Many Americans tried to return to their old lives after the Revolutionary War. It was easy for some, but it was difficult or near impossible for the others. Many farmers had a hard time reverting to their post-revolutionary ways and ordeals, and this proved challenging. Suffering from high debt, farmers in central Massachusetts and western Massachusetts tried to start over and build new lives. The government, on the other hand, did nothing to assist Americans who were trying to return to their lives from the brutality of war. Farmers were put were imprisoned by law enforcement for lack of paying off their debts. All of these issues caused a small rebellion which grew into one of the largest armed rebellions after the Revolutionary War. The leader of the Rebellion, Daniel Shays, later called his band of angry farmers Shays’ Rebellion. Shays’ Rebellion was a poorly planned and unnecessary revolt hurting the cause it meant to help. Shays’ rebellion originated from a small group of farmers from Massachusetts fighting against high taxes. These farmers organized their resistance in ways similar to the American Revolutionary War. They called special meetings of the people to protest conditions. They even agreed on coordinated protests involving themselves and other people. The rebels closed courts by force in the fall of 1786 and liberated other imprisoned farmers who would be sympathetic to the rebels’ cause. Later on, the petty revolts flared into fully fledged revolts once the rebels came under the leadership of Daniel Shays. Shays was a general in the Continental Army that fought against the British during the American Revolutionary War; this is why the rebels had similar tactics that were used against the British. The... ... middle of paper ... ...rebels did have a few sympathizers. People like scholars and ex-Continental Army members supported or even joined the rebels themselves. The result of the rebels’ actions really showed the people who is in charge. James Bowdoin, the governor of Massachusetts at the time, opposed Daniel Shays and his rebels. He received a military force from the United States government to end the rebellion. He wiped out most of the rebels while the others scattered. While they were defeated, some rebels brought up some minor revolts that were quickly put down by local police force or military. Daniel Shays fled the scene and was later caught by military. He was granted a five year pension by the government. He served the pension in the Continental Army without getting paid. He later left the Army and became a heavy drinker. Daniel Shays died at the age of 78 in New York.
This Rebellion was so significant because it was the first time in the American Colonies that the Frontiersmen joined in something as bold as this. It also became a very significant rebellion because it hastened
The Shays Rebellion were series of protests in 1786 and 1787 by American farmers. However, protests began before Shays Rebellion, the Massachusetts protest convention, circa of 1780 is a prime example of this, “...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....”.(B) Many farmers in this area suffered from high debt as they tried to start new farms. Unlike many other state legislatures in the 1780s, the Massachusetts government didn't respond to the economic crisis . As a result local sheriffs seized many farms and some farmers who couldn't pay their debts were put in prison.These conditions led to the first major armed rebellion in the post-Revolutionary United States called Shays Rebellion. Anti-Federalist were primality poor uneducated farmers. An exception of a the poor Anti Federalist stereotype is George Mason, whom is a huge political influence of the Bill of Rights, exploits his ideology in his Virginia Bill of Rights “That
The men who were involved were called "embattled farmers" by the well-known New England poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson. These "embattled farmers" faced many long years of war. When the war ended, however, the 13 colonies would stand as a free country (Davidson).
After claiming independence from Great Britain, America had a tremulous start with thirteen states governing themselves using the Articles of Confederation and therefore not united under one whole government that set and regulated tax and commerce. With the states usually arguing and not providing financial support to the government, Shay’s Rebellion had begun in Massachusetts, urged by farmers, in protest of the tax collections and economic chaos. Without the political unrest caused by that one event, the future of America would have turned out differently; it would likely have been that the states would have plunged into massive debt and lost the freedoms achieved after the American Revolution. Afterwards, people had urged the creation of an effective government to support them, thus creating the Constitutional Convention. At the Convention, fifty-five delega...
The person that was chosen to lead the rebellion was Daniel Shays. Shays, born in Hopkinton Massachusetts, grew up as a farmer before he fought for his country in the War for Independence. During the War he fought in such key battles as the Battle of Lexington, Bunker Hill and Saratoga.
