Shays's Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes on both individuals and their trades. The fighting took place in the areas around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. Historically, scholars have argued that the four thousand rebels, called Shaysites, who protested against economic and civil rights injustices by the Massachusetts government were led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays. By the early 2020s, scholarship has suggested that Shays's role in the protests was significantly exaggerated.
In 1787, the protesters marched on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government, severely limited in its prerogatives under the Articles of Confederation, found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion; it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State Militia under William Shepard, alongside a privately funded local militia led by former Continental Army officer Benjamin Lincoln. The widely-held view had already developed that the Articles of Confederation were untenable and needed amending, with the events of the rebellion serving as further evidence for the later Constitutional Convention. There is continuing debate among scholars as to what extent the rebellion influenced the later drafting and ratification of the Constitution.
Background
Prior to the 19th century, the economy of rural New England largely consisted of subsistence agriculture, particularly in the hill towns of central and western Massachusetts. Some residents in these areas had few assets beyond their land, and they bartered with one another for goods and services. In lean times, farmers might obtain goods on credit from suppliers in local market towns who would be paid when times were better. In contrast, there was a market economy in the more economically developed coastal areas of Massachusetts Bay and in the fertile Connecticut River Valley, driven by the activities of wholesale merchants dealing with Europe and the West Indies. The state government was dominated by this merchant class.
In 1784 British merchants began taking a hard line on New England's mercantile community due to the latter's frequent insolvencies. Five London merchant houses withdrew loans from New England merchants and some British businessmen refused to extend lines of credit to their counterparts in New England and insisted they pay for goods with hard currency, which was then in short supply in the United States. New England merchants began to demand the same of their local business partners, including those in market towns.
Responding to these development, New England merchants began passing on this demand to their customers, although Governor John Hancock did not impose hard currency demands on poorer borrowers and refused to actively prosecute the collection of delinquent taxes. The rural farming population was generally unable to meet the demands of merchants and the civil authorities, and some began to lose their land and other possessions when they were unable to fulfill their debt and tax obligations. This led to strong resentment against tax collectors and the courts, where creditors obtained judgments against debtors and tax collectors obtained judgments authorizing property seizures. A farmer identified as "Plough Jogger" summarized the situation at a meeting convened by aggrieved commoners:
I have been greatly abused, have been obliged to do more than my part in the war, been loaded with class rates, town rates, province rates, Continental rates, and all rates ... been pulled and hauled by sheriffs, constables, and collectors, and had my cattle sold for less than they were worth ... The great men are going to get all we have and I think it is time for us to rise and put a stop to it, and have no more courts, nor sheriffs, nor collectors nor lawyers.
Veterans had received little pay during the war and faced added difficulty collecting payments owed to them from the State or the Congress of the Confederation. Some soldiers began to organize protests against these oppressive economic conditions. In 1780, Daniel Shays resigned from the army without pay and went home to find himself in court for nonpayment of debts. He soon realized that he was not alone in his inability to pay his debts and began organizing for debt relief.
Early rumblings
One early protest against the government was led by Job Shattuck of Groton, Massachusetts in 1782, who organized residents to physically prevent tax collectors from performing their duties. A second, larger-scale protest took place in Uxbridge, Massachusetts on the Rhode Island border on February 3, 1783, when a mob seized property that had been confiscated by a constable and returned it to its owners. Governor Hancock ordered the sheriff to suppress these actions.
Most rural communities attempted to use the legislative process to gain relief. Petitions and proposals were repeatedly submitted to the state legislature to issue paper currency, which would depreciate the currency and make it possible to pay a high-value debt with lower-valued paper. The merchants, including James Bowdoin, were opposed to the idea since they stood to lose from such measures, and the proposals were repeatedly rejected.
Governor Hancock resigned in early 1785 citing health reasons, though some suggested that he was anticipating trouble. Bowdoin had repeatedly lost to Hancock in earlier elections, but he was elected governor that year—and matters became more severe. He stepped up civil actions to collect back taxes, and the legislature exacerbated the situation by levying an additional property tax to raise funds for the state's portion of foreign debt payments. Even comparatively conservative commentators such as John Adams observed that these levies were "heavier than the People could bear".
Shutting down the courts
Protests in rural Massachusetts escalated into direct action in August 1786 after the state legislature adjourned without considering the many petitions sent to Boston. On August 29, a well-organized force of protestors formed in Northampton and successfully prevented the county court from sitting. The leaders of this force proclaimed that they were seeking relief from the burdensome judicial processes that were depriving the people of their land and possessions. They called themselves Regulators, a reference to the Regulator movement of North Carolina, which sought to reform corrupt practices in the late 1760s.
