Slavery in Britain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain 

Slavery in Great Britain existed and was recognised from before the Roman occupation until the 12th century, when chattel slavery disappeared, at least for a time, after the Norman Conquest. Former slaves merged into the larger body of serfs in Britain and no longer were recognized separately in law or custom.

From the 17th century into the 19th century, transportation to the colonies as a criminal or an indentured servant served as punishment for both serious and petty crimes, or for simply being poor and viewed as an 'undesirable', facilitated by the Transportation Act of 1717. During the same period, workhouses employed people whose poverty left them no other alternative than to work under forced labour conditions.

International slave trade

Britain exported slaves from pre-Roman times, but British merchants became major participants in the Atlantic slave trade in the early modern period. Then British people living within the British Isles, as well as in British colonies, might own African slaves. In a triangular trade-system, ship-owners transported enslaved West Africans, as well as British natives, to the New World (especially to the Caribbean) to be sold there. The ships brought commodities back to Britain then exported goods to Africa. Some entrepreneurs brought slaves to Britain, where they were kept in bondage. After a long campaign for abolition led by Thomas Clarkson and (in the House of Commons) by William Wilberforce, Parliament prohibited dealing in slaves by passing the Slave Trade Act 1807, which the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron enforced. Britain used its influence to persuade other countries around the world to abolish the slave trade and to sign treaties to allow the Royal Navy to interdict slaving ships. However, the British economy continued to benefit from slavery for many years. 

Abolition

Somersett's case in 1772 held that slavery had no basis in English law and was thus a violation of Habeas Corpus. This built on the earlier Cartwright case from the Reign of Elizabeth I which had similarly held the concept of slavery was not recognised in English law. This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law. Legally ("de jure") slave owners could not win in court, and abolitionists provided legal help for enslaved black people. However actual ("de facto") slavery continued in Britain with ten to fourteen thousand slaves in England and Wales, who were mostly domestic servants. When slaves were brought in from the colonies they had to sign waivers that made them indentured servants while in Britain. Most modern historians generally agree that slavery continued in Britain into the late 18th century, finally disappearing around 1800. Slavery elsewhere in the British Empire was not affected--indeed it grew rapidly especially in the Caribbean colonies. Slavery was abolished by buying out the owners in 1833 by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Most slaves were freed, with exceptions and delays provided for the East India Company, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. These exceptions were eliminated in 1843.

The prohibition on slavery and servitude is now codified under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in force since 1953 and incorporated directly into United Kingdom law by the Human Rights Act 1998. Article 4 of the Convention also bans forced or compulsory labour, with some exceptions such as a criminal penalty or military service.

Before 1066

From before Roman times, slavery was normal in Britain, with slaves being routinely exported. Slavery continued as an accepted part of society under the Roman Empire and after; Anglo-Saxons continued the slave system, sometimes in league with Norse traders often selling slaves to the Irish. In 870, Vikings besieged and captured the stronghold of Alt Clut (the capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde) and in 871 took most of the site's inhabitants, most likely by Olaf the White and Ivar the Boneless, to the Dublin slave markets. Maredudd ab Owain (d. 999) paid a large ransom for 2,000 Welsh slaves, which demonstrates the large-scale slave raiding upon the British Isles. Vikings traded with the Gaelic, Pictish, Brythonic and Saxon kingdoms in between raiding them for slaves.

Some of the earliest accounts of the Anglo-Saxon English comes from the account of the fair-haired boys from York seen in Rome by Pope Gregory the Great. In the 7th century the English slave Balthild rose to be queen of the Frankish king Clovis II. Anglo-Saxon opinion turned against the sale of English abroad: a law of Ine of Wessex stated that anyone selling his own countryman, whether bond or free, across the sea, was to pay his own weregild in penalty, even when the man so sold was guilty of crime.

Nevertheless, legal penalties and economic pressures that led to default in payments maintained the supply of slaves, and in the 11th century there was still a slave trade operating out of Bristol, as a passage in the Vita Wulfstani makes clear.

Norman England

According to the Domesday Book census, over 10% of England's population in 1086 were slaves. In 1102, the Church Council of London convened by Anselm issued a decree: "Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business, prevalent in England, of selling men like animals." However, the Council had no legislative powers, and no act of law was valid unless signed by the monarch.

The influence of the new Norman aristocracy led to the decline of slavery in England. Contemporary writers noted that the Scottish and Welsh took captives as slaves during raids, a practice which was no longer common in England by the 12th century. By the start of the 13th century references to people being taken as slaves stopped. While there was no legislation against slavery, William the Conqueror introduced a law preventing the sale of slaves overseas. According to historian John Gillingham, by about 1200 slavery in the British Isles was non-existent.

