Bacon’s Rebellion & The Invention of Whiteness

Irish History Through the Lens of Rebellion and Resitance

When we think about rebellion in early America, we’re rarely told the story of how poor white Europeans—many of them Irish—and enslaved Africans once stood together.

We’re told that whiteness has always existed. But that’s a lie.

Whiteness was invented. And one of the earliest and clearest examples of how and why it was created is Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676.

This isn’t just a story about colonial Virginia. It’s the origin story of American racial hierarchy—and Irish people played a critical role on both sides of that divide.

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Before Whiteness: What United the Oppressed

In 17th-century Virginia, society was brutal and deeply unequal. The elite owned massive tracts of land and enslaved people, while poor laborers—both indentured Europeans and enslaved Africans—toiled under horrific conditions.

At this time, Irish indentured servants were common. Many had been forcibly deported, others came seeking survival, and nearly all were seen as expendable.

But despite their different legal status, Irish servants and enslaved Africans lived, labored, and suffered together:

• They worked the same tobacco fields.

• They were beaten and punished for disobedience.

• They often ran away together, intermarried, and built relationships in secret.

There was solidarity. Shared suffering made them comrades in rebellion. And the ruling class feared that unity.

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Bacon’s Rebellion: When the Oppressed Rose Up Together

In 1676, a wealthy settler named Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion against the colonial governor of Virginia. But this wasn’t just about taxes or land disputes—it became an uprising of the poor and oppressed.

What made the rebellion radical? Who joined it.

• Black and white laborers united.

• Irish indentured servants fought side by side with enslaved Africans.

• They burned Jamestown, attacked elite plantations, and demanded change.

The rebellion was eventually crushed, but the ruling class learned a dangerous lesson:

If the poor unite, they can overthrow us.

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The Aftermath: The Birth of Whiteness as Social Control

In the wake of the rebellion, the colonial elite asked a terrifying question:
How do we stop white and Black people from uniting ever again?

The answer?

👉 Invent a new identity. Give poor Europeans a higher social status—one step above Black people.

Here’s what they did:

• Passed laws banning interracial marriage and collaboration.

• Outlawed gatherings between Africans and Europeans.

• Granted poor white men small legal rights—like land ownership, voting rights, and protection under the law.

• Turned “white” into a legal category.

Thus, whiteness was born—not as a culture or ethnicity, but as a tool of division.

✅ Fact Check This:

1. Banned Interracial Marriage & Collaboration

2. Outlawed Gatherings Between Africans & Europeans

3. Granted Poor Whites Legal Rights

4. Turned “White” Into a Legal Category

For the Irish, this moment was pivotal.

Before this, Irish Catholics were seen as “other”—dirty, pagan, disloyal. But whiteness offered them an opportunity: accept this new identity, and rise.

Some Irish accepted the deal. They distanced themselves from Black comrades, assimilated into whiteness, and gained social power.

Others resisted—choosing solidarity, rebellion, and a shared fight against empire.

This is the fork in the road that haunts us still:

👉 Assimilation or solidarity.
👉 Survival through division or liberation through unity.

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The Black-Irish Connection: Before the Divide

Before whiteness was law, Irish and African people were in this together.

• They married and had children together.

• They formed maroon communities in resistance.

• They taught each other language, music, and ways of survival.

• They burned Jamestown together.

That unity was powerful—and it terrified the ruling class.

Because empire cannot survive unity. It requires hierarchy, division, and fear.

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Final Reflection: The Cost of Whiteness, Then and Now

Bacon’s Rebellion wasn’t just a one-time revolt—it was the moment the ruling class realized they needed a new kind of control.

They didn’t just invent whiteness to give people power—they invented it to keep people apart.

And it worked.

For centuries, whiteness has operated like a pyramid scheme:
Offer small rewards to those who “buy in,” while using their loyalty to uphold violent systems of control.

But at what cost?

What was lost when Irish and African people stopped standing together?
What was lost when the dream of shared liberation was replaced with racial division?

The truth is this: Whiteness was never designed to liberate. It was designed to divide.

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Reclaiming the Legacy of Solidarity

We don’t have to stay divided.

We can choose to remember the truth—that Irish and African people once stood arm-in-arm against empire.
That solidarity is older than whiteness.
That rebellion lives in our bones.
That the system we live in was built to keep us from (re)membering that.

But here we are.
(Re)membering.
(Re)claiming.
Resisting.

Because oppression is never the final word.

Solidarity is.

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Further Learning: Watch, Read & Engage

📺 Watch:

• Race: The Power of an Illusion (PBS) – Explores how race was invented in America.

• Bacons Rebellion: Inventing Black and white– Short documentary.

📖 Read:

• The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen

• How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev

Engage:

• Research the laws passed after 1676 to legally define “white” and “Black” people.

• Reflect on where solidarity was broken in your own ancestry—and how it can be restored.

• Explore ways to build multiracial, decolonized community today.

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📣 Tomorrow’s Lesson: The Irish & the Civil War—Fighting on Both Sides of Freedom

What happens when a people who were once indentured and oppressed begin to uphold systems of oppression themselves? Next, we explore the complex role Irish immigrants played during the American Civil War—fighting for both freedom and empire.

Final Reflection: Whiteness Was Invented to Divide Us—But We Can Choose Solidarity

Bacon’s Rebellion didn’t just expose class conflict—it revealed the potential power of solidarity between the oppressed. Irish and African laborers stood together, not because they were the same, but because they shared the same enemy: an elite ruling class determined to extract their labor and erase their humanity.

What terrified the ruling class most wasn’t the rebellion—it was the possibility that poor people of all backgrounds might rise up together.

So they invented “whiteness.” Not as a culture. Not as an ethnicity. But as a tool of control.

They drew lines between human beings. They criminalized connection. They turned race into law.

And it worked—for a while.

But we now know their game. We know that whiteness was never meant to serve the people it claimed. It was always meant to protect the powerful. And it still functions that way today—through policing, through incarceration, through voter suppression, through economic apartheid.

So now we ask:
How do we move forward in solidarity after such betrayal?
How do we rebuild bridges across generations of divide?

It begins with truth-telling.
With accountability.
With the willingness to say, “This is where it went wrong, and this is how we begin to repair.”

We do not have to inherit the divisions they built.
We can choose something better.
We can choose each other.

Because whiteness was invented—but solidarity is real.
And solidarity can still save us.

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In solidarity and liberation,
Desireé B. Stephens, CPS-P
Educator | Counselor | Community Builder
Founder, Make Shi(f)t Happen