Governor Bowdoin issued a proclamation on September 2 denouncing such mob action, but he took no military measures beyond planning a militia response to future actions. The court was then shut down in Worcester by similar action on September 5, but the county militia refused to turn out, as it was composed mainly of men sympathetic to the protestors. Governors of the neighboring states acted decisively, calling out the militia to hunt down the ringleaders in their own states after the first such protests. Matters were resolved without violence in Rhode Island because the "country party" gained control of the legislature in 1786 and enacted measures forcing its merchants to trade debt instruments for devalued currency. Boston's merchants were concerned by this, especially Bowdoin, who held more than £3,000 in Massachusetts notes.
Daniel Shays had participated in the Northampton action and began to take a more active role in the uprising in November, though he firmly denied being one of its leaders. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indicted 11 leaders of the rebellion as "disorderly, riotous, and seditious persons". The court was scheduled to meet next in Springfield, on September 26, and Shays organized an attempt to shut it down in Northampton, while Luke Day organized an attempt in Springfield. They were anticipated by William Shepard, the local militia commander, who began gathering militiamen the Saturday before the court was to sit, and he had 300 men protecting the Springfield courthouse by opening time. Shays and Day were able to recruit a similar number but chose only to demonstrate, exercising their troops outside of Shepard's lines rather than attempting to seize the building. The judges first postponed hearings and then adjourned on the 28th without hearing any cases. Shepard withdrew his force (which had grown to around 800 men) to the Springfield Armory, which was rumored to be the target of the protestors.
Protests were also successful in shutting down courts in Great Barrington, Concord, and Taunton, in September and October. James Warren wrote to John Adams on October 22, "We are now in a state of Anarchy and Confusion bordering on Civil War." Courts were able to meet in the larger towns and cities, but they required protection of the militia, which Bowdoin called in for the purpose. Governor Bowdoin commanded the legislature to "vindicate the insulted dignity of government". Samuel Adams claimed that foreigners ("British emissaries") were instigating treason among citizens. Adams helped draft a Riot Act and a resolution suspending habeas corpus so that authorities could legally keep people in jail without trial.
Adams proposed a new legal distinction that rebellion in a republic should be punished by death. The legislature also moved to make some concessions on matters that upset farmers, saying that certain old taxes could now be paid in goods instead of hard currency. These measures were followed by one prohibiting speech critical of the government and offering pardons to protestors willing to take an oath of allegiance. These legislative actions were unsuccessful in quelling the protests, and the suspension of habeas corpus alarmed many.
Warrants were issued for the arrest of several of the protest ringleaders, and a posse of around 300 men rode to Groton on November 28 to arrest Job Shattuck and other rebel leaders in the area. Shattuck was chased down and arrested on the 30th and was wounded by a sword slash in the process. This action and the arrest of other protest leaders in the eastern parts of the state angered those in the west, and they began to organize an overthrow of the state government. "The seeds of war are now sown", wrote one correspondent in Shrewsbury, and by mid-January, rebel leaders spoke of smashing the "tyrannical government of Massachusetts".
Rebellion
The federal government had been unable to recruit soldiers for the army because of a lack of funding, so Massachusetts leaders decided to act independently. On January 4, 1787, Governor Bowdoin proposed creating a privately funded militia army. Former Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln solicited funds and raised more than £6,000 from more than 125 merchants by the end of January. The 3,000 militiamen who were recruited into this army were almost entirely from the eastern counties of Massachusetts, and they marched to Worcester on January 19.
While the government forces assembled, Shays, Day, and other rebel leaders in the west organized their forces, establishing regional regimental organizations that were run by democratically elected committees. Their first major target was the federal armory in Springfield. General Shepard had taken possession of the armory under orders from Governor Bowdoin, and he used its arsenal to arm a militia force of 1,200. He had done this even though the armory was federal property, not state, and he did not have permission from Secretary of War Henry Knox.
The insurgents were organized into three major groups and intended to simultaneously surround and attack the armory. Shays had one group east of Springfield near Palmer. Luke Day had a second force across the Connecticut River in West Springfield. A third force under Eli Parsons was situated to the north at Chicopee. The rebels originally had planned their assault for January 25 – at the last moment, Day sent a message to Shays indicating that he would not be ready to attack until the 26th. Day's message was intercepted by Shepard's men. As such, the militias of Shays and Parsons approached the armory on the 25th not knowing that they would have no support from the west. Instead, they found Shepard's militia waiting for them. Shepard first ordered warning shots fired over the heads of Shays's men. He then ordered two cannons to fire grapeshot. Four Shaysites were killed and 20 wounded. There was no musket fire from either side. The rebel advance collapsed with most of the rebel forces fleeing north. Shays' and Day's men eventually regrouped at Amherst, Massachusetts.