We know that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4,1776. Five years later, the British surrendered to Continental Army and allied French forces at Yorktown. Few visitors to York River State Park know about an uprising that was planned and foiled right across the river 100 years before the successful American Revolution began.

Hidden history can be found on Route 14 at the Gloucester & King & Queen border

English indentured servants were given contracts to work up to seven years on a plantation in Virginia. Their living and working conditions weren’t much better than those of the enslaved Africans. The labor was backbreaking and they received poor rations.  As African, European, and Native American servants lived and worked side by side, it was not unheard of for them to run away together.

Indentures sent to the Virginia Colony included veterans of the English Civil War who supported Oliver Cromwell against the royalist. There was a risk that some such servants would prove unruly. This danger proved real when nine servants led by William Bell and John Gunter met together near Poplar Spring Branch, a tributary of the Poropotank River to plot a rebellion. Supporters were to be organized in military companies with strategic attacks. As well as raiding local plantations to drum up supporters, weapons and disrupt the harvest season, the ultimate plan was to make demands on the royal governor, William Berkeley.

Poropotank River near Poplar Spring Run

The plan would have attracted a variety of participants. Along with anti-royalist elements were English convict laborers, many of whom didn’t have indenture contracts and could be used as slaves for life.  Africans were not yet chattel slaves based on race.  Many were indentures and some were free.  However, a black indentured servant, John Punch, was sentenced to life long servitude for running away with two white indentured servants that were given lighter sentences. Native Americans had another reason to join the planned rebellion. Lands north of the York River were to be reserved for them, according to the 1646 Middle Plantation Treaty. Planters had violated the agreement for years and established settlements that were isolated from Jamestown and Williamsburg. Virginia’s planter controlled society would have been destabilized if the treaty had been honored.

John Berkenhead, a servant of Major John Smith, revealed the plan to the colonial officials. They found the plan so credible a threat that an ambush was set for the conspirators. They were arrested on September 13,1663. Four of the leaders were hanged. Berkenhead was given his freedom and 5,000 pounds of tobacco. Governor Berkeley declared the arrest as a blessing from God and the date to be observed in reverence. 

The confluence of the Poropotank and York Rivers

The shoreline of York River State Park sits directly across from Roane Point, where the Poropotank River enters the York and Purtan Island and Bay. Historians can speculate how successful the conspirators would have been if it proceeded. Nevertheless, the Servants Rebellion of 1663 was a moment where oppressed Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans could have come together in a fight for freedom long before the Revolutionary War.   

York River State Park is located in James City County near Williamsburg, Va. Please click here for a Google Map. For more information on the park, please visit our website, https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/york-river or call the park office 757-566-3036