Transportation

Transportation to the colonies as a criminal or an indentured servant served as punishment for both great and petty crimes in England from the 17th century until well into the 19th century. A sentence could be for life or for a specific period. The penal system required convicts to work on government projects such as road construction, building works and mining, or assigned them to free individuals as unpaid labour. Women were expected to work as domestic servants and farm labourers. Like slaves, indentured servants could be bought and sold, could not marry without the permission of their owner, were subject to physical punishment, and saw their obligation to labour enforced by the courts. However, they did retain certain heavily restricted rights; this contrasts with slaves who had none. 

A convict who had served part of his time might apply for a "ticket of leave", granting them some prescribed freedoms. This enabled some convicts to resume a more normal life, to marry and raise a family, and enabled a few to develop the colonies while removing them from the society. Exile was an essential component, and was thought to be a major deterrent to crime. Transportation was also seen as a humane and productive alternative to execution, which would most likely have been the sentence for many if transportation had not been introduced. 

The transportation of English subjects overseas can be traced back to the English Vagabonds Act 1597. During the reign of Henry VIII, an estimated 72,000 people were put to death for a variety of crimes. An alternative practice, borrowed from the Spanish, was to commute the death sentence and allow the use of convicts as a labour force for the colonies. One of the first references to a person being transported comes in 1607 when "an apprentice dyer was sent to Virginia from Bridewell for running away with his master's goods." The Act was little used despite attempts by James I who, with limited success, tried to encourage its adoption by passing a series of Privy Council Orders in 1615, 1619 and 1620.

Transportation was seldom used as a criminal sentence until the Piracy Act 1717, "An Act for the further preventing Robbery, Burglary, and other Felonies, and for the more effectual Transportation of Felons, and unlawful Exporters of Wool; and for declaring the Law upon some Points relating to Pirates", established a seven-year penal transportation as a possible punishment for those convicted of lesser felonies, or as a possible sentence to which capital punishment might be commuted by royal pardon. Criminals were transported to North America from 1718 to 1776. When the American revolution made transportation to the Thirteen Colonies unfeasible, those sentenced to it were typically punished with imprisonment or hard labour instead. From 1787 to 1868, criminals convicted and sentenced under the Act were transported to the colonies in Australia.

After the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent Cromwellian invasion, the English Parliament passed the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 which classified the Irish population into several categories according to their degree of involvement in the uprising and the subsequent war. Those who had participated in the uprising or assisted the rebels in any way were sentenced to be hanged and to have their property confiscated. Other categories were sentenced to banishment with whole or partial confiscation of their estates. While the majority of the resettlement took place within Ireland to the province of Connaught, perhaps as many as 50,000 were transported to the colonies in the West Indies and in North America. During the early colonial period, the Scots and the English, along with other western European nations, dealt with their "Gypsy problem" by transporting them as slaves in large numbers to North America and the Caribbean. Cromwell shipped Romanichal Gypsies as slaves to the southern plantations, and there is documentation of Gypsies being owned by former black slaves in Jamaica. 

Long before the Highland Clearances, some chiefs, such as Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, sold some of their clans into indenture in North America. Their goal was to alleviate over-population and lack of food resources in the glens. 

Numerous Highland Jacobite supporters, captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden and rigorous Government sweeps of the Highlands, were imprisoned on ships on the River Thames. Some were sentenced to transportation to the Carolinas as indentured servants.

Slavery and bondage in Scottish collieries

For nearly two hundred years in the history of coal mining in Scotland, miners were bonded to their "maisters" by a 1606 Act "Anent Coalyers and Salters". The Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775 stated that "many colliers and salters are in a state of slavery and bondage" and announced emancipation; those starting work after 1 July 1775 would not become slaves, while those already in a state of slavery could, after 7 or 10 years depending on their age, apply for a decree of the Sheriff's Court granting their freedom. Few could afford this, until a further law in 1799 established their freedom and made this slavery and bondage illegal.

Workhouse slavery

From the 17th century to the 19th century, workhouses took in people whose poverty left them no other alternative. They were employed under forced labour conditions. Workhouses took in abandoned babies, usually presumed to be illegitimate. When they grew old enough, they were used as child labour. Charles Dickens represented such issues in his fiction. A life example was Henry Morton Stanley. This was a time when many children worked; if families were poor, everyone worked. Only in 1833 and 1844 were the first general protective laws against child labour, the Factory Acts, passed in Britain.

Barbary pirates

Five Englishmen escaping slavery from Algiers, Barbary Coast, 1684

 

From the 16th to the 19th centuries it is estimated that between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and Barbary slave traders and sold as slaves. The slavers got their name from the Barbary Coast, that is, the Mediterranean shores of North Africa – what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. There are reports of Barbary raids and kidnappings of those in France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom and as far north as Iceland and the fate of those abducted into slavery in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire.

