Shay’s Rebellion

Near the end of the Revolutionary war, and after the United States won, financial problems push the new country into an economic depression. The states were in great debt, they no longer had the support from the British markets, along with the trouble of creating new laws, and issuing new money. In order to meet their financial obligations, and avoid printing more and more paper money like Rhode Island, Massachusetts enforced taxes that were only payable in hard currency.

Many farmers, including Daniel Shays, served in the militia during the war. However, as they awaited their payments for their services, they did not have the hard currency required to pay off their creditors. Therefore, those farmers were sent to court, and their land was publicly auctioned off in order for them to pay their debt. Samuel Ely, an evangelistic preacher, rallied angered farmers from western Massachusetts in order to block sittings in civil courts. The farmers who participated in Shay’s rebellion became know as Regulators, or Shaysites.

Throughout 1785-1786, conventions drew up petitions to the state legislature in the counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, and Worcester. In these petitions they demanded paper money, lower taxes, lower court fees and lower salaries for government workers, the movement of the State capitol from Boston to Worcester, and the elimination of the state senate.

Due to the little action taken by the legislature following the petitions, rebels once again closed civil court. This time the crowds were armed, but still no one had died. Since the government had no money to raise an army under the Articles of Confederation, merchants from the east, who feared the spread of the rebellion, put funds together to create a 4,400 man state army, under the control of General Benjamin Lincoln. On January 25, 1787, insurgents led by Daniel Shays, Luke Day, and Eli Parsons surrounded Springfield, and attacked. General William Shepard’s militia shot cannon fire into the crowd, killing four and wounding twenty. Some of the farmers surrendered, others fled, including Daniel Shays, who went to New York where he later died in 1825.

When the convention met at Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederations, Shay’s Rebellion was taken into consideration. The solution that the convention came up with was a more central government, with the capability to raise direct taxes, uphold a national army, and the authority to call up the state militia during a national emergency.