Shays' Rebellion 3/5

In western Massachusetts, Daniel shays and his followers had been speaking out against the state government's policies, but their entreaties had fallen on deaf ears. They decided they had to take action. The chaise eyes saw the courts as their enemies. They viewed the courses instruments of their eastern creditors of those people from Boston, and so that's when the began to see the courts, not as their Salvation, but as their damnation. On September 29th, 1786, a boiling point was reached. As the court prepared to convene, 1000 men came out of the wilderness on a hill above Springfield, Massachusetts. Shays now unsheathed his sword and ordered the fife and drum players to strike a platoon. The men began marching in cadence, sprigs of hemlock swaying on their heads as they held their weapons tightly. The rebels marched on the dead accords with muskets, many of them had guns. They also had clubs. They brought whatever was convenient or available to them. 

In troubled times, however, when there was fear of violence, the militia would attend the court proceedings in order to provide greater strength and authority. Jonathan Judd, one of the 900 government militiamen who stood inside the court building, recorded the events. Sorrowful day, brother against brother, father against son, militia, at the courthouse, and mob above the ferry. The mob threatened the lives of all who opposed them. The insurgents, they were ready to attack the government, militia. Calling upon his experience in the Revolutionary War, shays had his men make a show of loading their muskets. As soon as the weapons were loaded, Shay's charged with his men in a field toward the courthouse. Their mission was to shut down the courts by any means necessary. And at that point, the judges adjourned the court without doing any business. As long as the courts were shut down, none of the western farmers could be sent to jail for their debts. It was the first major victory for shays and his men who became known as chaise sites. 

This rebel army carried out numerous attacks across New England over the next few months. Shays and his men close courts in Northampton Concord and Worcester. At 1786 progressed, the uprising attracted nearly 9000 rebels spread across New England. As word of these attacks reached Boston, many wealthy businessmen became distraught with the growing rebellion, Samuel Adams decided to speak out. Rebellion against the king may be pardoned, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of the republic ought to suffer death. Samuel Adams reaction to the chaise was intemperate. It was Samuel Adams who thought that the leaders of the rebellion ought to be seized and hanged. As an example, really, as an example of what would happen to others who might rise against Republican government. Adams now wrote and put into law several new measures. They're very punitive laws. They passed a militia act in 1786, which basically said that if you were in the militia and you rebelled against the government or stopped one of these courts, you could be put to death. The second thing they did was suspend the writ of habeas corpus. 

So they could take anybody and imprison that person at will. And the third thing they did was pass a riot act in 1786. And this riot act said that if more than 12 people got together for any purpose that the government construed as negative, they could jail them, they could take away their properties and they would be tried for treason. This pushed the farmers to the final stage of the rebellion. As a retired George Washington set in his study in early 1786, he read through numerous letters that detailed troubling reports from across the nation. One of the letters was from Henry Knox. Henry Knox was one of the best offices in the Continental Army. A book sell on. I'm con hill in Boston. In the years before the revolution, his bookshop was a rendezvous for British offices in town. He would quiz them about military tactics in wisdom about strategy and act touring. After the war, Knox wrote many letters to the retired general, encouraging him to return to public life to help create a new government. Washington politely refused these pleas to leave his home at Mount Vernon, but his anxiety about the growing revolt was raised by the exaggerated description that he received from general Knox. 

The numbers of these people in Massachusetts constituted a body of 12 or 15,000 desperate and unprincipled men. We shall have a formidable rebellion against reason. This dreadful situation has alarmed every man of principle and property in New England. What is to afford a security against the violence of lawless men. Our government must be braced, changed or altered to secure our lives and property. Knox was successful. Washington was now deeply troubled that the nation was teetering into anarchy. Are we to have the goodly fabric that 8 years were spent in the rearing boat over our heads? His mankind left to themselves unfit for their government? I am mortified beyond expression. When I view the clouds which have spread over the brightest mourn that ever dawned upon my country. Washington acted quickly and in a letter of advice to the leaders of the Boston government, he wrote. No precisely what these insurgents aim at. If they have real grievances, redress them, if possible. 

Ignoring Washington's advice and obsessed with ending the uprising, Adams sent 300 cavalry into western Massachusetts to hunt down the leaders of the rebellion. In 1786, a group of light horsemen from Boston rode out to rotten Massachusetts captured job shadow in three other people and took them back to lost and in the process they had a fight and they slashed joke shout out his knee. And they also injured another surgeon. Rumors went wild. In the newspaper it said that job shattuck had been killed. He had his leg slashed off. And women had been gouged with swords that babies, eyes had been gouged out. The press greatly exaggerated the details of shadow's capture, but this erroneous information actually encouraged the leaders of the western rebels to become more united against the eastern establishment. In response to the growing unity of the rebels, the state of Massachusetts called for the federal government to come to their aid, but the federal government was ill equipped to lend support. They had almost no soldiers at all. They were in Dire Straits. They were in poverty. They had no money. They had no one to send. They had no help to give. They could barely support themselves. And the Articles of Confederation had rendered the federal government powerless.