Shays’ Rightful Rebellion
Just as Daniel Shays experienced in 1786, today, powerful men use the mechanism of government laws and media to benefit themselves at the people’s expense.
Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted? … God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787
Foreword
Today we find hostility in schools and secondary “education” under the banner of political correctness focused under a new moniker known as Woke. It is a cultivated carelessness related to the facts and evidence. Deliberate falsehoods overtake core elements of our past to divide society. That, along with willful contempt of history, serves to destroy culture to the delight of those thrusting for power.
Despite the overarching ability of the “machine” to thwart honest discourse, for now, thanks to Substack, we can supply history and analysis with a classical lens. Rather than using uncomfortable elements to tear down our heritage, we can learn and grow. Sadly, the Woke mob dwells on servitude rather than using the good to move on. They cancel the spirit of great past African American heroes like Frederick Douglas. Few realize today we live in a state of semi-slavery where those who work (and retirees!) get monies stolen by excessive tax and a hidden tax in the form of inflation—all to throw favor to the crummy collective.
Of course, an honest look at our founding needs scrutiny related to slavery. A mature analysis serves as a lesson to learn about the bad such as slavery, and work to make good. Many additional items need renewed scrutiny. One example is the generally untold and sometimes twisted story about Shays’ Rebellion. As a fan of our founding, it compels me to address the abuses and falsehoods concerning Daniel Shay, the Massachusetts Revolutionary War veteran, and farmer.
Today, the aggressive treatment against people questioning the collectivist narrative is a déjà vu portal back to Massachusetts in 1786. A particularly poignant example is the horrific treatment of “J6” participants. As such, readers are encouraged to explore the essay, 723 Days After January 6, 2021, written by my friend Dave Wolosik.
Prelude
Living most of my life in the Delaware Valley instilled an intrinsic affinity for our Nation’s founding. It is in my blood through empirical immersion, having grown up in the very footsteps of greats such as George Washington. It is an ingrained sense of reality to include walking to grade school on the sidewalk of a street named after a local Revolutionary War hero, Colonel John Cadwalader.
I also invite new readers to take a spin with my essay about the first balloon flight in North America that occurred in Philadelphia (1793). You will learn about my close friendship with a descendant of Stephen Moylan, aide-de-camp to George Washington. To this day, my friend, Stephen R Moylan, continues the legacy of the first North American balloon flight witnessed by George Washington.
Residing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the 1990s, it was a charm to experience the lingering spirit of Daniel Shays. My work “territory” afforded the necessity (opportunity!) to visit every town linked to the Shays legacy. Moreover, my home was in one of the towns connected with the Shays Rebellion, Taunton, Massachusetts.
Daniel Bullen made this essay possible because of his excellent 2021 book Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion: An American Story. A tip of the hat goes to Bullen, who conducted an incredible amount of “boots on the ground” research to present a complete picture of Massachusetts farmers’ plight after the American Revolution. Through numerous source documents, Bullen demonstrates Shays and his Regulators were not a band of dangerous drunken rioters. They were ordinary people who collaborated peaceably and risked their lives for justice. It is a great American story. Bullen’s book is the ticket to the rest of the story for serious history students. With humble anticipation, I present my brief historical rendition of the Daniel Shays story.
Introduction
After the Revolutionary War (1783), Western Massachusetts farmers faced debt and foreclosures. Meanwhile, a massive bailout of those at the top 1/10th of the one percent stoked a clash. Thus, two systems existed, subsistence farming (called yeomanry, essentially a non-cash bartering economy based on mutual aid) and the new money economy. The new Massachusetts constitution set £60 in taxable wealth as a minimum for a free white male to be able to vote. In the seaboard towns, 1/2 to 2/3 of white males were eligible to vote. In western Massachusetts, officials ignored the wealth requirement. Everyone who paid taxes was expected, and sometimes even required, to vote at town meetings. Elected officials spent £200 to serve in the House, £300 in the Senate, and £1000 to serve as governor. On the other hand, £25 could purchase a small farm. Yeoman farmers were self-sufficient with food and clothing; thus, annual cash expenditures were usually less than £5.
