What Was Shays' Rebellion

When is rebellion against a young nation a good thing? Answer: when it forces that country to reevaluate and build even stronger. Daniel Shays played a big role in pushing America to grow.

Shays was a farmer turned soldier during the American Revolution. He, like many others, left his home to join the fight for freedom. Immigrants from around the world had come to these English colonies to forge a new path for themselves and their families. Now America was struggling to break free from England. To preserve their future, they were forced to take up arms.

Colonists had found England’s rule too severe. They had become restless. Failing to find relief from the King, they’d banded together to break with England and form a new nation. A new nation isn’t born with a standing army. If the colonists wanted freedom, they were going to have to fight for it. Citizen soldiers were their only option.

Daniel Shays, born in Hopkinton, Massachusetts in 1747, stepped up. He had grown up poor and for a time worked as a farmhand in central Massachusetts. In 1772 he married Abigail Gilbert and settled on his own farm in Shutesbury, Massachusetts. Shays joined the Continental Army in 1777. He fought in battles at Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga, Saratoga, and Stony Point.

After his discharge in 1780, he settled in Pelham, Massachusetts with his family and farmed on his own land. He won election to a series of local offices and was liked and respected.

By 1783 America had won the war, but debt was endangering the survival of the young nation. As debts accumulated at both federal and state levels, the government was forced to raise taxes. This added to the burden of citizens. Veterans of the Revolutionary War had been paid with paper currency, but with inflation the money was practically worthless.

After years of hard-fought battles to win independence for their new country, citizens were now facing huge personal debts. Many were losing their property to debt collectors. Through no fault of their own, debtor’s prison loomed.

No stranger to rebellion, many began to fight against the government they had just helped liberate. Shays led a group in several skirmishes. Courts in the area were foreclosing on property for delinquent taxes. In September 1786 Shays helped lead several hundred men in forcing the Supreme Court in Springfield, Massachusetts to adjourn.

In January 1787 Shays and more than 1,000 men attempted to seize the federal armory in Springfield. But the state militia, anticipating the raid, were guarding the armory and fired upon the mob with cannon fire. Four raiders were killed during the failed attempt and the mob fled.

The final battle for the Shays mob was at Petersham, Massachusetts on February 4, 1787. A group of Boston businessmen had funded a militia for protection, and the militia defeated Shays and his men ending their rebellion. Shays fled to Vermont and was tried in absentia. He was sentenced to death along with several others, but ultimately only two men were hanged. In 1788 Shays petitioned for a pardon, which was soon granted.

The rebellion bore fruit in more ways than one. The Massachusetts legislature enacted laws easing the economic condition of debtors. More importantly for the future of America, Shays’ Rebellion convinced many that we needed a stronger national government. Not only did America need the ability to repress uprisings, but debt would take down the new nation if trade and taxes weren’t addressed.

Shays’ rebellion added to the urgency for a stronger central government. The Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia in 1787 and the new country continued its forward progress.