Shays’s Rebellion

                                                  Shays’s Rebellion

Shays’s Rebellion was an armed revolt that took place in Western Massachusetts from August 29, 1786 to February 3, 1787. The rebellion was called so after the name of its leader Daniel Shays.

 Shays rebellion(Foner, 2006; Richards, 2002, Zinn, 1985)  had its origins in the deteriorating economic conditions in America in the post revolution period. The position in Massachusetts was much worse. The farmers were badly hit due to failure of crops. Even for the produce brought to markets, there were no fair prices. The farmers had to sell their lands at abnormally low prices to survive. They were deep in debts and had no resources to repay.

 The State met the Civil war expenses by borrowing money from wealthy people against Issue of notes. These notes came for payment in 1786. The State had no resources to repay .So they imposed additional taxes on the people, which affected the small farmers very sadly (Foner, 2006; Richards, 2002, Zinn, 1985). The other states responded to this type of situation by postponing debt and mortgage repayment. But the governments in Massachusetts initiated no such relief measures. When the farmers failed to repay the loans, the borrower filed cases in courts. The courts issued warrants for their arrests and many of them were jailed.
 The disgruntled farmers revolted. The farmers gathered arms and seized control of the court houses so that judgements from courts ordering imprisonment of farmer for failure to repay the debts or failure to repay government taxes can be stopped. The judicial process came to a stand still. The revolt was led by Daniel Shays, an ex-army man and so was called Shays’s rebellion (Foner, 2006; Richards, 2002, Zinn, 1985).
 The situation was aggravated by the action of Governor Bowdoin, who instead of helping the debt ridden farmers through debt relief measures, ordered that the State debts should be paid and defaulters of taxes should be punished with foreclosure of their farms and jail. The rebels even tried to attack Springfield armoury and take away weapons from there (Foner, 2006; Richards, 2002, Zinn, 1985).

The revolt of the farmers sent tremors through the governments. Several misrepresentations of the intentions of the rebels were made. Some people pictured the rebellion as the fight of the landless to snatch lands from the landowners and distribute them equally (Foner, 2006; Richards, 2002, Zinn, 1985). Some people misrepresented as an instigation by the erstwhile British settlers, who wanted to the newly born America to be unsettled. But nobody gave the right picture to the Government at the centre. Even George Washington could be misled on the real reasons for the rebellion.

The main argument of the given passage is that the National leaders were very much perturbed by the Shays’s rebellion. They looked at it as an effort to level the inequalities in the new nation. They were appalled by the inability of the State Government to deal with the situation. Their fears led to the idea of the need for strong Central Government and subsequent developments led to the writing of the United States Constitution(Foner, 2006; Richards, 2002, Zinn, 1985).

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