Home
:
Book details
:
Book description
Description of
Daniel Shays's Honorable Rebellion: An American Story
On January 25, 1787, in Springfield, Massachusetts, militia Major General William Shepard ordered his cannon to fire grapeshot at a peaceful demonstration of 1,200 farmers approaching the federal arsenal. The shots killed four and wounded twenty, marking the climax of five months of civil disobedience in Massachusetts, where farmers challenged the states authority to seize their farms for flagrantly unjust taxes. Government leaders and influential merchants painted these protests as a violent attempt to overthrow the state, in hopes of garnering support for strengthening the federal government in a Constitutional Convention. As a result, the protests have been hidden for more than two hundred years under the misleading title, Shayss Rebellion, the armed uprising that led to the Constitution. But this widely accepted narrative is just a legend: the rebellion was almost entirely nonviolent, and retired Revolutionary War hero Daniel Shays was only one of many leaders. Read more