Villagers along the south coast of England petitioned the king to protect them from abduction by Barbary pirates. Item 20 of The Grand Remonstrance, a list of grievances against Charles I presented to him in 1641, contains the following complaint about Barbary pirates of the Ottoman Empire abducting English people into slavery:

And although all this was taken upon pretense of guarding the seas, yet a new unheard-of tax of ship-money was devised, and upon the same pretense, by both which there was charged upon the subject near £700,000 some years, and yet the merchants have been left so naked to the violence of the Turkish pirates, that many great ships of value and thousands of His Majesty's subjects have been taken by them, and do still remain in miserable slavery.

Enslaved Africans

Martins Bank building in Liverpool, showing two African boys manacled, carrying money bags.

 

Admiral Sir John Hawkins of Plymouth, a notable Elizabethan seafarer, is widely acknowledged to be "the Pioneer of the English Slave Trade". In 1554–1555, Hawkins formed a slave trading syndicate of wealthy merchants. He sailed with three ships for the Caribbean via Sierra Leone, hijacked a Portuguese slave ship and sold the 300 slaves from it in Santo Domingo. During a second voyage in 1564, his crew captured 400 Africans and sold them at Rio de la Hacha in present-day Colombia, making a 60% profit for his financiers. A third voyage involved both buying slaves directly in Africa and capturing a Portuguese ship with its cargo; upon reaching the Caribbean, Hawkins sold all the slaves. On his return, he published a book entitled An Alliance to Raid for Slaves. It is estimated that Hawkins transported 1,500 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic during his four voyages of the 1560s, before stopping in 1568 after a battle with the Spanish in which he lost five of his seven ships. The English involvement in the Atlantic slave trade only resumed in the 1640s after the country acquired an American colony (Virginia).

By the mid 18th century, London had the largest African population in Britain, made up of free and enslaved people, as well as many runaways. The total number may have been about 10,000.^[32] Owners of African slaves in England would advertise slave-sales and rewards for the recapture of runaways.

A number of freed slaves managed to achieve prominence in British society. Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780), known as 'The Extraordinary Negro', opened his own grocer's shop in Westminster. He was famous for his poetry and music, and his friends included the novelist Laurence Sterne, David Garrick the actor and the Duke and Duchess of Montague. He is best known for his letters which were published after his death. Others such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano were equally well known, and along with Ignatius Sancho were active in the abolition campaign.

Triangular trade

The three-way trade in the North Atlantic

 

By the 18th century, the slave trade became a major economic mainstay for such cities as Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, engaged in the so-called "Triangular trade". The ships set out from Britain, loaded with trade goods which were exchanged on the West African shores for slaves captured by local rulers from deeper inland; the slaves were transported through the infamous "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic, and were sold at considerable profit for labour in plantations. The ships were loaded with export crops and commodities, the products of slave labour, such as sugar and rum, and returned to Britain to sell the items.

The Isle of Man and the transatlantic slave trade

The Isle of Man was involved in the transatlantic African slave trade. Goods from the slave trade were bought and sold on the Isle of Man, and Manx merchants, seamen, and ships were involved in the trade.

Judicial decisions

No legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery, unlike the Portuguese Ordenações Manuelinas (1481–1514), the Dutch East India Company Ordinances (1622), and France's Code Noir (1685), and this caused confusion when Englishmen brought home slaves they had legally purchased in the colonies. John Locke, the philosophical champion of the Glorious Revolution, asserted that "every man has property in his own person" but allowed for the enslavement of war captives --a popular defense of slavery throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries in England (§27, Ch.V=; II.iv.24). Locke also had stock in the Royal Africa Company. In Butts v. Penny (1677) 2 Lev 201, 3 Keb 785, an action was brought to recover the value of 10 slaves who had been held by the plaintiff in India. The court held that an action for trover would lie in English law, because the sale of non-Christians as slaves was common in India. However, no judgment was delivered in the case.

An English court case of 1569 involving Cartwright who had bought a slave from Russia ruled that English law could not recognise slavery. This ruling was overshadowed by later developments, particularly in the Navigation Acts, but was upheld by the Lord Chief Justice in 1701 when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in England. 

Agitation saw a series of judgments repulse the tide of slavery. In Smith v. Gould (1705–07) 2 Salk 666, John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) stated that by "the common law no man can have a property in another". (See the "infidel rationale".) 

In 1729 the Attorney General and Solicitor General of England signed the Yorke–Talbot slavery opinion, expressing their view (and, by implication, that of the Government) that slavery of Africans was lawful in England. At this time slaves were openly bought and sold on commodities markets at London and Liverpool. Slavery was also accepted in Britain's many colonies. 

Lord Henley LC said in Shanley v. Harvey (1763) 2 Eden 126, 127 that as "soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free". 

