Shays’ Rebellion

Why and where were social tensions in 1786?

• Farmers couldn’t pay tax - not enough specie (land was taken or the were arrested)

• Sep 1786 - Governor of New Hampshire called out 2000 militiamen to disperse several hundred farmers threatening the legislative assembly after it went against a promise to issue paper money.

  • Similar disturbances by angry farmers in Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia also occurred.

Shays’ Rebellion

• Most serious trouble ocurred in Massachusetts

  • The state legislature rejected the demand for paper money and insisted that taxes be paid in scarce specie.

  • Many farmers, who were unable to pay lost their land and some were imprisoned.

  • By summer 1786, western Massachusetts was upset.

  • When the legislature adjourned without heeding the farmers’ demands for paer money, mobs roamed he streets, preventing the courts from hearing debt cases.

• In January 1787, Daniel Shays led several hundred armed men toward the federal arsenal at Springfield - bankrupt farmer who had been a captain in the war.

  • The rebels were dispersed by 1000 militiamen and by February the insurgency had been put down.

• The rebellion alarmed the conservatives and encouraged the national government to strengthen its power. It proved that the Articles of Confederation were extremely flawed as the congress had no way to regulate the way taxation operated.

  • No proper army to put down these mobs

  • No standardised currency