Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle

by Leonard L. Richards

During the bitter winter of 1786-87, Daniel Shays, a modest farmer and Revolutionary War veteran, and his compatriot Luke Day led an unsuccessful armed rebellion against the state of Massachusetts. Their desperate struggle was fueled by the injustice of a regressive tax system and a conservative state government that seemed no better than British colonial rule. But despite the immediate failure of this local call-to-arms in the Massachusetts countryside, the event fundamentally altered the course of American history. Shays and his army of four thousand rebels so shocked the young nation's governing elite—even drawing the retired General George Washington back into the service of his country—that ultimately the Articles of Confederation were discarded in favor of a new constitution, the very document that has guided the nation for more than two hundred years, and brought closure to the American Revolution.

The importance of Shays's Rebellion has never been fully appreciated, chiefly because Shays and his followers have always been viewed as a small group of poor farmers and debtors protesting local civil authority. In Shays's The American Revolution's Final Battle , Leonard Richards reveals that this perception is misleading, that the rebellion was much more widespread than previously thought, and that the participants and their supporters actually represented whole communities—the wealthy and the poor, the influential and the weak, even members of some of the best Massachusetts families.

Through careful examination of contemporary records, including a long-neglected but invaluable list of the participants, Richards provides a clear picture of the insurgency, capturing the spirit of the rebellion, the reasons for the revolt, and its long-term impact on the participants, the state of Massachusetts, and the nation as a whole. Shays's Rebellion, though seemingly a local affair, was the revolution that gave rise to modern American democracy.

Genres: History, American Revolution, American History, Nonfiction, War, American

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Leonard L. Richards, Ph.D. (University of California, Davis, 1968; A.B., University of California, Berkeley), is Professor Emeritus of History in the College of Humanities & Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focusing on 19th century United States. He has also taught at San Francisco State College and the University of Hawaii. His The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1987.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has its interesting parts, but gets a bit bogged down in constitutional politicking towards the end. Richards does a great job in showing how the traditional narrative of Shays's rebellion doesn't really work. In school we're told that this was a half-assed rebellion of bankrupt farmers trying to avoid debt; what Richards is showing here is that many of the most well-off families of Western Massachusetts were involved. This could be seen as more of an extension of the Revolution; instead of revolting against King George, the farmers were revolting against Boston, which they saw as completely ignoring them and acting only in the interests of the coastal merchants. (which is exactly what Boston was doing. And which is the same grievance that people in western Mass have today)
The problem is that after the story is told, Richards goes into all this stuff with the Constitutional Convention, and Hamilton assuming the state debt, and he gets away from his core story. I know all the economics are tied together, but I didn't pick up the book to read about all that Hamilton vs Madison stuff I already knew.
Also a good book for thinking about the way that history is shaped by certain tellers. The reason we think of Shays's Rebellion the way we do is because the story was told by the Boston elites in such a way as to make the rebellion sound less important than it was. Even calling it Shays's Rebellion makes it sound like the work of one guy, and not a movement of hundreds of people from dozens of towns.

[David Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of mobs. Back-country farmers unwilling to pay their debs instead formed armed bands who stormed courthouses and shut down judicial proceedings by force. When the Massachusetts government tried to restore order, they attacked a federal armory, but were defeated there, and in another battle when they let their guard down and got ambushed by a more disciplined body of government troops. The survivors fled across state lines to evade justice, often squatting on other people's farmland.

This is a story of villains. Rich, greedy speculators who rigged elections, bought up poor veterans' assets at pennies on the dollar, then used their control of government to raise taxes to unheard-of heights and pay themselves back with the proceeds. When people fought back, they tried to send in the militia, but found the citizen-soldiers unwilling to suppress their fellow Americans. So they hired a mercenary army, crushed the rebels, and tried to hang as many of them as possible to set an example against further disobedience. To add insult to injury, they spread propaganda painting the earnest rebels as thugs and bandits.

This is a story of balance. At a time of chaos when most states were devaluing their currency and defaulting on their debts, Massachusetts elected strong-money men who were determined to keep the state's promises. But in their zeal the strong-money men went too far, raised taxes too high, and provoked uprisings. The strong-money men, after a few scares, managed to defeat the rebels, but they didn't receive the thanks of a grateful public. Instead, the next election tossed them out as destabilizing troublemakers and brought in populare John Hancock, who arranged for clemency for most of the rebels, slashed the offensive taxes, and generally simmered things down. Yes, the rebellion scared men across the colony and helped spur support for a new, more powerful federal government, but even though that federal government was itself soon dominated by strong-money men, their leader Alexander Hamilton went about things the smart way — rather than jack up taxes to pay down the national debt, Hamilton left it floating, cheaply, restoring the nation's credit without stirring up too much resentment (outside of some Pennsylvania whiskey-distillers, but that's another question).

