Shays’ Rebellion, a Familiar Formula, and a Necessary Result

On May 16, 1771, approximately 3,500 men met at a large field in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. For about two decades, the fight over excessive taxation and political corruption had increased from debate to protests to rioting. Now, it was an armed struggle. Of the 3,500 men who met near Great Alamance Creek, 2,000 were citizen farmers called Regulators. The others—slightly outnumbered, but better armed and better organized—were North Carolina militiamen. They had been sent by Governor James William Tryon to quell the rebellion.
Four months prior, on Jan. 15, Governor Tryon had signed the Johnston Act, which was “​​An Act for Preventing Tumultuous and Riotous Assemblies, and for the More Speedy and Effectually Punishing the Rioters, and for Restoring and Preserving the Public Peace of This Province.” What the Act did not do, obviously, was address the farmers’ grievances.
Before the breakout of armed hostility, the farmers requested one last time to meet with Governor Tryon. The governor responded that the farmers had to first lay down their arms, and they had one hour to do so. The farmers responded defiantly: “Fire and be damned.”
The militia responded in kind. After a two-hour battle, the militia had defeated the rebel farmers. In the process, nine militia members were killed and 61 wounded. The casualty numbers among the farmers went unrecorded. The day after the battle, Tryon promised amnesty to any Regulator who took an oath of loyalty to the colony. More than 6,400 took the oath.
For 150 years, the British had practiced the governmental policy of “salutary neglect.” British debt from the Seven Years’ War (known in America as the French and Indian War), however, had driven the king and Parliament to unilaterally institute laws and administer taxes on the colonists. One of the common refrains during the Revolution was “taxation without representation is tyranny.”
Indeed, it was all over. After signing the Treaty of Paris on Sept. 3, 1783, the Americans were left to rule themselves. Self-governance after a revolution, however, was difficult. The war took a toll on a once-prosperous economy for various reasons, but mainly because its traditional and primary trading partner, Great Britain, implemented trade restrictions and heavily restricted American imports. With America’s agrarian economy, the farmers again took a major hit.