and so it continued until the Revolutionary War . But the change had little effect on the colony , for Charles I , who soon came to the throne , was so occupied with troubles at home that he gave less attention to the government of Virginia than the company had done , and popular government continued to flourish . Of the six thousand people who had come from England before 1625 , only one fifth now remained alive , but this number was rapidly augmented by immigration . Governor Yeardley died in 1627 , and John Harvey , a man of little ability or character , became governor . Harvey kept the Virginians in turmoil for some years , but the colony was now so firmly established that his evil influence did not greatly affect its prosperity . Sir William Berkeley . The longest rule of one man in its colonial history was that of Sir William Berkeley , who became governor of Virginia in 1642 and continued to hold the office until 1677 , with the exception of a few years under the commonwealth . Berkeley was a rough , outspoken man with much common sense , but with a hot temper and a narrow mind ( 14 ) . He was a Cavalier of the extreme type , and during the first period of his governorship he spent much of his energy in persecuting the Puritans , many of whom found refuge in Maryland . Civil war . About the time Berkeley assumed the office , a fierce religious war broke out in England between the Cavalier s and the Roundheads , or Puritans . The latter , led by Oliver Cromwell , one of the strongest personalities in British history , eventually triumphed over the Cavaliers and , in 1649 , Charles I was beheaded by his own subjects . Berkeley , with most of the Virginians , was loyal to the Crown , and he invited the young son of the executed monarch to come to America and become king of Virginia . But Parliament would suffer no opposition from the colony , and it sent a commission with a fleet to reduce the colony to allegiance . The Virginians were only mildly royalist and they yielded without a struggle ; but they lost nothing by yielding , for the Commonwealth granted them greater freedom in self - government than they had ever before enjoyed . In two ways the brief period of the commonwealth in England had a marked effect on the history of Virginia . For the first and only time during the colonial period , Virginia enjoyed absolute self - government . Not only the assembly , but the governor and council were elective for the time , and the people never forgot this taste of practical independence . The other respect in which the triumph of the Roundheads in England affected Virginia was that it caused an exodus of Cavaliers from England to the colony , similar to the great Puritan migration to Massachusetts , caused by the triumph of the opposite party twenty years before . Anonymous pamphlet . An anonymous pamphlet published in London in 1649 gives a glowing account of Virginia , describing it as a land where " there is nothing wanting , " a land of 15 , 000 English and 300 negro slaves , 20 , 000 cattle , many kinds of wild animals , " above thirty sorts " of fish , farm products , fruits , and vegetables in great quantities , and the like . If this was intended to induce home seekers to migrate to Virginia , it had the desired effect . The Cavaliers went in large numbers ; and they were of a far better class than were those who had first settled the colony . Among them were the ancestors of George Washington , James Madison , James Monroe , John Marshall , and of many others of the First Families of Virginia . By the year 1670 the population of the colony had increased to 38 , 000 , 6 , 000 of whom were indentured servant s , while the African slaves had increased to 2 , 000 ( 15 ) . Restoration of 1660 . The Restoration of 1660 brought the exiled Stuart to the British throne as Charles II , and Berkeley again became governor of Virginia . Oliver Cromwell , the Lord Protector of England , had died in 1658 , and Richard , his son and successor , too weak to hold the reins of government , laid aside the heavy burden the next year and Charles soon afterward became king . Charles was not a religious enthusiast , as his father had been . He is noted for his pursuit of pleasure , which many subjects applauded after the dry years of the Protectorate . The new sovereign was utterly without gratitude to the people of Virginia for their former loyalty , and indeed , it may be said that his accession marks the beginning of a long period of turmoil , discontent , and political strife in Virginia . Charles immediately began to appoint to the offices of the colony a swarm of worthless place hunters , and some years later he gave away to his court favorites , the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper , nearly all the soil of Virginia , a large portion of which was well settled and under cultivation . The Navigation Acts , enacted ten years before , was now , at the beginning of Charles ' reign , reenacted with amendments and put in force . By this the colonists were forbidden to export goods in other than English vessels , or elsewhere than to England . Imports also were to be brought from England only . The prices , therefore , of both exports and imports , were set in London , and the arrangement enabled the English merchants to grow rich at the expense of the colonists . The result was a depreciation in the price of tobacco , the circulating medium , to such a degree as to impoverish many planters and almost to bring about insurrection . And now to add to the multiplying distresses of Virginia , Governor Berkeley , who had been fairly popular during his former ten - year governship , seems to have changed decidedly for the worse . He Royalist to the core , and appeared to have lost whatever sympathy with the people he ever had . He was accused of conniving with custom - house officials in schemes of extortion and blackmail , and even of profiting by their maladministration . Popular government now suffered a long eclipse in Virginia . In 1661 Berkeley secured the election of a House of Burgesses to his liking , and he kept them in power for fifteen years , refusing to order another election . But the people , who had been long imbibing the spirit of liberty in their forest home , at last rose in rebellion against the tyranny of their cynical old governor . The uprising is known as Bacon ' s Rebellion . The general causes of this rebellion were political and economic tyranny , the immediate occasion was Berkeley ' s Indian policy . The Indians became hostile in 1675 , and for many months the massacre of men , women , and children in the outlying settlements was of almost daily occurrence . But Berkeley persistently refused to call out the militia , for the reason , it was believed , that he did not wish to disturb the fur trade , from which he was receiving a good income . In March , 1676 , the assembly raised a force of five hundred men , but when they were ready to begin a campaign , Berkeley suddenly disbanded them . The people were now exasperated and ready for rebellion . Bacon . Nathaniel Bacon was a young lawyer of noble English birth , a collateral descendant of the great author and jurist of the same name ; he was rich eloquent , and popular . In defiance of the governor he raised a band of men and marched against the Native Americans , inflicting on them a stinging defeat . Berkeley , greatly incensed at the young man ' s insubordination , started after him with a troop of horse ; but scarcely had he left Jamestown when word reached him that the whole lower peninsula had risen against him . Hastening back , he found that must do something to placate the people , and he dissolved the long assembly and ordered a new election . This was duly held , and Bacon was elected to the burgesses . This assembly passed a series of reform laws known as " Bacon ' s Laws " . The old governor , deeply offended at this , dissolved the assembly and proclaimed Bacon , who had again marched against the Indians , a traitor ; whereupon Bacon , at the head of several hundred men , marched upon Jamestown and burned it to the ground . Berkeley fled before the armed invaders and took refuge on the eastern side of the Chesapeake . Bacon had now full control of Virginia ' s affairs , and he even contemplated resistance to the king ' s troops , that were said to be on their way to the colony , when a deadlier foe than armed men — the swamp fever — ended his short , brilliant career , and Virginia was destined to spend another hundred years as a royal colony . Bacon was the life and soul of the insurrection , and after his death his followers scattered like frightened quail and Berkeley was soon again in possession . The vindictive old governor now wreaked his vengeance on the followers of Bacon until he had hanged more than a score , including William Drummond , a Scottish Presbyterian and one of the leading men in the colony . 16 But the king was displeased with Berkeley ' s rancor . " The old fool has taken more lives in that naked country than I have taken for the murder of my father , " said Charles . Berkeley was recalled . He sailed for England in the spring of 1677 , leaving his family , evidently expecting to be reinstated . But the king refused to see him , and he died broken hearted a few months later . The Bacon Rebellion . The Bacon Rebellion , occurring at the same time with King Philip ' s War in New England , and exactly a century before that greater rebellion , so vastly different in its results was one of the most important episodes in Virginia ' s colonial history . Bacon was a true reformer , talented in a high degree , but somewhat wanting in judgment . His intention no doubt , in case the king ' s forces came , was to hold them at bay until the grievances of the colonists , including the oppression of the Navigation Laws , should have been redressed . But in this he doubtless would have failed and would have paid the penalty of resistance with his life . His death was therefore opportune , and his influence on the future of the colony was probably greater than if his life had been prolonged . Downfall of Berkeley . The speedy downfall of Berkeley , however , had little effect in rescuing Virginia from the grasp of the Royalists . One of the court favorites to whom the soil of Virginia had been granted , Lord Culpeper , came out as governor , and a rapacious tyrant he was . In 1684 , he was succeeded by Lord Howard of Effingham . Among the later governors were Nicholson , who had a notable career in New York , and Sir Edmund Andros , who had a more notable career in New England . In each of these , the colonists found a great improvement over Lords Culpeper and Effingham . But they fell short when compared with Alexander Spotswood , one of the ablest governors of colonial Virginia . The habit of governing through lieutenants , the governor residing in England , became prevalent early in the eighteenth century . One man , Douglas , was nominal governor for forty years , drawing a large salary , though he never crossed the Atlantic Ocean . ( 17 ) Prosperity . In spite of the many drawbacks of the unworthy governors and their frequent quarrels with the assembly and people , Virginia continued to prosper , and by the end of the seventeenth century the population numbered a hundred thousand . The people up to this time were almost wholly English , but in 1700 several hundred Huguenots made their home in the colony . About 1730 , the Scots - Irish began to settle in large numbers in the Shenandoah Valley , and soon after these came the Germans . The frontier was moved gradually westward from the tide - water counties until it had crossed the summit of the Alleghanies . The coming of these peoples infused new modes of life , new religious customs , new democratic ideas into Virginian society ; and in the course of the next half century many vital changes were brought about , as the abolition of primogeniture and entail , the separation of Church and State , and religious toleration . 18 Thus the various nationalities , blending slowly into one people , spent the remainder of the colonial period hewing away the forests and laying the foundations of a great state . ( 19 ) The name of this chief was Wahunsunakok . The name of the tribe was Powhatan and the English called the chief also by this name . Doyle , Vol I , p . 207 .