After R v. Knowles, ex parte Somersett (1772) 20 State Tr 1 the law remained unsettled, although the decision was a significant advance for, at the least, preventing the forceable removal of anyone from England, whether or not a slave, against his will. A man named James Somersett was the slave of a Boston customs officer. They came to England, and Somersett escaped. Captain Knowles captured him and took him on his boat, Jamaica bound. Three abolitionists, saying they were his "godparents", applied for a writ of habeas corpus. One of Somersett's lawyers, Francis Hargrave, stated "In 1569, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a lawsuit was brought against a man for beating another man he had bought as a slave overseas. The record states, 'That in the 11th [year] of Elizabeth [1569], one Cartwright brought a slave from Russia and would scourge him; for which he was questioned; and it was resolved, that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in'." He argued that the court had ruled in Cartwright's case that English common law made no provision for slavery, and without a basis for its legality, slavery would otherwise be unlawful as false imprisonment and/or assault. In his judgment of 22 June 1772, Lord Chief Justice William Murray, Lord Mansfield, of the Court of King's Bench, started by talking about the capture and forcible detention of Somersett. He finished with:

So high an act of dominion must be recognized by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been exceedingly different, in different countries.
The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory.
It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.

Several different reports of Mansfield's decision appeared. Most disagree as to what was said. The decision was only given orally; no formal written record of it was issued by the court. Abolitionists widely circulated the view that it was declared that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law, although Mansfield later said that all that he decided was that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his will.

After reading about Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved African who had been purchased by his master John Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him. Married and with a child, he filed a freedom suit, on the grounds that he could not be held as a slave in Great Britain. In the case of Knight v. Wedderburn (1778), Wedderburn said that Knight owed him "perpetual servitude". The Court of Sessions of Scotland ruled against him, saying that chattel slavery was not recognised under the law of Scotland, and slaves could seek court protection to leave a master or avoid being forcibly removed from Scotland to be returned to slavery in the colonies.

Abolition

William Wilberforce (1759–1833), one of the leaders of the movement to abolish the slave trade.

The abolitionist movement was led by Quakers and other Non-conformists, but the Test Act 

prevented them from becoming Members of Parliament. William Wilberforce, a member of the House of Commons as an independent, became the Parliamentary spokesman for the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. His conversion to Evangelical Christianity in 1784 played a key role in interesting him in this social reform. William Wilberforce's Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. It was not until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 that the institution finally was abolished, but on a gradual basis. Since land owners in the British West Indies were losing their unpaid labourers, they received compensation totaling £20 million.

The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron (or Preventative Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act. The squadron's task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa, preventing the slave trade by force of arms, including the interception of slave ships from Europe, the United States, the Barbary pirates, West Africa and the Ottoman Empire.

The Church of England was implicated in slavery. Slaves were owned by the Anglican Church's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP), which had sugar plantations in the West Indies. When slaves were emancipated by Act of the British Parliament in 1834, the British government paid compensation to slave owners. Among those they paid were the Bishop of Exeter and three business colleagues, who received compensation for 665 slaves.

Modern evaluations of economic impact

"To the friends of Negro Emancipation", celebrating the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

 

Historians and economists have debated the economic effects of slavery for Great Britain and the North American colonies. Many analysts, such as Eric Williams, suggest that it allowed the formation of capital that financed the Industrial Revolution, although the evidence is inconclusive. Slave labour was integral to early settlement of the colonies, which needed more people for labour and other work. Also, slave labour produced the major consumer goods that were the basis of world trade during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco. Slavery was far more important to the profitability of plantations and the economy in the American South; and the slave trade and associated businesses were important to both New York and New England.

In 2006, the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, expressed his deep sorrow over the slave trade, which he described as "profoundly shameful". Some campaigners had demanded reparations from the former slave trading nations.

In recent years, several institutions have begun to evaluate their own links with slavery. For instance, English Heritage produced a book on the extensive links between slavery and British country houses in 2013, Jesus College has a working group to examine the legacy of slavery within the college, and the Church of England, the Bank of England, Lloyd's of London and Greene King have all apologised for their historic links to slavery. UCL has developed a database examining the commercial, cultural, historical, imperial, physical and political legacies of slavery in Britain (see 'external links').

Shays' Rebellion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion 

 

Shays' Rebellion
An artist's depiction of the rebellion: Shays' troops repulsed from the armory at Springfield, Massachusetts in early 1787
Date	August 29, 1786 – June 1787
Location	Western Massachusetts
Caused by	Economic policy Aggressive tax and debt collection Political corruption and cronyism
Goals	Reform of state government, later its overthrow
Methods	Direct action to close courts, then military organization in attempt to capture the U.S. arsenal at the Springfield Armory
Resulted in	Rebellion crushed, and problems of Federal authority linked to the Articles of Confederation spur U.S. Constitutional Convention
Parties to the civil conflict
Anti-government protesters United States Massachusetts state militia Privately-funded local militia
Lead figures
Daniel Shays Luke Day Eli Parsons Job Shattuck James Bowdoin Benjamin Lincoln William Shepard
Number
4,000+ (largest force 1,500) 4,000+ (largest force 3,000)
Casualties and losses
6 killed Dozens wounded Many arrested 2 hanged afterward 3 killed Dozens wounded

Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts in opposition to a debt crisis among the citizenry and the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. American Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels (called Shaysites) in a protest against economic and civil rights injustices. Shays was a farmhand from Massachusetts at the beginning of the Revolutionary War; he joined the Continental Army, saw action at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill, and Battles of Saratoga, and was eventually wounded in action.

