During the bitter winter of 1786-87, Daniel Shays, a modest
farmer and Revolutionary War veteran, and his compatriot Luke Day
led an unsuccessful armed rebellion against the state of
Massachusetts. Their desperate struggle was fueled by the injustice
of a regressive tax system and a conservative state government that
seemed no better than British colonial rule. But despite the
immediate failure of this local call-to-arms in the Massachusetts
countryside, the event fundamentally altered the course of American
history. Shays and his army of four thousand rebels so shocked the
young nation's governing elite--even drawing the retired General
George Washington back into the service of his country--that
ultimately the Articles of Confederation were discarded in favor of
a new constitution, the very document that has guided the nation
for more than two hundred years, and brought closure to the
American Revolution.The importance of Shays's Rebellion has never
been fully appreciated, chiefly because Shays and his followers
have always been viewed as a small group of poor farmers and
debtors protesting local civil authority. In "Shays's Rebellion:
The American Revolution's Final Battle", Leonard Richards reveals
that this perception is misleading, that the rebellion was much
more widespread than previously thought, and that the participants
and their supporters actually represented whole communities--the
wealthy and the poor, the influential and the weak, even members of
some of the best Massachusetts families.Through careful examination
of contemporary records, including a long-neglected but invaluable
list of theparticipants, Richards provides a clear picture of the
insurgency, capturing the spirit of the rebellion, the reasons for
the revolt, and its long-term impact on the participants, the state
of Massachusetts, and the nation as a whole. Shays's Rebellion,
though seemingly a local affair, was the revolution that gave rise
to modern American democracy.
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