Milestone #1

I’ve been through a bunch of resources at this point including what I consider my backbone:

The Crisis of the Standing Order: Clerical Intellectuals and Cultural Authority in Massachusetts, 1780-1833 by Peter S. Field

Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle by Leonard L. Richards

Shays’ Rebellion by David P. Szatmary

Shays’s Rebellion by Dean Condon

A great resource written at the time by The history of the insurrections, in Massachusetts, in the year MDCCLXXXVI by George Richards Minot. Even better so because it was written by an anti-shays author but he surprisingly remains pretty fair to the people in the rebellion

Primary sources we have about a dozen Hampshire Gazette and Worcester Magazine articles, reporting everything from Shays’ attack on the armory to the court cases against the rebellion.

We are well covered for the who, what where and why the rebellion happened, any one of those books could have covered that. But I focused on the after where that grey area happens and in Richard’s book he articulated something that I feel really goes with the theme of this class, which I was able to backup with my other readings. After the rebellion takes place we are left with a Massachusetts that is deeply divided and to make matters further worse we needed to ratify the Constitution and everyone was afraid if it failed to be ratified in Mass that it would set an example for further states during their ratifying steps.

While most of the delegates in Massachusetts more wealthy towns/cities were for it almost none of the rural areas were and many of the representatives picked from these areas were either in the rebellion or supported it.  The fact that many citizens of Massachusetts where forced to take an oath of loyalty did not help feelings of resentment.  But other big names were also against the Constitution but not as supports of Shays, like Elbridge Gerry who feared a centralized government, John Handcock and Samuael Adams were all hesitant to support the Constitution.  

So the pro-federalists in Massachusetts had an uphill battle to mend ties between the rebels and the wealthy Mass residents, sway the opinion of Handcock and Adams, and get the Constitution ratified at the state level. This where sources kinda split on what worked, what changed minds and what didn’t matter.  What I’ve come to the conclusion through the different readings is the most important being how forgiving the government was on the rebels, Handcock throwing in support for the Constitution and George Richards Minot’s take on the rebellion all worked together to bring the state back together. The biggest irony being, despite the rebels fearing the more centralized government would lead to more taxes, it would in fact lead to Massachusetts’ debt being forgiving; what the rebels wanted from the start.

I realized I sort of just wrote a thesis statement for a Shays’s Rebellion paper… I guess it’s just how my brain works now. But this conclusion will be great for the website and on direct topic for the class. I think information wise, we are in great shape for this milestone, I will probably still keep an eye out for any other sources just in case, but I’m confident we have enough information to flesh out the website.

My only setback is despite really wanting to take photographs myself of the Springfield Armory I have still failed to find the time needed to drive up there and back in good daylight hours, I think I really need to just talk to my boss and lose a weekend day pay, because at this point I do not think I’ll get up there otherwise.