In 1787, Shays' rebels marched on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion, and it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State militia and a privately funded local militia. The widely held view was that the Articles of Confederation needed to be reformed as the country's governing document, and the events of the rebellion served as a catalyst for the Constitutional Convention and the creation of the new government.

There is still debate among scholars concerning the rebellion's influence on the Constitution and its ratification.

Background

Populist Governor John Hancock refused to crack down on tax delinquencies and accepted devalued paper currency for debts.

 

Artist's depiction of protesters watching a debtor in a scuffle with a tax collector by the courthouse at Springfield, Massachusetts. The insurrection was a tax-related rebellion.

 

The economy during the American Revolutionary War was largely subsistence agriculture in the rural parts of New England, particularly in the hill towns of central and western Massachusetts. Some residents in these areas had few assets beyond their land, and they bartered with one another for goods and services. In lean times, farmers might obtain goods on credit from suppliers in local market towns who would be paid when times were better. Conversely, there was a market economy in the more economically developed coastal areas of Massachusetts Bay and in the fertile Connecticut River Valley, driven by the activities of wholesale merchants dealing with Europe and the West Indies. The state government was dominated by this merchant class.

When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, Massachusetts merchants' European business partners refused to extend lines of credit to them and insisted that they pay for goods with hard currency, despite the country-wide shortage of such currency. Merchants began to demand the same from their local business partners, including those operating in the market towns in the state's interior. Many of these merchants passed on this demand to their customers, although Governor John Hancock did not impose hard currency demands on poorer borrowers and refused to actively prosecute the collection of delinquent taxes. The rural farming population was generally unable to meet the demands of merchants and the civil authorities, and some began to lose their land and other possessions when they were unable to fulfill their debt and tax obligations. This led to strong resentments against tax collectors and the courts, where creditors obtained judgments against debtors, and where tax collectors obtained judgments authorizing property seizures. A farmer identified as "Plough Jogger" summarized the situation at a meeting convened by aggrieved commoners:

I have been greatly abused, have been obliged to do more than my part in the war, been loaded with class rates, town rates, province rates, Continental rates, and all rates ... been pulled and hauled by sheriffs, constables, and collectors, and had my cattle sold for less than they were worth ... The great men are going to get all we have and I think it is time for us to rise and put a stop to it, and have no more courts, nor sheriffs, nor collectors nor lawyers.

Veterans had received little pay during the war and faced added difficulty collecting pay owed to them from the State or the Congress of the Confederation, and some soldiers began to organize protests against these oppressive economic conditions. In 1780, Daniel Shays resigned from the army unpaid and went home to find himself in court for non-payment of debts. He soon realized that he was not alone in his inability to pay his debts and began organizing for debt relief.

Early rumblings

Governor James Bowdoin instituted a heavy tax burden and stepped up collection of back taxes.

One early protest against the government was led by Job Shattuck of Groton, Massachusetts in 1782, who organized residents to physically prevent tax collectors from doing their work. A second, larger-scale protest took place in Uxbridge, Massachusetts on the Rhode Island border on February 3, 1783 when a mob seized property that had been confiscated by a constable and returned it to its owners. Governor Hancock ordered the sheriff to suppress these actions.

Most rural communities attempted to use the legislative process to gain relief. Petitions and proposals were repeatedly submitted to the state legislature to issue paper currency, which would depreciate the currency and make it possible to pay a high-value debt with lower-valued paper. The merchants were opposed to the idea, including James Bowdoin, since they stood to lose from such measures, and the proposals were repeatedly rejected.

Governor Hancock resigned in early 1785 citing health reasons, though some suggested that he was anticipating trouble. Bowdoin had repeatedly lost to Hancock in earlier elections, but he was elected governor that year—and matters became more severe. He 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 such as John Adams observed that these levies were "heavier than the People could bear".

Shutting down the courts

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 protestors formed in Northampton, Massachusetts and successfully prevented the county court from sitting. The leaders of this force 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 which sought to reform corrupt practices in the late 1760s.

Great Barrington

Northampton

Springfield

Concord

Worcester

Taunton

Petersham

Sheffield

This modern map of Massachusetts is annotated to show points of conflict. Places where military conflicts occurred are highlighted in red; the others are locations of courthouses that were shut down. The Quabbin Reservoir did not exist at the time between Petersham and Northampton.

