In this episode of Historically Thinking, we begin not with a historian’s voice, but with the voice of a seventeenth-century woman.
Lady Frances Culpeper Berkeley—born in England, twice widowed, and married in 1670 to Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia—speaks from the midst of crisis. Jamestown has burned. Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion has fractured the colony’s political order. Her husband has been recalled to England to answer charges before the Crown. Lady Berkeley, left behind, attempts to make sense of loyalty, loss, honor, and exile.
That voice is brought to life by my second guest, Amy Stallings, a historian and historical interpreter who believes the past is best understood not only through documents, but through embodied experience. Together, we explore Bacon’s Rebellion from an unfamiliar vantage point, the interior world of Lady Frances Berkeley, and the intellectual stakes of historical reenactment itself: what it reveals, what it risks, and what it makes newly visible.
00:00 - Introduction
00:28 - Lady Frances Culpeper Berkeley Introduces Herself
00:58 - Writing to Her Husband in England
02:55 - Sir William Berkeley's Accomplishments in Virginia
04:23 - The Royal Commissioners and Personal Betrayal
05:47 - Berkeley's Loyalty During the English Civil War
07:17 - Berkeley's Resistance to Parliament
08:15 - Berkeley's Return to Power and Jamestown's Glory
09:39 - Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion Begins
11:08 - Bacon Surrounds the State House
12:57 - Introducing Amy Stallings
13:41 - Theater and History Intertwined
14:27 - The Dissertation on Ballroom Politics
21:40 - Dance as Political Resistance
24:25 - English Country Dancing Before the Waltz
28:53 - First Character: Susan Binks, Tobacco Bride
28:53 - Learning History Through First-Person Interpretation
39:14 - Developing Lady Berkeley's Character
46:52 - Lady Berkeley's Isolation and Loss
46:52 - Lady Berkeley's Inheritance and Legal Battles
55:00 - The Challenges of Colonial Communication
57:00 - Sewing Period Costumes
61:51 - Conclusion
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