Leonard L. Richards, Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. x + 204 pp. $24.95 (hardback), ISBN: 0-8122-3669-6.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Robert A. McGuire, Department of Economics, University of Akron.

Shays's Rebellion, which occurred from summer 1786 through winter 1787, was an armed uprising in western Massachusetts against the state government and was, quite possibly, the crystallizing event that occasioned the constitutional change in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. The rebellion involved the forced closings of the courts in five Massachusetts counties, an attempted takeover of the federal arsenal at Springfield, three "major" battles (including the one at the arsenal) between the insurgents and an army put together by Governor Bowdoin's administration (funded by Boston merchants, financiers, and Bowdoin himself), and dozens of minor skirmishes between the Shaysites and various local forces. The conventional wisdom about Daniel Shays and his fellow insurgents is that they were "poor," "debt-ridden," and "destitute" farmers from the backcountry of western Massachusetts who were trying to avoid payment of their debts; the participants were heavily indebted backcountry farmers who had been victimized by the post-Revolutionary War Massachusetts economy.

According to Leonard Richards, a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), the "standard story" of the rebellion is that following the Revolutionary War, Boston and other New England merchants imported sizable amounts of British goods that drained specie from the economy, leading to heavy merchant indebtedness. The seaboard merchants (wholesalers) consequently sold their goods on credit to merchants in the interior (retailers) who in turn sold their goods on credit to backcountry farmers. This led to a "chain of debt." Then, when the British closed their Caribbean islands to American shipping, matters took a decided turn for the worse. The seaboard merchants could no longer earn enough revenues through trade to cover their sizable debts. As a result, they sued the interior merchants for payment who in turn sued the backcountry farmers. Given the sluggish economy and lack of specie in post-war Massachusetts, and given existing legal-political institutions (the court system and "debtors' prisons"), western farmers were ultimately dragged into court for nonpayment in record numbers. Many were fined and often jailed. To avoid debtor trials, potential fines, and possible imprisonment, Shays and his followers attacked the local authorities and closed the courts.

Why another book on Shays's Rebellion? The story has been told innumerable times and history students know the story anyway. Richards readily acknowledges that he initially "thought that as a scholarly topic Shays's Rebellion had been worked to death" (p. ix). So why would anyone write another book again telling the well-known story of the rebellion? Richards' answer: Others have not gotten the story right. And besides he has uncovered a little-known, unused set of data that bears directly on the rebellion. He discovered that in the Massachusetts Archives is a record of the oaths of allegiance signed by thousands of participants in the rebellion who were offered leniency in return for a sworn oath of future allegiance to the state of Massachusetts and its rulers. Thus, they could avoid fines, whippings, imprisonment, or worse, the gallows! As Richards notes, it is rare that history records the names of more than the leaders of a local uprising or insurgency. That in the case of Shays's Rebellion history recorded the names of "some four thousand" of the rank-and-file participants is indeed extraordinarily rare. Although the oaths contain only the names of the insurgents and "usually listed their hometowns and sometimes their occupations" (p. 55), they allowed Richards to turn to town histories, records, and tax lists to collect the necessary data to compile biographical and economic histories of the participants.

Richards also contends that the "standard story" of the causes of the insurgency ignores the role played by the Bowdoin administration's fiscal policies in fomenting Shays's Rebellion. According to Richards, in its attempt to enrich Boston financiers, merchants, and speculators during the early 1780s, the Bowdoin administration decided to retire the entire state debt by the late 1780s. Thus, it decided to consolidate and fund the state debt at an "extremely high value," paying both interest and principal in specie. It initially attempted to raise the necessary revenues through state excises and imposts, but as trade activities declined the administration turned to direct taxes on property and men (poll taxes) to be paid in specie. These direct taxes were especially burdensome to western Massachusetts's farm families who lacked specie but not sons.

As Richards tells his sympathetic story, western towns tried unsuccessfully for several years (1782-1786) to get state legislators in Boston to help with the depressed backcountry economy. The legislators ultimately made matters worse when they enacted the direct taxes that were enforced through the court system. Thus, after four years of unsuccessful petitions to their state leaders, the backcountry farmers rebelled. The insurgents viewed their actions in the British colonial tradition of "regulators" not "rebels." They were opposing the "aristocratic," eastern moneymen, lawyers, and "elite," who had instituted an anti-republican, British-like "tyrannical" government in Boston with the 1780 state constitution, which included an "aristocratic," unrepresentative Senate and repressive courts similar to the British colonial courts that were often attacked. The insurgents consequently disrupted the state courts, and attacked local authorities who supported the government. Accordingly, in Richards' view, Shays's Rebellion was "The American Revolution's Final Battle."