 

Governor Bowdoin issued a proclamation on September 2 denouncing such mob action, but he took no military measures beyond planning a militia response to future actions. The court was then shut down in Worcester, Massachusetts by similar action on September 5, but the county militia refused to turn out, as it was composed mainly of men sympathetic to the protestors. Governors of the neighboring states acted decisively, calling out the militia to hunt down the ringleaders in their own states after the first such protests. Matters were resolved without violence in Rhode Island because the "country party" gained control of the legislature in 1786 and enacted measures forcing its merchants to trade debt instruments for devalued currency. Boston's merchants were concerned by this, especially Bowdoin who held more than £3,000 in Massachusetts notes.

Daniel Shays had participated in the Northampton action and began to take a more active role in the uprising in November, though he firmly denied that he was one of its leaders. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indicted 11 leaders of the rebellion as "disorderly, riotous, and seditious persons". The court was scheduled to meet next in Springfield, Massachusetts on September 26, and Shays organized an attempt to shut it down in Northampton, while Luke Day organized an attempt in Springfield. They were anticipated by William Shepard, the local militia commander, who began gathering government-supporting militia the Saturday before the court was to sit, and he had 300 men protecting the Springfield courthouse by opening time. Shays and Day were able to recruit a similar number but chose only to demonstrate, exercising their troops outside of Shepard's lines rather than attempting to seize the building. The judges first postponed hearings and then adjourned on the 28th without hearing any cases. Shepard withdrew his force (which had grown to some 800 men) to the Springfield Armory, which was rumored to be the target of the protestors.

Militia general William Shepard defended the Springfield Armory against rebel action.

 

Protests were also successful in shutting down courts in Great Barrington, Concord, and Taunton, Massachusetts in September and October. James Warren wrote to John Adams on October 22, "We are now in a state of Anarchy and Confusion bordering on Civil War." Courts were able to meet in the larger towns and cities, but they required protection of the militia which Bowdoin called out for the purpose. Governor Bowdoin commanded the legislature to "vindicate the insulted dignity of government". Samuel Adams claimed that foreigners ("British emissaries") were instigating treason among the commoners, and he helped draw up a Riot Act and a resolution suspending habeas corpus in order to permit the authorities to keep people in jail without trial.

Adams proposed a new legal distinction that rebellion in a republic should be punished by execution. The legislature also moved to make some concessions on matters that upset farmers, saying that certain old taxes could now be paid in goods instead of hard currency. These measures were followed by one prohibiting speech critical of the government and offering pardons to protestors willing to take an oath of allegiance. These legislative actions were unsuccessful in quelling the protests, and the suspension of habeas corpus alarmed many.

Warrants were issued for the arrest of several of the protest ringleaders, and a posse of some 300 men rode to Groton on November 28 to arrest Job Shattuck and other rebel leaders in the area. Shattuck was chased down and arrested on the 30th and was wounded by a sword slash in the process. This action and the arrest of other protest leaders in the eastern parts of the state angered those in the west, and they began to organize an overthrow of the state government. "The seeds of war are now sown", wrote one correspondent in Shrewsbury, and by mid-January rebel leaders spoke of smashing the "tyrannical government of Massachusetts".

Rebellion

The federal government had been unable to recruit soldiers for the army because of a lack of funding, so Massachusetts leaders determined to act independently. On January 4, 1787, Governor Bowdoin proposed creating a privately funded militia army. Former Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln solicited funds and raised more than £6,000 from more than 125 merchants by the end of January. The 3,000 militiamen who were recruited into this army were almost entirely from the eastern counties of Massachusetts, and they marched to Worcester on January 19.

General Benjamin Lincoln, portrait by Henry Sargent

While the government forces assembled, Shays and Day and other rebel leaders in the west organized their forces establishing regional regimental organizations that were run by democratically elected committees. Their first major target was the federal armory in Springfield. General Shepard had taken possession of the armory under orders from Governor Bowdoin, and he used its arsenal to arm a militia force of 1,200. He had done this despite the fact that the armory was federal property, not state, and he did not have permission from Secretary at War Henry Knox.

The insurgents were organized into three major groups and intended to surround and attack the armory simultaneously. Shays had one group east of Springfield near Palmer, Luke Day had a second force across the Connecticut River in West Springfield, and the force under Eli Parsons was to the north at Chicopee. The rebels had planned their assault for January 25, but Day changed this at the last minute and sent a message to Shays indicating that he would not be ready to attack until the 26th. Day's message was intercepted by Shepard's men, so the militia of Shays and Parsons approached the armory on the 25th not knowing that they would have no support from the west; instead, they found Shepard's militia waiting for them. Shepard first ordered warning shots fired over the heads of Shays' men, and then he ordered two cannons to fire grape shot. Four Shaysites were killed and 20 wounded. There was no musket fire from either side, and the rebel advance collapsed. Most of the rebel forces fled north, both Shays' men and Day's men, and they eventually regrouped at Amherst, Massachusetts.

