40 Fun Facts About Shays' Rebellion

Which Declaration of Independence signer won back the governorship in a landslide after Shays' Rebellion?

John Hancock had quit the governorship in 1785 citing ill health, though some suspected he saw trouble coming. He returned to trounce the man who had crushed the rebels.

Which future president, then America's envoy in Paris, shrugged off Shays' Rebellion as healthy for liberty?

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787 that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. He refused to be alarmed by the uprising.

Which leader of Boston's anti-British protests argued during Shays' Rebellion that rebels should be put to death?

Samuel Adams backed revolt against a king but held that a republic's wrongs should be fixed at the ballot box. He urged the governor to answer the farmers with military force.

Which French officer gave Daniel Shays an ornamental sword that Shays later sold to help pay his debts?

Lafayette presented swords to several of his officers in 1780. Fellow officers frowned on the sale, but Shays argued that he already owned a sword.

In which town on the Connecticut River did Shays' rebels march on a federal armory in January 1787?

Springfield's arsenal had been the main American weapons store of the war against Britain. It later became the army's chief firearms factory and closed in 1968.

Shays' Rebellion convinced many Americans to replace which weak national charter, in force since 1781?

The Articles of Confederation took over three years to ratify because Maryland held out over western land claims. Delegates met to revise them and wrote a new constitution instead.

Which retired general did Shays' Rebellion help draw back into public life at the Constitutional Convention?

George Washington, asked to calm the unrest with his influence, answered that influence is not government. He wanted a system able to secure lives, liberties and property.

What became of Daniel Shays after he was sentenced to death for his part in Shays' Rebellion?

He was pardoned in 1788 and came home from hiding in the woods. Of eighteen men condemned to death, only two were ever hanged.

Which buildings did armed crowds surround during Shays' Rebellion to stop farms being seized for unpaid debt?

Courthouses were where creditors won the judgments that let sheriffs take land and cattle. The first was shut down in August 1786 by a well-organized crowd.

Which 1790s tax revolt in western Pennsylvania met a federal army, a force Daniel Shays and his men never faced?

The Whiskey Rebellion was put down using military powers that the new Constitution had created. Farmers there were protesting a federal tax on distilled spirits.

Which side in the Constitution debate cited Shays' Rebellion as proof the central government was too weak?

Federalists pointed to the uprising as an example of the national government's weakness. One newspaper went further and branded every opponent of the Constitution a Shaysite.

To which independent republic, later the fourteenth state, did leaders of Shays' Rebellion flee to escape trial?

Vermont sheltered the fugitives despite repeated demands to hand them back. Its power to cause trouble that way helped win it support for statehood.

What stopped Congress from sending its own soldiers against Shays' Rebellion in the first weeks of 1787?

A lack of funds meant Congress could not recruit soldiers, so the state had to act alone. John Jay said the episode made federal inefficiency more and more manifest.

Who paid for the 3,000-man army raised in January 1787 to crush Shays' Rebellion?

Wealthy merchants, more than 125 of them, gave over £6,000 in a matter of weeks. The legislature later voted to pay them back.

Which general, who had accepted the British surrender at Yorktown, led the army sent against Shays' Rebellion?

Benjamin Lincoln took the sword at Yorktown as second in command, because Cornwallis sent a deputy. An earlier battle wound had left his right leg two inches shorter than his left.

At which 1775 battle near Boston did Daniel Shays fight so bravely that he was made an officer?

Bunker Hill earned Shays a second lieutenant's commission for bravery and skill. He later fought at Stony Point under Anthony Wayne.

Captured leaders of Shays' Rebellion were put on trial for which crime, punishable by death?

Treason trials followed the uprising's collapse, and eighteen men were condemned. Around four thousand others signed confessions in exchange for amnesty.

What did indebted farmers repeatedly petition lawmakers to issue in the years before Shays' Rebellion?

Paper money would lose value over time, letting farmers repay old debts in cheaper currency. Lenders who stood to lose saw the proposals rejected again and again.

What did the Shays' Rebellion protesters call themselves, a name borrowed from an earlier North Carolina movement?

Regulators was a name taken from North Carolina settlers who rose against corrupt officials in the 1760s. History remembers the later rebels as Shaysites instead.

What did the two cannons defending the federal armory fire into the ranks of Shays' rebels?

Grapeshot killed four rebels and wounded twenty after warning shots over their heads had failed. Neither side fired a single musket.