As you can see, the 1786 "Shay's Rebellion" — best known today as one of the events taught in U.S. history classes as spurring the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution — is hard to pin down. Richards' book is certainly most sympathetic to the rebels, and least sympathetic to the "strong-money men," who he largely dismisses as "speculators." But his unpacking of the rebellion, based on detailed public records of the revolt's participants, is consistently interesting.

- While the rebels are often dismissed as poor farmers, Richards shows many of them were quite well off. Many were in debt, yes, but not all rebels were debtors and not all debtors rebelled.
- The very name "Shay's Rebellion" is something of a misnomer. Daniel Shays was one of a number of leaders; his name became associated with the whole thing by the rebellion's enemies as part of the propaganda battle over how the uprising was to be portrayed.
- Political factors seemed to loom larger than economic ones. In the intellectual ferment following the American Revolution, the farmers of western Massachusetts saw the far-off government in Boston as tyrannical, with its property-based suffrage, districts weighted to the eastern towns, and appointed judiciary unresponsive to the popular will. That was even before it jacked up taxes many times higher than Britain ever had, or refused to acknowledge petitions demanding change. Instead, the rebels drew on a long tradition of colonial backcountry "Regulators" stepping in to correct injustices themselves.
- Roberts traces the networks of the rebels, and finds that family and social ties were often more important than socioeconomic status in determining who rebelled
- He also places Shay's Rebellion in its proper context, with experiments in then-radical democracy in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont contrasting against more conservative governments in Massachusetts and Maryland
- The role of moderates like Hancock and General Benjamin Lincoln was also striking — men who didn't truck with revolts, but also were appalled at the self-defeating greed and cruelty that Massachusetts' hardliners evinced. Though the hard-liners were in the driver's seat for the rebellion itself, the moderates ended up with the last laugh.

Altogether a fascinating book. Something of a starting point rather than a comprehensive treatment; with barely 160 pages it leaves some elements of the scenario lightly sketched rather than thoroughly explored. The narrative and the then-groundbreaking analysis of rebels' social networks get the most space, with other elements (like the perspective of the non-rebels) treated more in passing. In part that's because this is intended as a corrective to past narratives of Shay's Rebellion that privileged these elite perspectives.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the outset of this review I must say that the spelling of this books title, Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution Final Battle, gnaws at me. The reason for this minor complaint is rooted in my understanding of grammar. My recollection of grammar is such that if one is showing possession of something, i.e. an object, idea, action, etc. than an 's is called for. However, if in fact the name of the individual or other entity ends with an s than one need only place an ' after said s. That's all. Moving on. In his book, Leonard L. Richards, more than the vast majority of authors on this subject, qualified various alternative, yet plausible, causes behind the insurrection we know today as Shays' Rebellion.
Bypassing the standard offer of cause in this critical moment in American History, poor dirt farmers in western Massachusetts, unable to pay their taxes, rising up against the establishment, Richards digs deeper. Through heavily researched statistics culled from various state archives, Richards splices together a plethora of forces ranging from taxes to family unity, to interpretations of Massachusetts state government acting no different from the British monarchy. I can say that through reading this work by Leonard Richards I have demonstrably increased my understanding of the catalyst behind this final battle of the Revolutionary War.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an examination of the causes and some of the results of this rebellion rather than a detailed description of the actual rebellion. It presents its case about the causes of the rebellion well and supports it with data. The narrative is not long; it is a reasonable introduction to the topic. The last section on some of the results of the rebellion is not quite as well supported and you need to read additional sources to get a complete account of that process.

[Rhuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Richards has done a thoroughly professional forensic exam of "Shays' Rebellion" in western Massachusetts. Surprisingly, there was still enough surviving data to do so, though it had to be mined by someone knowing what to look for. What emerged was a "tax revolt" story that seems parallel to modern "Tea Party" tempests, until one recalls there was no FDIC in the American Confederacy to relieve creditors faced with insolvency. Putting the screws on the taxable by manipulating state government led Massachussetts to the verge of civil war.

Professor Richards demonstrates that the revolt was hardly a "class war", nor universal among the indebted or revolutionary war veterans, but it was certainly a "people's movement" against the One Percent of its time. Despite widespread civil disgust with the new system and its corruption, the minority that did actually revolt were largely acting in response to local politics and under local leadership. Even so it was enough to scare both Boston and General Washington. The result was the "anti-mob" constitution still in effect, with its checks, balances, and Electoral College.

What is ironic is that modern Shaysites - the January '21 stormers of Washington - were surely *not* standing on this constitution, designed specfically to deligitimize this very kind of armed "peoples' protest." Washington himself would have ordered them "reduced" in the same manner as the Governor of Massachussetts, whose actions he heartily endorsed, with trials and nooses following. A warning to 2nd-Amendment fanatics who really do not know their sacred scripture nor how it truly originated.