The Massachusetts legislature de-legalized paper money by replacing the “Continentals” that Congress had issued to pay for the Revolutionary Army. At a rate of 20:1, it would no longer suffice as payment for either debts or taxes despite “legal tender” printed on these interest-bearing notes. This act forced farmers or soldiers who still had paper money to sell it to speculators for pennies on the dollar to get enough hard cash to pay their taxes. Soon 80% of the entire supply of paper money was in the hands of about 100 speculators and traders.
The Commonwealth’s next step was to legislate a 5% annual interest on the notes payable on time and in “specie” (gold or silver). Also, it changed the redemption date from 1788 to 1786. Unlike other states, Massachusetts legislated that the notes be honored at face value in specie. Other states paid them off closer to their depreciated market value, between 1/10th and 1/40th of their value in species. These actions severely impacted the farmers. As a modern example, to pay off an IOU of $10, the debtor would have to pay what the Massachusetts Supreme Court decided was the purchasing power of an issued loan — five to twenty times the face value. On the other hand, the few speculators holding paper money and securities were to be paid off at ten times their market value in specie.
These economic conditions, combined with the lack of a strong national government, contributed to the rising discontent among the farmers in western Massachusetts. Many farmers in the state had taken on debt to finance their participation in the war. The farmers had no choice but to take action, and Daniel Shays stepped to the plate. As the prominent leader of the Shays’ Rebellion (1786-1787) and veteran of the American Revolutionary War, Shays aimed to protest the state’s economic policies and the treatment of debt-ridden farmers.
Born in 1747, Shays grew up in a modest family in Hopkins, Massachusetts, and served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. After the war, he returned to Massachusetts and took up farming.
Like other farmers in the state, Shays struggled to make ends meet in the years following the war. He was heavily in debt and facing high taxes and additional financial burdens.
Job Shattuck of Groton, Massachusetts, in 1782, led an initial protest. He organized residents to block tax collectors. On February 3, 1783, a second, larger-scale protest occurred in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. A crowd seized property confiscated by a constable and returned it to its owners. Then Governor John Hancock ordered the sheriff to suppress these actions.
Birth of the Regulators
In response to the above-detailed issues, a group of farmers, led by Daniel Shays, formed the Regulators in 1786. They called themselves “Regulators,” in tribute to the 1760s Regulator movement of North Carolina, which sought to reform corrupt practices. The loosely organized Massachusetts group sought to protest the state’s economic policies and advocate for farmers’ rights. The Regulators, also called Shaysites, engaged in several activities, including blocking foreclosures, disrupting court proceedings, and confronting state and local officials.
In 1786, the state legislature adjourned without considering the many petitions sent to Boston. That inaction sparked protests in rural western Massachusetts and turned into direct action. On August 29, a well-organized Regulators force formed in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Shaysites successfully prevented the county court from assembling. On September 2, Governor James Bowdoin denounced the Shaysites. Still, he took no military measures beyond planning a militia response to future actions.1 The court was shut down in Worcester, Massachusetts, by similar action on September 5. The county militia refused to act because of its many ranks sympathetic to the Shaysites. Neighboring states acted decisively. Governors called out the militia to hunt down ringleaders in their states. A peaceful resolution occurred in Rhode Island. In 1786, the “country party” gained control of the legislature. It enacted measures forcing its merchants to trade debt instruments for devalued currency.
The court, scheduled to meet next in Springfield, Massachusetts, on September 26, faced a blockage by Shays’ and Hays Regulators. General William Shepard, the local militia commander, anticipated the actions and began gathering government-supporting militia the Saturday before the court assembled. Shepard, with 300 men, protected the Springfield courthouse. Shays and Luke Day, with similar numbers, chose only to demonstrate. They exercised their troops outside Shepard’s lines rather than attempting to seize the building, and the judges postponed hearings. The action forced the judges to close the Berkshire session as well. The court adjourned on the 28th without hearing any cases, and Shepard withdrew his force (which had grown to some 800 men). He moved the contingent to the Springfield Armory, rumored to be the target of the Shaysites. Protests successfully shut down Concord, Great Barrington, and Taunton courts in September and October.
