The Archaeology of Bacon’s Rebellion

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As part of our Reconsidering Bacon’s Rebellion at 350 series, Nicholas M. Luccketti who supervised the excavations will describe this remarkable discovery and discuss how he made the connection to Bacon’s Rebellion. Then, Rebekah Planto, PhD., will take a closer look at some of the artifacts recovered from the pit, considering what such ordinary finds from an extraordinary context can reveal about everyday life and labor during this pivotal period.

Bacon’s Rebellion began as a campaign of violence against the region’s Indigenous people carried out in defiance of the royal governor. The elite instigators of the insurrection garnered broad support by stoking prejudice and exploiting the desperation of struggling and marginalized groups, including many in the colony’s growing, and increasingly oppressed African population who saw in the uprising a chance for self-liberation. After this initial onslaught, the rebels turned their attention to their opponents in the colonial government, marching on Jamestown and vandalizing the homes of prominent loyalists.

Three hundred and fifty years later, archaeological traces of these events are still evident at sites across Virginia. Completed on the eve of the conflict and captured by rebels who used it as a fort during the final months of fighting, “Bacon’s Castle” in Surry County is the only structure involved in Bacon’s Rebellion that is still visible above the ground. In the 1980s, archaeological excavations revealed evidence of the damage and subsequent clean-up efforts in a large pit hastily concealed beneath the elaborate garden completed at the end of the 17th century.

Nicholas M. Luccketti

Nicholas M. Luccketti, M.A., RPA, has been surveying and excavating Virginia sites since 1974 for institutions such as the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission (now the Virginia Department of Historic Resources), the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA). At the James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc. (JRIA), Mr. Luccketti is responsible for preparing and managing budgets, directing Phase I, II, and III excavations, managing field crews, monitoring construction, creating predictive models, preparing reports, and representing clients.  As JRIA’s Principal Archaeologist, Mr. Luccketti has overseen the successful completion of more than 150 Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III projects which have been approved by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.  Previously, Mr. Luccketti served as the senior research archaeologist for five years at the APVA Jamestown Rediscovery Project that discovered the 1607 James Fort at Jamestown, Virginia. He was responsible for supervising and recording the excavations, writing the annual field reports, and was a co-author of three booklets produced by the APVA. In addition to his employment with the APVA, Mr. Luccketti was an adjunct faculty member at Christopher Newport University for four years where he taught a class on Historical Archaeology. As an archaeologist with the First Colony Foundation, Mr. Luccketti continues to play an important role in the search for the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

Rebekah Planto, PhD

Rebekah is an archaeologist interested in comparative colonialism in the Atlantic world, with a particular focus on 17th-century British plantation projects and their effects into the present. She currently lives and works in Williamsburg, VA, where she recently completed her doctorate in Anthropology with a concentration in Historical Archaeology from the College of William and Mary. Her dissertation, titled, “‘All Seeds of Future Discords’: Lives and Afterlives of the Rebellion Era at Bacon’s Castle, Surry County, Virginia, ca. 1660s-1710s,” investigates the plantation associated with Bacon’s Castle over the first century of colonial occupation, focusing on the decades surrounding Bacon’s Rebellion. Combining material and documentary research, her work explores how the plantation’s diverse inhabitants—especially the unfree laborers who comprised most of the resident population—constructed, negotiated, and transformed this complex landscape during the transitional and historically consequential “Rebellion era.”