Fade Resistance Performance:
Daniel Shays was American Revolutionary Patriot and the son of Irish immigrants Patrick and Margaret (Dempsey) Shays. He spent his early years as a landless farm laborer. Shays was accepted to the militia, during the American Revolution where he rose to the rank of captain in the 5th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army by 1777. He was involved in the Boston campaign and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He also fought in the Battle of Lexington and the Battle of Saratoga.
He was wounded during the war and resigned from the military unpaid in 1780. Upon returning home, he was summoned to court for unpaid debts, which he could not pay because he had not been paid in full for his military service. In 1780, General Lafayette presented him with an ornamental sword in honor of his military service. He later sold it for a few dollars to help pay off his debts, which was frowned upon by his peers.
After returning from the war, Daniel Shays was alarmed to discover that many of his fellow veterans and farmers were in the same financial situation as he. At commoners' meetings veterans asserted that they were treated unfairly upon release, and that businessmen were trying to squeeze money out of smallholders in order to pay their own debts to European war investors. Many Massachusetts rural communities first tried to petition the legislature in Boston, but the legislature was dominated by eastern merchant interests and did not respond substantively to those petitions. The petitions and proposals often included a request to issue paper currency. Such inflationary issues would depreciate the currency, making it possible to meet obligations made at high values with lower-valued paper.
The merchants, among them James Bowdoin, were opposed to these proposals because they were generally lenders who stood to lose. These proposals were repeatedly rejected. Governor John Hancock, accused by some of anticipating trouble, abruptly resigned in early 1785. When Bowdoin (a loser to Hancock in earlier elections) was elected governor that year, matters became more severe. Bowdoin stepped up civil actions to collect back taxes, and the legislature exacerbated the situation by levying an additional property tax to raise funds for the state's portion of foreign debt payments. Even comparatively conservative commentators like John Adams observed that these levies were "heavier than the People could bear".
Protests in rural Massachusetts turned into direct action in August 1786 after the state legislature adjourned without considering the many petitions that had been sent to Boston. On August 29, a well-organized force of protesters, Shays among them, marched on Northampton and successfully prevented the county court from sitting. The leaders of this and later forces proclaimed that they were seeking relief from the burdensome judicial processes that were depriving the people of their land and possessions. They called themselves Regulators, a reference to the Regulator movement of North Carolina that sought to reform corrupt practices in the late 1760’s. On September 2 Governor Bowdoin issued a proclamation denouncing such mob action, but took no military measures in response beyond planning militia response to future actions. When the court in Worcester was shut down by similar action on September 5, the county militia refused to turn out, much to Bowdoin's amazement.
Shays, who had participated in the Northampton action, began to take a more active leadership role in the uprising in November. On September 19, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indicted eleven leaders of the rebellion as "disorderly, riotous, and seditious persons." When the supreme judicial court was next scheduled to meet in Springfield on September 26, Shays organized an attempt to shut it down. They were anticipated by William Shepard, the local militia commander, who began gathering government-supporting militia the Saturday before the court was to sit. By the time the court was ready to open, Shepard had 300 men protecting the Springfield courthouse. Shays and Day were able to recruit a similar number, but chose only to demonstrate, exercising their troops outside Shepard's lines, rather than attempt to seize the building. The judges first postponed the hearings, and then adjourned on the 28th without hearing any cases. Shepard withdrew his force, which had grown to some 800 men (to the Regulators' 1,200), to the federal armory, which was then only rumored to be the target of seizure by the activists.
Some four thousand people signed confessions acknowledging participation in the events of the rebellion (in exchange for amnesty); several hundred participants were eventually indicted on charges relating to the rebellion. Most of these were pardoned under a general amnesty that only excluded a few ringleaders. Eighteen men, including Shays, were convicted and sentenced to death. Most of these either had their convictions overturned on appeal, were pardoned, or had their sentences commuted. Shays was pardoned in 1788 and he returned to Massachusetts from hiding in the Vermont woods. He was, however, vilified by the Boston press, who painted him as an archetypal anarchist opposed to the government.
Shays was later granted a pension by the federal government for the five years he served in the Continental Army without pay. Shays lived the last few years of his life in poverty, a heavy drinker. He supported himself on his pension and by working a small parcel of land. Shays died at age 78 in Sparta, New York and was buried at the Union Cemetery.