 These laws kept black people enslaved while offering expanded rights and social status to light-skinned servants from Europe. In a piece for BorderLore earlier this year, writer Kimi Eisele makes the case that Bacon's rebellion was a pivotal moment in our history. Eisele's essay is called What Does It Mean to Be White? And in it, she points out that in order for European servants to gain that racist bounty, they had to give something up.