[Mel Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent read. While I am not an expert on Shay's Rebellion, I have taught it for several years and had done some research on it to (so I thought) get my facts straight. But I learned a lot from Richards.
He debunks the idea that this was primarily poor farmers who couldn't pay property tax, and the assertion that most Revolutionary War veteran officers sided with the state of Massachusetts. Instead, he shows the the role of Massachusetts's debt policy and new constitution in creating the public unrest, and the influence of family ties, clergy, and small town community cohesion in determining where the rebellion would break out most strongly. His evidence is a granular analysis based on the lists of those who took oaths of allegiance to escape punishment, where they lived, their family records, etc. Further, he critiques the accounts offered by Henry Knox and George Richards Minot of the rebellion, accepted early as credible sources with first hand knowledge of the rebellion, pointing out their biases. And he notes that the legacy of the rebellion was substantial change in MA taxation policies, although admittedly this was in part due to the assumption of the state's debt by the federal government as part of Hamilton's plan.
He also discusses, though not exhaustively, the influence of the rebellion on the Constitution, and its reception and ratification. This discussion is a good reminder that the ratification of the Constitution was not a foregone conclusion at the time as we tend to think it reading our history in hindsight.

[Kim Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I seriously waffled back and forth on how many stars to give this book.

On the side for rounding up:
In the places where it was interesting, it was really interesting.
When I finished, I was surprised at how many tabs I had of things I found useful. Especially those I had marked for use in my history classes.

On the downside:
The title of the book is a total misnomer. There were probably only 30 pages about Shays' rebellion itself. The rest of it was about the political situation of the time.
The parts of the book that were less interesting left me with a "What?" feeling. There was a lot of information that I didn't see how it related.
He started off the book explaining that the story told about Shays' Rebellion in the history books is wrong. Then he circled back around to that same premise in the last chapter. However, I didn't completely get his point. Maybe it wasn't just a bunch of poor farmers the way it was taught in the history books, but it was about taxes and farmers rebelling against them -- at least I think that's what I got out of what he was saying. So, I'm not quite sure what his thesis even was.

In the end, the last point on my list was the strongest case, so I rounded down. (I would also not recommend this book for people not super familiar with the Revolution. He assumes a lot of prior knowledge.) However, I did learn a lot reading it.

[John Hively · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an outstanding history in every way possible. The research of Professor Richards refutes claims that only dirt poor farmers took part in the rebellion. In fact, he shows the rebellion was led by upper income folks from Western Massachusetts who clearly understood the tax they were being forced to pay was to going to be paid by the state to politically powerful speculators of Massachusett's war bonds. The bonds were worth virtually nothing, but corruption in the state government by the Boston elite, such as Sam Adams, had pushed for the government to enact the tax to pay off the bonds at original or par value.

The countryside rose up in rebellion and was mostly led by ex-Revolutionary war soldiers. Unfortunately for these courageous revolutionaries, they lost. However, the early elites of every state were scared out of their wits, and so they wrote the US Constitution, which provided for the president to be able to call out every state for their militia in order to put down rebellions of the common folks who opposed being used as financial cannon fodder for our republic's early elite class.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great overview of the complex interests at play in Shays's Rebellion, both in Massachusetts and in the American states. Pulls nicely into how this event impacts the Constitution and finding of the revolutionary war debt.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book fleshes out an episode in early US history that often doesn't get much more than a passing mention in history classes.

[Jarred Goodall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief, but solid read...learned a lot...excellent work, Dr. Richards!

[David Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

As armed uprisings go, Shays' Rebellion was a fairly minor affair. During the summer and fall of 1786, insurgent farmers in Massachusetts forcibly (but bloodlessly) closed six county courthouses and attempted to seize the federal arsenal in Springfield. In three brief, lopsided battles, state troops defeated the rebels and forced their leaders to flee or surrender. State officials indicted over 300 “Shaysites” (named after one of their leaders, Daniel Shays) for treason and insurrection, hanging two and reprieving the rest. The story might have ended there, and become a minor episode in American history, were it not for the uprising's consequences. Anxious (or ambitious) American patricians believed that the rebellion was a war of poor against rich, and feared it might happen again – and endanger their lives and property – if they did not give the states insurance against future risings. That insurance was the U.S. Constitution, drafted only a few months after Shays Rebellion, which gave the new federal government the power to raise an army in peacetime, suspend habeas corpus, and suppress rebellions. Shays and his cohorts thus became unacknowledged co-authors of the American Constitution, as influential in their way as James Madison and the Baron de Montesquieu.

