Daniel shays rebellion picture

Daniel Shays, for whom the rebellion was eventually named, was a farmer in Pelham and an ex-soldier who fought at Bunker Hill and other significant Revolution battles. Shays became involved with the insurgents sometime in the summer of and had taken part in the Northampton action. He was offered a leadership position in August but refused.

Soon, however, Shays was leading a sizable group and the eastern elite claimed he was the leader of the entire rebellion and potential dictator. But Shays was only one leader in the rebellion. In September, Shays led a group of men to shut down the court in Springfield. Determined to use peaceful means, he negotiated with General William Shepard for the court to open while allowing protesters to parade.

A concerned Henry Knox, an artillery commander during the Revolutionary war and the future first U. Secretary of War, wrote to George Washington in to warn him about the rebels:. The insurgents found support in unexpected places. Chief Justice William Whiting of the Berkshire County Court was a wealthy conservative who publicly spoke out in favor of the rebellion, accusing the wealthy state legislatures of making money off the impoverished farmers and claiming the farmers were obligated to disrupt government in response.

Legendary patriot Samuel Adams , however, called for the execution of the rebellious farmers. The Massachusetts legislature offered leniency and flexibility to those with tax burdens. Amnesty was also offered to the rebels if they disavowed the efforts to close the courts. The farmers were expected to take oaths of allegiance to the state government.

However, a bill was passed excusing sheriffs from responsibility if they killed any insurgents and declaring harsh punishments for rebels in custody. Soon after, the legislature suspended the writ of habeas corpus for a period of time. Another bill prescribed the death penalty for militiamen who took part in the protests. Views View Edit History.

Main page Welcome Community portal Village pump Help center. Upload file Recent changes Latest files Random file Contact us. Download as PDF Printable version. English: A 19th century depiction of Shays' troops being repulsed from the armory at Springfield, Massachusetts in early ; differing from accounts of the event as it was widely reported that no muskets were fired from either side but rather grapeshot was fired from cannons.

Shockabrah talk contribs. 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 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. In , Daniel Shays resigned from the army unpaid and went home to find himself in court for non-payment of debts. He soon realized that he was not alone in his inability to pay his debts and began organizing for debt relief.

One early protest against the government was led by Job Shattuck of Groton, Massachusetts , in , who organized residents to physically prevent tax collectors from doing their work. 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 citing health reasons, though some suggested that he was anticipating trouble. 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.

Protests in rural Massachusetts turned into direct action in August after the state legislature adjourned without considering the many petitions that had been sent to Boston. They called themselves Regulators , a reference to the Regulator movement of North Carolina, which sought to reform corrupt practices in the late s. 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.

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 that he was one of its leaders. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indicted 11 leaders of the rebellion as "disorderly, riotous, and seditious persons". 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.

Shepard withdrew his force which had grown to around 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. Samuel Adams claimed that foreigners "British emissaries" were instigating treason among citizens.

Adams helped draw up a Riot Act and a resolution suspending habeas corpus so the 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. Warrants were issued for the arrest of several of the protest ringleaders, and a posse of around 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. 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, , Governor Bowdoin proposed creating a privately funded militia army. 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. 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 surround and attack the armory simultaneously. Shays had one group east of Springfield near Palmer.

A third force under Eli Parsons was situated to the north at Chicopee. 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. 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 [ 48 ] with most of the rebel forces fleeing north. Shays's and Day's men eventually regrouped at Amherst, Massachusetts. General Lincoln immediately began marching west from Worcester with the 3, men that had been mustered. The rebels moved generally north and east to avoid him, eventually establishing a camp at Petersham, Massachusetts.

They raided the shops of local merchants for supplies along the way and took some of the merchants hostage. Lincoln pursued them and reached Pelham on February 2, around 20 miles 32 km from Petersham. They surprised the rebel camp so thoroughly that the rebels scattered "without time to call in their out parties or even their guards".

Most of the leadership escaped north into New Hampshire and Vermont , where they were sheltered despite repeated demands that they be returned to Massachusetts for trial. Lincoln's march marked the end of large-scale organized resistance. Ringleaders who eluded capture fled to neighboring states, and pockets of local resistance continued.

Some rebel leaders sought assistance from Lord Dorchester , the British governor of the Province of Quebec who reportedly promised assistance in the form of Mohawk warriors led by Joseph Brant. The bills also authorized state payments to reimburse Lincoln and the merchants who had funded the army and authorized the recruitment of additional militia.

This bill forbade any acknowledged rebels from holding a variety of elected and appointed offices.

Daniel shays rebellion picture

Most of Lincoln's army melted away in late February as enlistments expired, and he commanded only 30 men at a base in Pittsfield by the end of the month. They raided the shops of merchants and the homes of merchants and local professionals, establishing an operational headquarters at Bingham's Tavern. This came to the attention of Brigadier John Ashley, who mustered a force of around 80 men and caught up with the rebels in nearby Sheffield late in the day for the bloodiest encounter of the rebellion: 30 rebels were wounded one mortally , at least one government soldier was killed, and many were wounded.

Four thousand people signed confessions acknowledging participation in the events of the rebellion in exchange for amnesty. Several hundred participants were eventually indicted on charges relating to the rebellion, but most of these were pardoned under a general amnesty that excluded only a few ringleaders. Eighteen men were convicted and sentenced to death, but most of these had their sentences commuted or overturned on appeal or were pardoned.

John Bly and Charles Rose were hanged on December 6, Shays was pardoned in and he returned to Massachusetts from hiding in the Vermont woods. The crushing of the rebellion and the harsh terms of reconciliation imposed by the Disqualification Act all worked against Governor Bowdoin politically. He received few votes from the rural parts of the state and was trounced by John Hancock in the gubernatorial election of The legislature cut taxes and placed a moratorium on debts and also refocused state spending away from interest payments, resulting in a percent decline in the value of Massachusetts securities as those payments fell in arrears.

Vermont was an unrecognized independent republic that had been seeking independent statehood from New York's claims to the territory. It became an unexpected beneficiary of the rebellion by sheltering the rebel ringleaders. Alexander Hamilton broke from other New Yorkers, including major landowners with claims on Vermont territory, calling for the state to recognize and support Vermont's bid for admission to the union.

He cited Vermont's de facto independence and its ability to cause trouble by providing support to the discontented from neighboring states, and he introduced legislation that broke the impasse between New York and Vermont. Download as PDF Printable version. English: Daniel Shays, leader of Shays' Rebellion. Page Public domain Public domain false false.

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