General Lincoln immediately began marching west from Worcester with the 3,000 men that had been mustered. The rebels moved generally north and east to avoid him, eventually establishing a camp at Petersham, Massachusetts. They raided the shops of local merchants for supplies along the way and took some of the merchants hostage. Lincoln pursued them and reached Pelham, Massachusetts on February 2, some 30 miles (48 km) from Petersham. He led his militia on a forced march to Petersham through a bitter snowstorm on the night of February 3–4, arriving early in the morning. They surprised the rebel camp so thoroughly that the rebels scattered "without time to call in their out parties or even their guards". Lincoln claimed to capture 150 men but none of them were officers, and historian Leonard Richards has questioned the veracity of the report. Most of the leadership escaped north into New Hampshire and Vermont, where they were sheltered despite repeated demands that they be returned to Massachusetts for trial.

Aftermath

This monument marks the spot of the final battle of Shays' Rebellion in Sheffield, Massachusetts.

Lincoln's march marked the end of large-scale organized resistance. Ringleaders who eluded capture fled to neighboring states, and pockets of local resistance continued. Some rebel leaders approached Lord Dorchester for assistance, the British governor of the Province of Quebec who reportedly promised assistance in the form of Mohawk warriors led by Joseph Brant. Dorchester's proposal was vetoed in London, however, and no assistance came to the rebels. The same day that Lincoln arrived at Petersham, the state legislature passed bills authorizing a state of martial law and giving the governor broad powers to act against the rebels. The bills also authorized state payments to reimburse Lincoln and the merchants who had funded the army, and authorized the recruitment of additional militia. On February 16, 1787, the Massachusetts legislature passed the Disqualification Act to prevent a legislative response by rebel sympathizers. This bill forbade any acknowledged rebels from holding a variety of elected and appointed offices.

Most of Lincoln's army melted away in late February as enlistments expired, and he commanded only 30 men at a base in Pittsfield by the end of the month. In the meantime, some 120 rebels had regrouped in New Lebanon, New York, and they crossed the border on February 27, marching first on Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a major market town in the southwestern corner of the state. They raided the shops of merchants and the homes of merchants and local professionals. This came to the attention of Brigadier John Ashley, who mustered a force of some 80 men and caught up with the rebels in nearby Sheffield late in the day for the bloodiest encounter of the rebellion: 30 rebels were wounded (one mortally), at least one government soldier was killed, and many were wounded. Ashley was further reinforced after the encounter, and he reported taking 150 prisoners.

Consequences

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, but most of these were pardoned under a general amnesty that only excluded a few ringleaders. Eighteen men were convicted and sentenced to death, but most of these were overturned on appeal, pardoned, or had the sentences commuted. John Bly and Charles Rose, however, were hanged on December 6, 1787. They were also accused of common-law crime, as both were looters.

Shays was pardoned in 1788 and he returned to Massachusetts from hiding in the Vermont woods. He was vilified by the Boston press, who painted him as an archetypal anarchist opposed to the government. He later moved to the Conesus, New York area where he died poor and obscure in 1825.

The crushing of the rebellion and the harsh terms of reconciliation imposed by the Disqualification Act all worked against Governor Bowdoin politically. He received few votes from the rural parts of the state and was trounced by John Hancock in the gubernatorial election of 1787. The military victory was tempered by tax changes in subsequent years. The legislature cut taxes and placed a moratorium on debts and also refocused state spending away from interest payments, resulting in a 30-percent decline in the value of Massachusetts securities as those payments fell in arrears.

Vermont was an unrecognized independent republic that had been seeking independent statehood from New York's claims to the territory. It became an unexpected beneficiary of the rebellion due to sheltering the rebel ringleaders. Alexander Hamilton broke from other New Yorkers, including major landowners with claims on Vermont territory, calling for the state to recognize and support Vermont's bid for admission to the union. He cited Vermont's de facto independence and its ability to cause trouble by providing support to the discontented from neighboring states, and he introduced legislation that broke the impasse between New York and Vermont. Vermonters responded favorably to the overture, publicly pushing Eli Parsons and Luke Day out of the state (but quietly continuing to support others). Vermont became the fourteenth state after negotiations with New York and the passage of the new constitution.

Impact on the Constitution

Thomas Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France at the time and refused to be alarmed by Shays' Rebellion. He argued in a letter to James Madison on January 30, 1787 that occasional rebellion serves to preserve freedoms. In a letter to William Stephens Smith on November 13, 1787, Jefferson wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." In contrast, George Washington had been calling for constitutional reform for many years, and he wrote in a letter dated October 31, 1786 to Henry Lee, "You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once."

