Inhabited by various Native American tribes for hundreds of years before European settlers trickled into the area, Occoneechee State Park is named after one of the more recent resident tribes, Occoneechi, who left the area in the late 1600s. It’s also the site of one of the first known rebellions in the New World. Nathanial Bacon’s plantation was raided by the Susquehannock Native Americans, who had been displaced from their homelands in south-central Pennsylvania. Bacon’s request for assistance from Virginia’s governor was rudely rejected. Irked, Bacon rallied the local landowners and farmers and mounted his own militia in 1676. Because this militia ran contrary to the governor’s wishes and in a roundabout way, the England King’s, as well, this was considered a treasonous act.