Slaughter I finally understand the meaning of the rebellion. Even though it was just briefly mention in our history book America, Past and Present Vol 1- by Divine, Robert A. in about half a page about the people from western Pennsylvanians protested the tax on Whiskey in in 1794 basically the end of the rebellion. (170) This revolution is way more than that, it created a precedent for future generations that when the people is not okay with laws created by government they can come together and protest against it. A few years later we see that this was the case on the civil war were the south was not happy with the government abolition of slavery and they came together an acted against the president and the federal government. In my case I am a true believer that we must learn from the past to be able to enjoy a better
...o consider the charms of liberty as imaginary and delusive.” John Jay in this document expresses his fear of the good hearted workers will lose confidence in prominent social figures thus causing civil unrest. He shows his concern on the fact that before they had a purpose or cause, ie independence, and not they are just going with the flow. Daniel Shays was an American soldier, revolutionary, and farmer, famous for being a leader of Shays ' Rebellion, an uprising against oppressive debt collection and tax policies in Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787. Instead of addressing the matter formally and politely they went straight to the source: the courts. Shays’ Rebellion shut down courts, stopped proceeding and stopped courts from collecting bankruptcies. This proved to the working class something needed to be done about the government or there would be constant revolts.
The reason that Shays’ led Shays’ rebellion is because that poor farmers could not pay their debts and the government kept on raising taxes so more people were put into to debtors prison. That caused problems with the farmers causing Shays’ Rebellion. Those are also some reasons that Daniel Shays’ had his rebellion which had been caused to solve those problems but had also shown the weakness of the articles of confederation
They were the people who actively participated and sacrificed their lives. Therefore the side they chose to fight on was heavily influenced by their “local interests, grudges, and unfulfilled yearnings [Page 87].”In summary, poor farmers, wanted political rights and land. For slaves they yearned for freedom. Women wanted to have the same rights as men. Native Americans wanted the colonists to stop encroaching on their land. Many of these desires coincided while other clashed. Therein lay the chaos that drove the American Revolution. While many of the people did not succeed the ideas they fought for became deeply embedded into
First, the Revolutionary War was the first instance of Americans preserving their freedoms. We were unhappy about how the British were treating us so we fought back. One issue was taxation without representation. Some people are still unhappy about how they are being treated by the government so they fight back, like the colonists. For example, Colin Kaepernick was unhappy
Shay organized an uprising to shut down the courts and it was held at the court house, Shay and the farmers held this parade to show to the government that they were been mistreated and that the court should shut down the tax bill so taxes wouldn’t be collected and that the farmers land wouldn’t be taken away from them. The court and states were unable to stop the taxes bill because it was not under the Articles of confederation for them to do so or they had no power given to them by the Confederation to do so even the government itself could help the farmers because it also wasn’t under the
The elite opted to prevent rebellions which voiced the opinions of disregarded members of society such as women, slaves, indentured servants, and men who didn't own land, by intervening and taking them into their own hands because they wanted to preserve their power. In 1780, Shay's rebellion, led by Daniel Shay, a veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill, allowed farmers who were unable to pay their mortgage, to speak out. Creating chaos amongst the peaceful streets of Springfield, armed farmers were stopped by state militia. Shay's rebellion led way to the Philadelphia Convention in which fifty-five men representing twelve states congregated on 1787, in proposal of drafting a new constitution. Through the occurrence of the American Revolution, they were aware of the power that their people were able to execute and wanted to stabilize the government by creating a new Constitution....
The American citizens took matters into their own hands and decided to rebel. Although the rebellion against the leaders of the U.S. was nationwide, most of it started on college campuses. One of the first groups known to take a stand was a group of college students that joined forces. They called themselves the Students for a Democratic Society. This group contributed greatly to the expansion of the movement...
Before the American Revolution, there were social and economic changes which upset frontiersmen. They became agitated due to their social situation with Indians and their failing local government. In response to these annoyances, frontiersmen chose to use violence to achieve their demands. During this period of civil unrest, two attempted revolutions in particular made national headlines: The March of the Paxton Boys and The Regulator Movement. The movements differed because the Paxton Boys demanded social change while the Regulator Movement called for economic change. Both revolutions were similar because they used violence as a way to achieve their demands. The Paxton Boys rallied around the concept of retaliation against Indians; The
The words whiskey and rebellion both have the ability to entice a gambit of emotions, and in 1794 they did. Like most great uprisings the Whiskey Rebellion was preceded by the rich exploiting or taxing those who were already taxed out. Our country is infamous for its rebellion against taxes; one could argue that rebelling against a ruling class is the core foundation of our great country’s history and make-up. My goal is to explore why this rebellion deserves the place in history that it hold, whether it was successful or not, but most importantly what did our nation’s leaders learn from this event?