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Abstract: Shays' Rebellion presents an uncomfortable chapter in our national narrative that defies easy explanation. This was a significant armed insurrection directed against the new Revolutionary government in the state where the struggle for independence began. Historians are sharply divided on what to make of these events. We lack a clear picture of who the rebels were and why they confronted state power in the way they did.
This article examines the period in microcosm. It focuses on the experiences of three men from a small frontier town at the heart of the troubles who were imprisoned for debts they owed in 1785-86, just prior to the Rebellion. Taken together, they present a picture of the larger political opposition that preceded the Rebellion itself. What author Tom Goldscheider finds stands in sharp contrast to the Federalist view that continues to hold sway.
He presents evidence that debt litigation played a critical role in the uprising, since economic conditions forced otherwise solid farmers and ardent patriots to turn to a select group of "moneyed men"for credit they needed to pay their taxes due in scarce specie. Goldscheider argues that these farmers saw their access to economic opportunities hampered by their lack of access to a political process in Boston framed under a constitution they did not endorse.
This article concludes that interpretations of the Rebellion have served to obscure the much more significant political movement that preceded Daniel Shays' precipitous call to arms.
On February 4, 1785, James Hunt, a yeoman farmer from Williamsburg, Massachusetts, was "committed to Gaol," the county jail in the neighboring town of Northampton. Two men he purportedly owed money to had him arrested and confined there, presumably as a means of collecting their just dues. Six days later, Hunt "broke his bonds for Liberty of yard without leave," and almost certainly went home to work on his farm. Luke Day was the only other prisoner of debt to defy the Hampshire County authorities and leave the Northampton jail of his own volition that year. Day, from West Springfield, co-led what came to be known as Shays' Rebellion the following fall. Hunt was re-confined to gaol on May 30, 1786, by a different set of plaintiffs, and again "went to liberty...