EASTVILLE, Va. — The Northampton County Board of Supervisors have approved a new historical marker commemorating the 1652 Tax Revolt in Eastville. The marker is a legacy project of the Northampton Virginia250 Local Commission and recognize basic Constitutional rights of the freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. The markers, to be ordered from a foundry, will encourage tourists and residents to tour the scenic backroads of the county and learn about local history.
The Supervisors also approved new markers for the Quaker Meeting House in Franktown, and Shorter’s Chapel.
Nearly 125 years before the Boston Tea Party made “no taxation without representation” a revolutionary slogan, a quiet coastal village on Virginia’s Eastern Shore hosted the first organized protest of its kind in the American Colonies.
It was March 1652 when a group of freeholders and small landowners gathered at a tavern near what is now Eastville. Their cause: to resist a newly imposed poll tax they deemed unjust—levied by a colonial government in which they had no voice.
What began as a simple petition quickly became a radical statement of democratic defiance.
The mid-17th century was a period of mounting tension in colonial Virginia. English governors, installed with little input from the settlers they ruled, began implementing a series of taxes to fund government operations and expand influence across the New World. One such levy was the poll tax—a head tax applied uniformly regardless of income or property.
In Northampton County, the tax was especially burdensome for smallholders and tradesmen already struggling to sustain farms and families in the fledgling colony. While wealthier planters could absorb the cost, many poorer residents could not.
What made this tax different was its passage without the consent or representation of the people who had to pay it.
The Tavern Meeting
Historical accounts point to a tavern just outside present-day Eastville—then known simply as the Northampton Court House—as the site where the protest was organized. Here, local men, many of English descent but now calling Virginia home, met to air grievances, draft petitions, and chart a course of civil disobedience.
Records from the period indicate the protestors were remarkably organized. They circulated a document—what some historians consider the first written protest against taxation without representation in colonial America—calling for an end to the unfair tax and demanding a more accountable local government.
Some refused to pay the tax outright. Others used legal channels, petitioning the county court and colonial officials in Jamestown. The movement gained momentum and, within weeks, had spread across the Eastern Shore.
While the 1652 protest did not immediately overturn the poll tax, it forced the colonial government to reconsider its approach to taxation and representation on the Shore. More importantly, it set a precedent.
“This was the first time in the colonies that people stood up, in an organized way, and said, ‘We won’t pay a tax unless we have a say in it. It laid the groundwork for a tradition of resistance that would define America a century later.” – Dr. Caroline Whitley, historian at the Eastern Shore Heritage Center.
Indeed, echoes of the Eastville protest can be heard in the Stamp Act resistance of the 1760s and the fiery debates that preceded the Declaration of Independence.
Honoring Forgotten Patriots
Today, Eastville is best known as the seat of Northampton County and home to the nation’s oldest continuous court records, dating back to 1632. But its deeper claim to fame may be its role as the cradle of colonial protest.
A historic marker near the county courthouse pays tribute to the 1652 event, and local historians continue to push for broader recognition of Eastville’s place in the birth of American democracy.
How appropriate a subject to discuss. My SSI went up 2% this year, my Northampton property taxes went up 12% this year. Why and when did government entities stray from their core mission and purpose in life to fund things that have no business using general public funds to finance. Stop catering to grants, gifts, and things like this. I notice no mention of what the cost is. The general population derives no benefit. Private groups, using their own money are free to do such things themselves.
Governments do public projects for the public protection and welfare of all. Roads, bridges, schools, health and safety. I suggest you stick to business with our tax dollars. While you’re at it, study where you can trim things on your own. Maybe you could get the first ever award for operating efficiently. God forbid you ever consider downsizing anything.
Following this article is another showing the new need for the school budget. Prioritize things like real tax payers due. Let me think…Do I buy very expensive signs and give out grants to every little pocket cause in nowhereville Or…Do I stick to business and educate our children?
Typical government decision, let’s do both and add more taxes so we can do more next year . Now the challenge, what is left to tax?
Do we need another tax revolt?
Please stop.