Influence upon the Constitutional Convention

The 1787 Constitutional Convention by Junius Brutus Stearns, 1856

 

At the time of the rebellion, the weaknesses of the federal government as constituted under the Articles of Confederation were apparent to many. A vigorous debate was going on throughout the states on the need for a stronger central government, with Federalists arguing for the idea, and Anti-Federalists opposing them. Historical opinion is divided on what sort of role the rebellion played in the formation and later ratification of the United States Constitution, although most scholars agree that it played some role, at least temporarily drawing some anti-Federalists to the strong government side.

By early 1785, many influential merchants and political leaders were already agreed that a stronger central government was needed. Shortly after Shays' Rebellion broke out, delegates from five states met in Annapolis, Maryland from September 11–14, 1786, and they concluded that vigorous steps were needed to reform the federal government, but they disbanded because of a lack of full representation and authority, calling for a convention of all the states to be held in Philadelphia in May 1787. Historian Robert Feer notes that several prominent figures had hoped that the convention would fail, requiring a larger-scale convention, and French diplomat Louis-Guillaume Otto thought that the convention was intentionally broken off early to achieve this end.

In early 1787, John Jay wrote that the rural disturbances and the inability of the central government to fund troops in response made "the inefficiency of the Federal government more and more manifest". Henry Knox observed that the uprising in Massachusetts clearly influenced local leaders who had previously opposed a strong federal government. Historian David Szatmary writes that the timing of the rebellion "convinced the elites of sovereign states that the proposed gathering at Philadelphia must take place". Some states delayed choosing delegates to the proposed convention, including Massachusetts, in part because it resembled the "extra-legal" conventions organized by the protestors before the rebellion became violent.

Influence upon the Constitution

Elbridge Gerry (1861 portrait by James Bogle) opposed the Constitution as drafted, although his reasons for doing so were not strongly influenced by the rebellion.

 

The convention that met in Philadelphia was dominated by strong-government advocates. Delegate Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut argued that because the people could not be trusted (as exemplified by Shays' Rebellion), the members of the federal House of Representatives should be chosen by state legislatures, not by popular vote. The example of Shays' Rebellion may also have been influential in the addition of language to the constitution concerning the ability of states to manage domestic violence, and their ability to demand the return of individuals from other states for trial.

The rebellion also played a role in the discussion of a number of the executives. While mindful of tyranny, delegates of the Constitutional Convention thought that the single executive would be more effective in responding to national disturbances.

Federalists cited the rebellion as an example of the confederation government's weaknesses, while opponents such as Elbridge Gerry, a merchant speculator and Massachusetts delegate from Essex County, thought that a federal response to the rebellion would have been even worse than that of the state. He was one of the few convention delegates who refused to sign the new constitution, although his reasons for doing so did not stem from the rebellion.

Influence upon ratification

When the constitution had been drafted, Massachusetts was viewed by Federalists as a state that might not ratify it, because of widespread anti-Federalist sentiment in the rural parts of the state. Massachusetts Federalists, including Henry Knox, were active in courting swing votes in the debates leading up to the state's ratifying convention in 1788. When the vote was taken on February 6, 1788, representatives of rural communities involved in the rebellion voted against ratification by a wide margin, but the day was carried by a coalition of merchants, urban elites, and market town leaders. The state ratified the constitution by a vote of 187 to 168.

Historians are divided on the impact the rebellion had on the ratification debates. Robert Feer notes that major Federalist pamphleteers rarely mentioned it, and that some anti-Federalists used the fact that Massachusetts survived the rebellion as evidence that a new constitution was unnecessary. Leonard Richards counters that publications like the Pennsylvania Gazette explicitly tied anti-Federalist opinion to the rebel cause, calling opponents of the new constitution "Shaysites" and the Federalists "Washingtonians".

David Szatmary argues that debate in some states was affected, particularly in Massachusetts, where the rebellion had a polarizing effect. Richards records Henry Jackson's observation that opposition to ratification in Massachusetts was motivated by "that cursed spirit of insurgency", but that broader opposition in other states originated in other constitutional concerns expressed by Elbridge Gerry, who published a widely distributed pamphlet outlining his concerns about the vagueness of some of the powers granted in the constitution and its lack of a Bill of Rights.

The military powers enshrined in the constitution were soon put to use by President George Washington. After the passage by the United States Congress of the Whiskey Act, protest against the taxes it imposed began in western Pennsylvania. The protests escalated and Washington led federal and state militia to put down what is now known as the Whiskey Rebellion.

Memorials

The events and people of the uprising are commemorated in the towns where they lived and those where events took place. Sheffield erected a memorial (pictured above) marking the site of the "last battle", and Pelham memorialized Daniel Shays. US Route 202, which runs through Pelham, is called the Daniel Shays Highway. A statue of General Shepard was erected in his hometown of Westfield.

In the town of Petersham, Massachusetts, a memorial was erected in 1927 by the New England Society of Brooklyn, New York. The memorial commemorates the government's General Benjamin Lincoln, who raised 3,000 troops and routed the rebellion on February 4, 1787. It ends with the line, "Obedience to the law is true liberty."