Twentieth-century historians generally followed the lead of Henry Knox and other Federalists in describing the Massachusetts rebels as poor, heavily indebted farmers seeking government relief. In this succinct 2002 monograph, however, Leonard Richards finds that this characterization does not stand up against the facts. The 1786 rebels left behind a big paper trail: the records of the public conventions they held before taking up arms, the indictments issued by state courts, and the oaths that nearly 4,000 of them took in order to obtain amnesty from the state. Studying these records, Richards observes that 80 percent of the rebels came from 45 towns in three western counties, and that few of these towns – and few of the individual rebels he examined – had much trouble with indebtedness or severe poverty. Indeed, many came from families (Day, Dickinson, Shattuck) that were leading property-holders and office-holders in their communities. The rebels also did not consider debt relief their primary grievance; instead, they objected to clauses in the state's 1780 constitution that concentrated power in the hands of the Boston aristocracy, and, more strenuously, to an attempt by that aristocracy to mulct the state's farmers. The legislature decided in 1785 to pay off the state's entire Revolutionary War debt at face value, and raised poll and property taxes about 500% to do so – essentially declaring that it would transfer wealth from the countryside to the rich Boston speculators who had bought up the state's bonds at depressed prices. If there was class warfare in 1780s Massachusetts, the rich definitely fired the first shots. Finally, whatever Federalists may have feared, the rebels were not part of a broad national movement. While they borrowed a Carolinian name (Regulators) for themselves and sought aid from neighboring Vermont, the insurgents were intensely localist, generally hailing from self-sufficient towns like Pelham with a high level of internal cohesion. Often they joined the fighting because other members of their families had done so.

Richards also does a creditable job explaining why the rebellion, once suppressed, did not happen again – though here he draws largely on the insights of other scholars. Massachusetts voters were appalled by the state government's suspension of habeas corpus and suspension of pardoned rebels' political rights, and in April 1787 they voted in a new governor (John Hancock) and legislature, the latter of which cut taxes to the bone and suspended the former debt-payment plan. Suspicion of the wealthy remained high the following year, when Massachusetts' state convention met to ratify the new federal Constitution. The delegates approved the Constitution only by a narrow margin, supposedly because John Hancock offered moderate anti-Federalists the concession of a “recommended” bill of rights, but Richards implies that some of these men took bribes in exchange for their “aye” votes. Speaking of bribery, the new Federalist administration of Washington and Hamilton soon removed the primary economic grievance of Massachusetts citizens by persuading the federal Congress to buy up all of the states' old debts, including Massachusetts' 5-million-dollar war debt. This provided the rich holders of Massachusetts bonds with a large windfall; it also relieved the state of its largest public expense, allowing the legislature, by 1792, to cut taxes to one-fortieth of their 1786 level. The rising federal tide certainly lifted the New England fleet, and by 1800 it was one of the most staunchly pro-Federalist regions in the country. Daniel Shays and his followers became distant folk memories, until anti-government activists in the twentieth century revived them for new purposes.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shay's Rebellion occurred because of the greed and avarice of the Boston merchants and speculators. Basically, after purchasing the war bonds that were issued to Revolutionary soldiers in lieu of pay for a pittance they wanted the state to pay them at face value. A preponderance of the speculators had not participated in the Revolutionary war to any extent. This book points out that while a majority of the veterans stayed neutral in this fight, many more joined with Shay's and the regulators than sided with the State Government. While many histories portray Shay and the Regulators as poor ne'er-do-wells the facts speak otherwise. Going to a little used source for the facts rather than relying the "FOX news" sources of the day, the author provides a different view of what led to the Constitutional Convention and of the way in which it was passed. I recommend this book to anyone interested in US history and/or the idea of "Original Intent."

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Says that the rebels were not a bunch of penniless farmers. Though debt had a lot to do with it, 1780 Massachusetts Constitution was really unfair and legislature was out of touch. Rebels were families and communities. US Constitution ended up favoring speculators. Studied the actual lives of 2k rebels.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like short books that make a historical moment known and add to the historiography. This is that. Central to the neo-progressive view of the ratification of the constitution -- (basically it was a counter-revolutionary doctrine). That "Shay" and the movement of Regulators were not who they are said to be is central to this book.

[Linda Ahern · Rating 3 out of 5]

What has been taught in local folklore and in history books is brought into dispute in this book. Written by a professor of history at UMass who taught and studied rebellions I found the book well researched, although the writing could have been better.

[Brian Ditchek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book went into great detail about the reasons for the rebellion, including debtors and the western MA residents dissatisfaction with the Boston elite and their efforts to control the legislature. For that, I loved this book and got a lot out of it. Many thanks to the author.

[Craig Bolton]

Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle by Leonard L. Richards (2003)