After winning their freedom in the Revolutionary War, the United States had a poor economy, both nationally and within each state. This was partially due to an overall lack of proper currency. In Massachusetts, this led to a debt crisis. The crisis was caused by the debt rural farmers owed being called in as proper currency specifically when it would normally be mostly barter. Many of the farmers couldn’t pay and they started having their farms foreclosed. As a result, they brought possible solutions to legislators, but they didn't fix the problem. The farmers then attempted nonviolent protest, generally organized by Revolutionary War veterans who hadn’t been paid for their service due to the weak central government. The state then responded by mobilizing their militia, rather than addressing the problem’s roots. This led the farmers to respond with violence, leading to the overall protests and action of the group, which would later be named “Shays’ Rebellion.”

During and after the Revolutionary War, the U.S. was unable to properly pay all of its soldiers due to a lack of funds. Once the war ended and the Articles of Confederation were made, the duty of gathering money to pay the debt to the soldiers, along with various other debts incurred while fighting the war, fell to the states. This led them to raise heavy taxes in an attempt to repay their debts (Makos, 2025). Additionally, merchants in Boston wanted to continue trade with British merchants as they had prior to the war. However, the British merchants wanted to only be paid in proper currency going forward and also wanted to have the debts they were owed by the Boston merchants repaid before continuing trade. This was due to them being wary of losing the money the Boston merchants owed them should the unstable U.S. economy collapse (Mark, 2024). The request of such a large quantity of proper currency was a problem for the Boston merchants as proper currency was scarce across the nation as a whole, with most transactions being done by barter or a promise of later payment. Due to the fact that the Boston merchants lacked enough proper currency, they began calling for repayments on the debt that various rural store owners owed them, specifically requiring it be paid in proper currency. Unfortunately, just like the merchants, the storeowners had little proper currency, so they called for repayment from those who owed them debt, most of whom were farmers (Mark, 2024). The farmers also couldn’t pay their debts in proper currency, especially with the taxes hitting them. This resulted in the farmers starting to have their property seized to pay the debt, even ending up in jail if their assets weren’t enough. All of this left the farmers feeling they were facing injustice and wanting to do something to fix it, feelings very similar to those that led to the American Revolution.

As the debt was crashing onto the rural farmers of Massachusetts, they organized and tried to get legislators to help with the problem. The farmers came up with legislation and petitions were sent to Boston by 73 towns across Massachusetts. They were asking for two pieces of legislation, the establishment of state-issued paper money, to give the farmers a chance to pay their debt in the way it was requested, and laws protecting bartering as an option for payment rather than only allowing proper currency (Mark, 2024). Unfortunately, the legislators rejected the ideas, leading the farmers to take more extreme actions. Daniel Shays was a veteran of the Revolutionary War who had a leading role in the rebellion and became its namesake. According to the HISTORY.com Editors (2025), Shays became involved with the farmers in summer of 1786, proceeding to join one of the rebellion’s earliest actions and being offered a leadership position, declining, and still ending up leading many people.

Late in August of 1786, the revolt now known as Shays’ Rebellion began as over 1,000 of the rural Massachusetts farmers came and obstructed the entrances of the court in the town of Northampton, preventing judges from entering. They also took the name of the “Regulators” during this, blocking a court specifically because it would stop foreclosures from being issued. Shays also took part in the protest. According to Makos (2025), Shays was among the leaders of a group of Regulators who intimidated the Springfield court into adjourning early, not hearing any foreclosure cases. The Regulators continued until late October, obstructing the Worcester court in September and having the militia refuse to stop them due to being similar people with the same problems. The regulators then went on to obstruct the courts of Great Barrington, Concord, and Taunton, stopping late October due to courts shutting down and the farmers needing to go home and harvest (Mark, 2024). An important thing to note is that Samuel Adams was firmly against the Regulators, even helping create the Riot Act which removed habeas corpus regarding captured Regulators, removing the limit on their sentence, and permitted the county sheriffs to kill members of the mobs (Mark, 2024). Neither of the two sections would be allowed now, but they were at the time due to the lack of the 1st and 6th amendments.

In January of 1787, the Governor worked with the Boston merchants to prepare a privately funded militia of 3,000 or more men, which was then put under the command of former Continental Army general Benjamin Lincoln. At a similar time, the Regulators prepared to storm the federal arsenal in Springfield, however Benjamin Lincoln prepared for that and left 1,200 men to protect it. On January 25, 1787 Shays’ force of 1,500 men stormed the arsenal, but the militia shot at them, killing 4 and wounding 20.  From there, the rebellion mostly stopped as its leaders were imprisoned by the militia. Another reason for it stopping was that, in January alone, the militia arrested over 1,000 of the Regulators (Basile et al., 2018). So the rebellion stopped not because it won, but because it couldn’t continue.