Daniel Shays had participated in the Northampton protest and took a more active role in the uprising in November. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indicted 11 Shaysite leaders. They faced the charge of being “disorderly, riotous, and seditious persons.”
In a modern-day sounding mantra, Samuel Adams claimed that “foreigners” instigated “treason” among citizens. As a consultant to Governor Bowdoin, Adams helped write a Riot Act and a horrific resolution suspending habeas corpus so the authorities could, by legal fiat, detain people without trial.2 On October 28, 1786, the General Court passed the Riot Act, which forbade “... all gatherings of more than twelve armed persons; allowed sheriffs to kill rioters; seized protestors’ lands, tenements, goods, and chattel for the commonwealth, and threatened imprisonment of six–twelve months with thirty-nine lashes every three months.”3
Adams also proposed a new legal distinction: rebellion participants in a republic should face execution. The legislature also moved to make some feeble concessions. However, the half-baked accommodations upset farmers by declaring goods instead of hard currency would fulfill the contested taxes. These measures were followed with a declaration prohibiting speech critical of the government. The legislature also offered pardons for those willing to take an oath of allegiance. These legislative actions did little to stop the protests. In particular, the suspension of habeas corpus alarmed many.
Warrants were issued to arrest several protest ringleaders. About 300 men rode to Groton, Massachusetts, on November 28 to stop Job Shattuck and other Shaysite leaders in that area. State troops chased Shattuck and apprehended him on the 30th, and he suffered a sword slash. That scuffle and the arrest of other Shaysites in eastern Massachusetts infuriated the westerners. As such, they began to organize a challenge against the state government.
With a lack of funding, the federal government could not recruit soldiers for the army, and Massachusetts leaders took independent action. On January 4, 1787, Governor James Bowdoin proposed a privately funded militia. In response, former Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln solicited funds. He raised more than £6,000 from 125 merchants by the end of January. The resulting 3,000 state militiamen were almost entirely from the eastern counties of Massachusetts. They marched to Worcester on January 19.
The Regulators built alliances as the state government forces assembled in the west. Shays, Day and other rebel leaders organized regional regimental organizations run by democratically elected committees. Their first concern was the federal armory in Springfield. Under orders from Governor Bowdoin, General Shepard took possession of the armory. Even though he lacked permission from Secretary of War Henry Knox, Shepard used the arsenal stores to arm 1,200 state militiamen.
The Climax, Springfield Armory
The Rebellion reached its climax in January 1787 when a large group of Regulators planned to surround the federal armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Regulators were organized into three groups:
Daniel Shays - near Palmer, east of Springfield, 1,000 men
Luke Day - across the Connecticut River in West Springfield, 1,000 men
Eli Parsons - mustered to the north at Chicopee, 300 men
The Regulators had planned their action for January 25, and at the last moment, Day changed this date. He sent a message to Shays indicating that he would be ready to attack on the 26th. Shepard’s men intercepted Day’s message. As such, Shays and Parsons approached the armory on the 25th, knowing they would need support from the west. They found Shepard’s militia waiting for them. After ordering warning shots fired over the Shaysites’ heads, Sheppard ordered two cannons to fire grapeshot (antipersonnel weapon consisting of a cluster of small iron balls). Four Shaysites perished, and 20 sustained injuries. The rebel advance collapsed despite a lack of musket fire from either side. With most of the Shaysites fleeing north, Shays’ and Day’s contingents eventually regrouped at Amherst, Massachusetts.4
In the final skirmish, on February 3, 1787, Shays’ men marched to Petersham with Lincoln in pursuit.
On February 27, militia under the command of Colonel John Ashley engaged and defeated rogue New York Captain Perez Hamlin and his band of 130 breakaway Sheysites in Sheffield. Hamlin promised death to merchants, lawyers, judges, and any men taking the government’s side. Before the skirmish, Hamlin liberated rebels and debtors from prison and looted. Historians incorrectly attribute this engagement as the final Shays skirmish. This mob-like group acted outside the direction and precepts of the Regulators.
In exchange for amnesty, 4,000 Shaysites signed confessions acknowledging participation in the Regulators. Several hundred participants faced indictment on charges relating to the Rebellion.