Richards' examination of the oaths of allegiance yields several important insights. (1) The insurgents were primarily from Hampshire County in western Massachusetts, which "produced nearly half the insurgents" (p. 55). (2) The next largest groups of rebels were from Worcester County to the east (only half as many as from Hampshire) and Berkshire County in the far west (about one-fifth as many as from Hampshire). (3) In the two counties (Bristol and Middlesex) closest to Boston in which court closings took place, only a handful of towns produced any insurgents. Nearly all insurgents in Bristol County were from Rehoboth and nearly all in Middlesex County were from four towns (Shirley, Townsend, Groton, and Pepperell). (4) The insurgents were not evenly distributed across towns; some towns hardly had any insurgents while others were heavily represented. In the five counties with court closings, "72 of the 187 towns produced not a single rebel, and 34 others only one to four rebels. At the other extreme, 5 towns produced more than 100 rebels, 12 towns between 51 and 100, and 28 towns between 21 and 50" (p. 55). Nearly eighty percent of all rebels came from these 45 towns. (5) Even in Hampshire County, the distribution across towns was quite uneven. Five towns (Colrain, Amherst, Pelham, and West Springfield; the fifth was not named) supplied more than 100 Shaysites each and eight towns supplied not one (p. 55). In total in the county, between about twenty-five percent and nearly seventy percent of all adult males in sixteen towns were Shaysites, in seven other towns only about one to three percent were rebels, and in seven other towns zero percent were rebels (unnumbered table, p. 57).

Even more important, the data complied from town histories, records, and tax lists yields evidence that differs greatly from the conventional wisdom. (1) Shaysites were not primarily poor, debt-ridden farmers. (2) Many Shaysites were "gentlemen;" many were members of the most prominent families in their towns; many were local leaders (militia officers and selectmen); many were former Revolutionary soldiers; a fair number were former officers in the Revolution; a few were even members of the Society of the Cincinnati. (3) Few insurgents were heavily in debt; many non-participants were. (4) Few insurgents were ever sued or appeared in court for debts; many supporters of the state government were and did. (5) In total, few Massachusetts men ever spent any time in debtors' prisons. In Hampshire County, for example, only 90 men were imprisoned for debt in 1785 and 1786. And only two of the 90 participated in the rebellion while nearly eighteen hundred rebels were from the county (p. 53). (6) Many Shaysites not only appeared among the top half of their town's taxpayers, many appeared among the top twenty percent of taxpayers.

If Shaysites were not poor, or debt-ridden, or dragged into the courts, or spent time in debtors' prison, what explains their involvement in the rebellion? If not debts and destitution, then what? And what explains the uneven participation across towns? According to Richards, the "regulation" was first and foremost a reaction to what the "regulators" perceived as a "tyrannical" state government and ultimately a reaction to the repressive fiscal polices of the Bowdoin administration. But why did particular men and towns participate and not others? This is where Richards takes a decidedly sociological turn.

The crucial factor in the decision to participate, according to Richards, was family ties. Men generally participated because their kin participated; it was a "family affair." In most towns, participation was highly concentrated among a small number of families. But why didn't others join? Why did veterans in some towns join but not in others? Richards admits "[T]hese are tough questions to answer. Probably the best explanation comes from one of General Lincoln's aides" (p. 113). As the aide explained, the insurrection was strictly local. The rebel leaders' prestige and power did not extend beyond their local community; they had no statewide prestige. And an integral part of the local community was the clergy, the other factor in the decision to participate. The clergy were respected, conservative, and did not generally support the "regulation." Many local clergy in fact denounced the "regulation," while at the same time realizing that it was dangerous to "wholeheartedly" support the state. Consequently, the vast majority of men in western Massachusetts never joined the rebellion. When they did, it was because their father, or brother, or some in-law, or some other kin had joined. According to Richards, in the backcountry "family, kin, and community generally prevailed" (p. 115).

The aftermath of the rebellion was much bigger than the rebellion itself because the Boston elite portrayed Daniel Shays and the rebellion as much more than either was. He was portrayed as an anarchist; the rebellion as a threat to the entire nation. Not only was neither portrayal true, Shays was not even "the" leader, according to Richards, but just one of several (among other leaders were Luke Day, Eli Parsons, and Job Shattuck). But the Boston elite labeled the participants as "rebels," "insurgents," or "Shaysites;" the participants referred to themselves as "regulators" (p. 63). In the end, the "regulators" lost the public relations campaign after the insurgency. As a consequence, a fear of "anarchy," "mob rule," and "democratic excesses" became the rallying cry of the nationalists and the movement toward a stronger national government. And playing to that fear was successful during the drafting of the Constitution, as the nationalists succeeded in designing a much-strengthened central government.

