Read complete books and articles on: Shays' Rebellion

Shays's Rebellion - 1786–87, armed insurrection by farmers in W Massachusetts against the state government. Debt-ridden farmers, struck by the economic depression that followed the American Revolution, petitioned the state senate to issue paper money and to halt foreclosure of mortgages on their property and their own imprisonment for debt as a result of high land taxes. Sentiment was particularly high against the commercial interests who controlled the state senate in Boston, and the lawyers who hastened the farmers' bankruptcy by their exorbitant fees for litigation. When the state senate failed to undertake reform, armed insurgents in the Berkshire Hills and the Connecticut valley, under the leadership of Daniel Shays and others, began (Aug., 1786) forcibly to prevent the county courts from sitting to make judgments for debt. In September they forced the state supreme court at Springfield to adjourn. Early in 1787, Gov. James Bowdoin appointed Gen. Benjamin Lincoln to command 4,400 men against the rebels. Before these troops arrived at Springfield, Gen. William Shepard's soldiers there had repelled an attack on the federal arsenal. The rebels, losing several men, had dispersed, and Lincoln's troops pursued them to Petersham, where they were finally routed. Shays escaped to Vermont. Most of the leaders were pardoned almost immediately, and Shays was finally pardoned in June, 1788. The rebellion influenced Massachusetts's ratification of the U.S. Constitution; it also swept Bowdoin out of office and achieved some of its legislative goals.

See G. R. Minot, History of the Insurrections in Massachusetts in 1786 (1788, repr. 1971); R. J. Taylor, Western Massachusetts in the Revolution (1954, repr. 1967); M. L. Starkey, A Little Rebellion (1955); D. P. Szatmary, Shays' Rebellion (1980).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: Shays' Rebellion

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1.

Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection » Read Now
by David P. Szatmary. 182 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Shays Rebellion THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS Amherst, 1980 SHAYS REBELLION The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection...Publication Data Szatmary David, 1951- Shays...
2.

A Little Rebellion » Read Now
by Marion L. Starkey. 270 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...records kept at the time of Shays Rebellion. My thanks to farmers in and...many valuable monographs on Shays Rebellion, generously opened his massive...that what came to be...
3.

Western Massachusetts in the Revolution (Chap. 8 "Shays' Rebellion") » Read Now
by Robert J. Taylor. 230 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Shays 103 VII. Shays Rebellion 128 VIII. End...attention until the time of Shays Rebellion; yet both before and after...and tumults, culminating in Shays Rebellion, until...
4.

The Farmers' Movement, 1620-1920 » Read Now
by Carl C. Taylor. 519 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...only about such episodes as Shays Rebellion, the Populist party, and the...description of an episode in Shays Rebellion in 1786 might, if it were...hundred and twenty years...
5.

The Era of the American Revolution: Studies Inscribed to Evarts Boutell Greene ("The Massachusetts Conservatives In the Critical Period" begins on p. 349) » Read Now
by Richard B. Morris. 420 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...The Era of the American Revolution The Era of the American Revolution STUDIES INSCRIBED TO EVARTS BOUTELL GREENE Edited by RICHARD B. MORRIS NEW YORK:...
6.

The Rise and Fall of Democracy in Early America, 1630-1789: The Legacy for Contemporary Politics (Chap. 3 "Democratic Political Culture in The Eighteenth Century") » Read Now
by Joshua Miller. 158 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...democracy. Jefferson defended Shays Rebellion, but he also called the Federalist...that have come to be called Shays Rebellion. 28 Although Daniel Shays...from David P...
7.

New England in the Republic, 1776-1850 (Chap. 6 "Rebellion") » Read Now
by James Truslow Adams. 438 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...conditions, culminating in the armed rebellion in Massachusetts. The formation of the...the late Joseph P. Warren on Shayss Rebellion, which proved of great value, and...
8.

Colonial Courts and Secured Credit: Early American Commercial Litigation and Shays' Rebellion, in Yale Law Journal » Read Now
by Claire Priest. 38 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
9.

The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought since the Revolution ("Feudal Relics, Democratic Liberalism, and the Problem of Daniel Shays" begins on p. 71) » Read Now
by Louis Hartz. 342 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, History, Entire Library

Hartz’s influential interpretation of american political thought since the Revolution. He contends that americanca gave rise to a new concept of a liberal society, a “liberal tradition” that has been central to our experience of events both at home and abroad. New Introduction by Tom Wicker; Index.
10.

The American States during and after the Revolution, 1775-1789 » Read Now
by Allan Nevins. 734 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
11.

The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery through the Civil War ("The Critical Period and Shays' Rebellion" begins on p. 226) » Read Now
by David Brion Davis, Steven Mintz. 576 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Drawing on a gold mine of primary documents--including letters, diary entries, personal narratives, political speeches, broadsides, trial transcripts, and contemporary newspaper articles--The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the past to life in a way few histories ever do. Here is a panoramic look...
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Drawing on a gold mine of primary documents--including letters, diary entries, personal narratives, political speeches, broadsides, trial transcripts, and contemporary newspaper articles--The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the past to life in a way few histories ever do. Here is a panoramic look at American history from the voyages of Columbus through the bloody Civil War, as captured in the words of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and many other historical figures, both famous and obscure. In these pieces, the living voices of the past speak to us from opposing viewpoints--from the vantage point of loyalists as well as patriots, slaves as well as masters--providing a more sophisticated understanding of the forces that have shaped our society, from the power of public opinion to the nearly absolute power of the slaveholder. For instance, on the issue of race, we find first-hand accounts of oppression suffered by Indians and slaves; the antislavery argument made before the Supreme Court by John Quincy Adams; the writings of Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists; and the bitter response of Southern politicians--all to give a richer portrait of this complex issue. Likewise, documents collected here provide a fuller understanding of such historical issues as Columbus's dealings with Native Americans, the Stamp Act Crisis, the Declaration of Independence, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Missouri Crisis, the Mexican War, and Harpers Ferry, to name but a few. Compiled by Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz, and accompanied by extensive illustrations of original documents, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the reader back in time, to meet the men and women who lived through the momentous events that shaped our nation.
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