Massachusetts voters elected John Hancock on April 1, 1787, in a landslide. When Hancock assumed office in June, his new government reformed the tax structures, restored suffrage to disqualified protestors, canceled the death sentences, lowered taxes, and released debtors from jail. He withdrew the bounty on Shays, Day, and Parsons but could not repeal the arrest warrants or pardon. Nevertheless, 18 men were convicted and sentenced to death, but most had their sentences commuted, overturned on appeal, or pardoned.
On June 21, 1787, Jason Parmenter and Henry McCullough faced hanging, but they were pardoned on the gallows in front of a large, tense crowd. In the end, John Bly and Charles Rose faced common-law crime charges as looters. They perished by hanging on December 6, 1787.5
While hiding in the woods of Vermont in 1788, Shays received a pardon and returned to Massachusetts. The Boston press vilified him, claiming he was an archetypal anarchist opposed to the government. In 1795 Shays moved to Rensselaerville, New York. His wife, Abigail, passed in April 1799. Shays ended up in Sparta, New York, in 1815, marrying widow Rhonda Havens. In 1825, he passed away in obscurity at age 78.
Reflection
Shays’ Rebellion significantly impacted the early United States and galvanized support for creating a stronger national government. Many saw the Rebellion as a sign of the weakness of the Articles of Confederation, which was the country’s first form of a national government. They argued for adopting a new constitution to give the federal government more power to address economic instability and civil unrest issues.
Ultimately, the Rebellion rallied the framers to start the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to consider changes to the Articles of Confederation. The convention eventually produced a new Constitution, ratified in 1788 and passed in 1789. The new Constitution established a federal government with more extraordinary powers, including regulating commerce, levy taxes, and maintaining a standing army.
Scholars overlook Shay’s Rebellion despite its impact on the early United States. That is in part because it was largely unsuccessful and quickly suppressed. Nevertheless, it was seen as an embarrassing episode in the country’s history, as it highlighted the weakness of the early national government and the challenges faced by the new Nation.
Despite its limited success, Shay’s Rebellion is an essential chapter in the history of the United States. It is a testament to the determination and resilience of the country’s early citizens. It is a reminder of the struggles faced by the founders of the United States and the challenges they faced in building a new nation. Despite his actions, Shays is an important figure in American history. His Rebellion was a significant moment in the early history of the United States and helped spark a national conversation about taxation and government accountability issues.
History repeats, and certain things are a continuum. Just as Shays experienced, today, powerful men use the mechanism of government laws, psychological operations, crummy “mandates,” and media to benefit themselves at the people’s expense. They will then use their authority to demonize their opposition, portraying them as an existential threat to the state to polarize the debate, isolate their critics, and keep the rest of the populace on the sideline.
Honest and comprehensive research shows that the majority of the Shaysites as decent, dignified, and restrained Americans. Of course, a small number were indeed bad actors, like in any group. They banded together to get through an experience that is not all that different from today. At the time of the Rebellion, the narrative claimed, in a typical broad brush, that the Shaysites were bumbling drunken insurrectionists. Today, the collective smears those who defend the Bill of Rights as “right-wing domestic terrorists.” Daniel Bullen, in his book Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion, provides this assessment:
When you look at events from the ground, where people experienced them, it is clear that the protests were never a rebellion. The people’s protests were all in line with a long English tradition of direct theatrical action. They staged more than a dozen protests over five months, without a single act of violence. The farmers never made any attempt to overthrow or supplant their government. They repeatedly disavowed any such desire in their letters. By the time they took action, they had sent scores of petitions to Boston over a year and a half, begging for reforms to the openly unjust policies that threatened their property and liberties. But even when reforms made it out of the House of Representatives, they were suppressed by Bowdoin and the merchant elites who held power in the Senate, who drove the farmers to desperation by ignoring their concerns.
