But the most bitter of all these struggles between debtors and creditors occurred in Massachusetts. Trouble had been brewing there for years. Life had been hard enough during the Revolution, and if independence had first brought a flush of prosperity, worse times than ever followed. People and government alike struggled under crushing debts, while much of the Revolutionary notes were hopelessly irredeemable. People were still paying for the war through steep taxes. The farmers suffered the most, perhaps, for their cattle, their plows, even their very farms could be taken away for unpaid debts. Massachusetts courts were extremely harsh against debtors, some of whom had already been thrown in jail and languished there while family and friends desperately scrounged for money that simply could not be found.
Discontent was particularly widespread in the western part of the state, where farmers comprised an important segment of the population, and out of their despair and suffering, a deep hatred had grown up on the farms along the Connecticut border and the settlements in the Berkshires – hatred for sheriffs and other minions of the law who flung their neighbors into jail; hatred for the judges who could sign orders that might wipe out a man’s whole property; hatred for the scheming lawyers who connived in all this; hatred, above all, for the rich people in Boston, the merchants and bankers who seemed to control the governor and the state legislature. When the state legislature adjourned in July 1786 without taking any relief actions, meetings of protest were held in Worcester and Hatfield. Daniel Shays emerged as the most visible leader among these people, but the uprising was as natural and indigenous as any peasant revolt in Europe. The malcontents did not consider themselves members of a Shays’ Rebellion. They called themselves once again the Regulators.
Still filled with the spirit of revolution, the people took matter into their own hands. Their tactic was simple: close up the courts. Mobs prevented the meetings of courts in places like Worcester, Northampton and Great Barrington; time and again, during the late summer and early fall of 1786, rough-hewn men by the hundreds crowded into and around court houses, while judges and sheriffs stood by helplessly. The authorities feared to call out the local militias, knowing the men would desert in droves. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful affairs, even jocular and festive, reaching a high point whenever debtors were released from jail. Most of them were proud men, property owners, who had served as soldiers and even officers in the Revolution, and now they sought justice, not to topple governments. Some men of substance even backed the Regulators, while some of the poorer folk feared these uprisings. But in general, a man’s property and source of income placed him on one side or another.
Then, as the weather turned bitter in the late fall, so did the mood of the Regulators. The attitude of the authorities, too, shifted from the implacable to the near-hysterical. Alarmists exaggerated the strength of the Regulators. Rumors flew about that Boston or some other Eastern town would be attacked. A respectable Bostonian reported that “We are now in a State of Anarchy and confusion bordering on a Civil War.” Boston propagandists spread reports that British agents in Canada were secretly backing the rebels. So now the Regulators were treasonable as well as illegal. The state suspended habeas corpus and raised an army, but lacking public funds had to turn to local gentlemen for loans to finance it.