Shays's Rebellion concludes with an examination of the campaign for the ratification of the Constitution in Massachusetts. During the ratification campaign the proponents of the Constitution, the Federalists, were labeled as Washingtonians, while the opponents, the Antifederalists, were labeled as Shaysites. Although the labels stuck, Richards maintains that the latter was a misnomer because the Antifederalists in Massachusetts were a much more diverse lot. Many of the opponents of the Constitution, and of a more consolidated, stronger central government, were not participants in Shays's Rebellion. Yet it also is true that the Shaysites, without a doubt, were opposed to a more consolidated government and the Constitution. And many former Shaysites were delegates to the Massachusetts ratifying convention. In fact, at least twenty-nine towns sent well-known former rebels to the state convention and many other towns sent less-known rebels (p. 144).

So who were the supporters and opponents of the Constitution in Massachusetts? Based on Richards' calculation, "[O]f the fifty-two towns in which the insurgency had the most support, not a single sent a delegate" who voted to ratify (p. 147). According to another's calculation, "of the ninety-seven towns with 'Shaysite sympathies,' only seven backed the Constitution" (p. 147). But Richards contends that the Massachusetts ratification battle was much more than just between Shaysites and Washingtonians. It was more generally between the more commercial interests, merchants, and individuals from the seaboard (the supporters) and the less commercial interests, western farmers, and individuals from the more isolated backcountry (the opponents). Richard's "economic" explanation of ratification in Massachusetts is not only consistent with a formal economic model of the ratification vote, it is supported empirically with modern quantitative evidence on voting at the Massachusetts convention (see my To Form a More Perfect Union, Chap. 7).

I do have a few minor complaints about Shays's Rebellion. First, Richards' "standard story" about the "chain of debt" as the primary cause of the insurgency is somewhat of a "straw man." It is a view of Shays's Rebellion drawn from historical literature nearly a half-century old. Second, Richards' argument that the fiscal policies of the Bowdoin administration generally have been ignored also might be a stretch. The interpretation of the rebellion appearing in some more-recent accounts, including economic history texts that mention the story (for example, see Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History, 1994, p. 74), acknowledges that state fiscal policies mattered and tax relief was an objective of the insurgents. These accounts though do not portray state fiscal policies as negatively (or as conspiratorial) as does Richards. Third, the book would have been improved had it better explained the nature of the data and evidence discussed in the text (perhaps in a data appendix). Richards uses the names from "some four thousand" oaths of allegiance and hundreds of indictments to compile his biographical and economic data. What proportion of actual insurgents these represent or how representative these are of all insurgents is never mentioned. Fourth, whether the biographical and economic data were collected for all names in the oaths or indictments is not transparent either. In the first chapter, Richards states, "In the case of Dr. Hines and other obscure individuals mentioned in this book, I used the 'family reconstitution' technique to gather biographical data. I did this for 1,062 rebels and 564 government supporters" (note 1, p. 166). However, in the notes to later chapters, Richards indicates simply that various data about the insurgents, which are discussed in the text, are computed from data compiled from the oaths of allegiance and town histories and records, without any discussion of sample size. So when Richards lists the "percent of males in the rebellion" for several dozen towns (Chap. 3), he is probably referring to the percent that signed an oath of allegiance, but that is not clear. When Richards presents data on the number of insurgents or on the number from a particular family or heavily in debt or sued in courts or imprisoned for debt (Chaps. 3 and 5), the data apparently refer to the number of oath takers, but it is not clear whether the data are for all oath takers or just the 1,062 oath takers or in fact for some other group. Fifth, the book does not include any formal statistical or quantitative analysis. At the risk of being accused of unfairly suggesting that Richards should have written a different book, Shays's Rebellion would have been more convincing and would have benefited much from such formal analysis.

Despite any of these complaints, this is an important book. It includes a wealth of new, heretofore unreported, information about the participants in Shays's Rebellion that differs from most, if not all, previous accounts of the insurgents. The book involved much painstaking primary research. It is well written and easy to read. The author has much of which to be proud. Shays' Rebellion should be read by anyone interested in the Confederation period and events leading up to the Constitution.

Robert McGuire is Professor of Economics at the University of Akron and author of To Form a More Perfect Union: A New Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2002) and "A Supply and Demand Exposition of a Constitutional Tax Loophole: The Case of Tariff Symmetry," Constitutional Political Economy 14 (forthcoming, 2003). His research interests are in American legal and political economic history and historical bioeconomics. He is currently reexamining the political economy of southern constitutional interests via a comparative analysis of the drafting of the U.S. and Confederate constitutions as well as examining the impact of infectious and parasitic diseases on American economic history and growth.