These farmers were also not a mob of disaffected riffraff but proud, cash-poor farmers, many of whom were distinguished veterans of the Revolution. Thirty were commissioned officers, three were members of the elite officers’ Society of the Cincinnati, and their ranks contained numerous state representatives. Their campaign enjoyed broad support among the towns’ militias, who shared their sufferings and either joined or refused to suppress them. They were tolerated well by government men, who did not disperse them but once in twelve protests. Nor did the farmers return fire when four of their men were shot down by government cannon. They simply fled to cries of “murder, murder.”6
The detestable Hollywood mob likely would never produce a pleasing motion picture about Shays. Rest assured, such an undertaking would, in an Archie Bunker-like narrative, trash the good and suffering traditional binary people of Western Massachusetts. On the other hand, they could dress up nonbinary actors playing the Regulators in Antifa black block garb to make them collectivist heroes.
Afterword
During the Shays Rebellion, unfair economic policies fueled the fire. Today, collectivist ideology primarily feeds the cauldron. People who question disgusting educational content or peacefully pray to end abortion get anti-Shaysite treatment. In the act of revolting revenge, the WOKE collective, through Leviathan’s power, virtually nullifies the Bill of Rights. The narrative relegates those who desire individuality and a classical society based on endowed rights as members of a vast right-wing conspiracy.
In a fusion with the government, lazy legacy media universally pontificate a pickled-brain notion that only a right-wing threat looms over the Nation. Meanwhile, terrorist activities by climate change cultists, such as the destruction of electric power systems, get zero lazy legacy media coverage or get reported as simple vandalism. The collective hive hijacked virtually every element of society. In a frightening show trial, the current administration works to purge military members who show the slightest sign of true allegiance to the Constitution.
Unlike Samual Adams, who may have been harsh toward Shaysites for genuine fear of losing the new Nation, today, it is different. Despite their fiat claims, the post-modern fusion of government, media, crony capitalists, and education (corporatocracy) care less about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The government recently passed a 1.7 trillion dollar “funding” bill. Unconstitutional fiat money feeds this grotesque pig feed (earmarks) filled with copious WOKE agenda items. Thirty-one trillion in debt is proof positive both parties do not give a damn about the Constitution.
However, the treasonist elite creating grotesque debt fear those who genuinely believe in the original precepts, a true commonwealth of individualism and natural law. Nonviolent J6 prisoners rotting in solitary confinement tell the story. Of course, like the Shaysites, a tiny minority got off the rails. On the other hand, the massive number of collectivist rioters and looters burning cities during the height of the Covid plan-demic get virtually no punishment. That insults the intelligence of people not under the spell of Tell-u-Vision. As a stark reminder, we no longer have the few, the proud; it is the ‘woke’ Marines. Moreover, it is all about the worship of the detestable New World Order.
Bottom lines: The Woke folk and nasty neoconservative elite mental giants with pea brains can pound sand. Furthermore, most of the otherwise pickled-brain population needs to get their puppet strings severed.
Governor Bowdoin’s high-handed treatment of the rebels may have contributed to his loss of the 1787 election, in which Hancock returned to office.
Because the authorities were required to read the proclamation that referred to the Riot Act before they could enforce it, the expression “to read the Riot Act” entered into everyday language as a phrase meaning “to reprimand severely,” with the added sense of a stern warning. The term remains in regular use in the English language.
Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion: An American Story, Daniel Bullen, 320 pages, Westholme Publishing, 2021. P. 15.
Ibid, p. 21. Bullen makes this observation concerning the Springfield Armory: “… when the government issued arrest warrants on January 10 for Daniel Shays and other leaders, Shays called his men together on January 19, 1787, in Pelham. Historians have always asserted that Shays was planning to seize the Springfield arsenal and wage war against the state—but the men only marched to Springfield five days later, when the government’s army was on the verge of arriving. How do we explain his crucial delay?”
Bullen does not address the execution of John Bly and Charles Rose. This entry is from Wikipedia via a reference to Richards, Leonard L. (2002-01-31). Shays’s Rebellion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Ibid, Bullen p. 23.
https://americangulag.org/
Fox News host Tucker Carlson released surveillance footage from the January 6 riot that appears to show two Capitol Police officers guiding Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon Shaman,” throughout the building in a friendly way. Carlson released the footage after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA gave him exclusive access. “If he was in the act of committing such a grave crime, why didn’t the officers standing right next to him place him under arrest?” Carlson asked. https://www.dailywire.com/news/tucker-carlson-releases-january-6-footage-that-raises-new-questions