Daniel Shays helped guard which captured British officer, Benedict Arnold's accomplice, before his hanging in 1780?

John André was caught with Arnold's papers on West Point hidden in his stocking. Shays was probably the officer who escorted him to the gallows.

What rank had Daniel Shays reached in the Continental Army by the time he resigned in 1780?

Captain Shays commanded a company in the 5th Massachusetts Regiment. He left the army unpaid and came home to a summons over debts he could not settle.

Through what did the government army march all night to surprise Shays' rebels in their camp?

A snowstorm hid the advance so well that the rebels scattered without time to call in their guards. The rout at Petersham ended large-scale organized resistance.

Which governor called out the militia against Shays' Rebellion and was voted out of office within months?

James Bowdoin was also a scientist who worked with Benjamin Franklin on electricity. Bowdoin College in Maine was named in his honor.

Which militia general armed his men from the federal armory, without permission, to hold it against Shays' rebels?

William Shepard never got clearance from the Secretary of War to open the federal arsenal. He later served in Congress, and a statue of him stands in Westfield.

Which former Boston bookseller was Secretary of War when Shays' rebels marched on the federal armory?

Henry Knox had hauled captured cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston in the first winter of the war. He had opened his own bookshop in the town in 1771.

Which rebel leader's intercepted message left Daniel Shays to attack the federal armory without reinforcements?

Luke Day wrote that he could not attack until a day later, but defenders seized the note. Only two of the three rebel columns advanced, expecting help that never came.

In which Maryland city did delegates from five states meet as Shays' Rebellion began and call for a wider convention?

Annapolis drew only twelve delegates, too few to act, so they summoned every state to meet the following May. The uprising made that call hard to ignore.

Shays' Rebellion helped push the states to send delegates in 1787 to which city, where the Constitution was written?

Philadelphia's gathering came to be dominated by advocates of strong government. One historian says the revolt convinced state elites that the meeting must take place.

Shays' Rebellion helped persuade Constitutional Convention delegates that crises needed what kind of executive?

A single president, delegates reasoned, would respond more effectively to national disturbances than several men sharing power. They chose one despite their fear of tyranny.

In which state did Daniel Shays spend his final years, working a small plot of land in poverty?

New York became his home after the Boston press painted him as an archetypal radical. He died in the town of Sparta in 1825, aged 78.

What did the federal government eventually grant Daniel Shays for five unpaid years in the Continental Army?

A pension from the federal government helped support the old rebel at the end of his life. He had resigned from the army in 1780 and gone home to face his creditors.

What mistake on Daniel Shays's original gravestone led to a new marker being dedicated in 2016?

A misspelled surname, missing its final letter, had stood over the grave for generations. The old stone had no room for the fix, so a descendant led the drive for a new one.

Daniel Shays was born in Massachusetts to immigrant parents from which country?

Ireland was his parents' homeland, but Shays himself was born in the town of Hopkinton in 1747. He spent his early years as a landless farm laborer.

Which hereditary order of Continental Army officers expelled a member in 1787 for helping lead Shays' Rebellion?

The Society of the Cincinnati dismissed the rebel officer in July 1787. The general who had chased down the rebels was the first head of its state branch.

Which state avoided its own Shays' Rebellion in 1786 when a debtor-friendly country party won the legislature?

Rhode Island made its creditors accept devalued currency in payment of debts. Lenders in Boston watched with concern, fearing the same medicine at home.

After Shays' Rebellion collapsed, some rebel leaders sought help from the British governor of which province?

Quebec's governor, Lord Dorchester, reportedly promised Mohawk warriors led by Joseph Brant. His superiors in Britain vetoed the plan, and no help ever came.

Which February 1787 law barred admitted participants in Shays' Rebellion from holding elected and appointed offices?

The Disqualification Act backfired on the governor who enforced it. Rural voters turned on him over its harsh terms, and he lost the next election badly.

In which southwestern Massachusetts town was the last and bloodiest clash of Shays' Rebellion fought in February 1787?

Sheffield is where about 80 militiamen caught up with rebels who had just raided Stockbridge. Thirty rebels were wounded, and a roadside memorial now marks the site.

Shays' Rebellion may lie behind the Constitution's Article IV promise to protect states against what?

Domestic violence, in the Constitution's sense, means an uprising inside a state. The same events may explain why states can demand fugitives back from one another for trial.