Prologue,
A quick note on some of the debt mechanisms used to raise funds during the American revolutionary war. The Americans borrowed money from money center banks in France. The British borrowed from their own money center banks as well. It is estimated that 6% of the total American war debt came directly from European banking interests. So its the same ol, same ol. Yes, The banking oligrachs financed both sides of the American Revolutionary war. To quote General Smedly Butler, war is a racket.
States also issued their own debt certificates. This is estimated to have been14% of the total debt load. How much was resold to foreign banks vs held by local money interests that had the most to gain from the war is not clear. Most of these were state-issued war bonds. Also called “bills of credit,” they were “interest bearing certificates”. In support for the common defense, states would also issue “requisition certificates” to vendors and suppliers to pay for food and supplies if the Continental Army happened to be camped within their state.
Now, the revolution was over, when the cannons had fallen silent and the smoke had finally cleared from the battlefields, the small farmers, workers and artisans who had done all the fighting looked around them and saw that they had gained nothing from the Revolution. They were crushed by debts and taxes.
During the years 1786 and 1787, a series of confrontations took place between the desperate debtor-farmers of Western Massachusetts and the state government authorities. The events known as Shays' Rebellion came to symbolize the widespread discontent throughout New England and the other colonies during the economic depression that followed the American Revolution. In Massachusetts farmers who fought in the Revolutionary War had received little compensation, and by the 1780s many were struggling financially.
From 1781 until 1789, the United States was governed under the Articles of Confederation. The federal government lacked the authority to regulate trade or to collect taxes. Each state was responsible for paying its share of the huge Revolutionary War debt.
Businesses in Boston and elsewhere demanded immediate payment for the goods that farmers had previously bought on credit and that were often paid off using barter. But taxes, taxes had to be paid in cash. However, there was little to no paper money in circulation and no gold or silver to be had by the farmers to settle these debts.
At the same time, Massachusetts residents were expected to pay higher taxes than they had ever paid to the British in order to assure that Governor James Bowdoin’s business associates would receive a good return on their investment in war bonds among other things.
Sounds familiar, Money Center banks and crooked politicians put the squeeze on the working man to save their investments. Classic weatlth transfer, just like today.
And Those hardest hit usually lacked the property qualifications for voting and thus were powerless against the money changers, merchants and politicians. Let’s see, Trump wins the election, but vote counting is stopped until the oligarchs can print or double count enough ballots to steal the election. Net result, you have no vote just like in 1786. The giant merchants and internet companies, Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Google, all are allowed to stay open and prosper while small mom and pop shops are shut and go out of business during the Covid lockdown. Show up on January 6th to protest and petition the government for a redress of grievances and the full force of the Federal Government comes down on you.
They had just fought a revolutionary war over taxation without representation and now they were being taxed to the point of losing their farms through foreclosure and for overdue debts and delinquent taxes. Others faced going to debtors prison. Most of these debtors were also Revolutionary War veterans, the Veterans felt betrayed. That’s right they were veterans and they were betrayed by the government they brought into power. In revolutionary terms this can be looked as the point where the monied wing of the revolution crushes its former allies and proceeds to consolidate its power as the new ruling class
The Farmers first attempted peaceful means to settle their issues. Committees of town leaders drafted documents of grievances and proposed reforms, these went to the legislature in Boston. It fell upon deaf ears.
Then things heated up, In Northampton, Captain Joseph Hines led several hundred men to block judges from entering the courthouse. They were joined by a contingent from Amherst and several hundred more men from the surrounding area.
In Worcester, judges were blocked from holding court by crowds of hundreds of armed men. When the government militia was called in, those men refused to answer, and many joined the crowd around the courthouse.
Daniel Shays, for whom the rebellion was eventually named, was a farmer in Pelham and an ex-soldier who fought at Bunker Hill and other significant Revolution battles.
Shays got involved sometime in the summer of 1786 and had taken part in the Northampton action.
Soon, however, Shays was leading a sizable group, the eastern oligarchs claimed he was the leader of the entire rebellion. But Shays was just one of several leaders in the rebellion.
In September, Shays led a group of 600 farmers to shut down the court in Springfield. Determined to use peaceful means, he negotiated with General William Shepard for the court to remain open while allowing protesters to parade. The court eventually closed down when it couldn’t find any jurors to serve.
Henry Knox, an artillery commander and comrade of General Washington during the Revolutionary war and the future first U.S. Secretary of War, wrote to George Washington in 1786 to warn him about the rebels: It was a screed, the conclusion of which was the nation needs a strong central government to secure the lives and property of the wealthy ruling class. .. just like the Democrats are doing today, with the republicans dutifully playing their roll as the loyal opposition and acting as a relief valve. Knox gave short shrift to the farmers, claiming none of their grievances were legitimate. Wow, Just like how the antiwhites think today.
Legendary patriot Samuel Adams, however, called for the execution of the rebellious farmers. Hmm, lets see, a short while earlier Sam Adams was engaged in rebellion himself. As one of the planners of the Boston Tea Party the British would have happily hung Adams. Well Sam, what do you have to say for yourself? oh, that was then, this is now. Oh, Don’t rebel against my authority, just sit down, shut up and take it. Your a parent at a school board meeting wanting control of what your children are taught with your own tax dollars? Sorry honey, sit, down, shut up and take it or we’ll send the FBI to harass you or arrest you and try you as a terrorist.
The situation went back and forth, The Massachusetts legislature offered some leniency and flexibility to those with tax burdens. Amnesty was also offered to the rebels if they disavowed the efforts to close the courts. The farmers were expected to take loyalty oaths to the state government.
Then a bill was passed excusing sheriffs from responsibility if they killed any of the farmers and decreeing harsh punishments for farmers already in custody. The Massachusetts legislature then suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Now the government could detain you, that is lock you up and you have no legal recourse, no ability to appear in court to challenge the lawfulness of your detention. Hmm, sounds like the Patriot Act and what has happened to the January 6th patriots day marchers.
Another bill prescribed the death penalty for government militiamen who changed sides and joined the farmers. Today our military is cleansing its ranks of anybody who is not antiWhite.
Things continued to escalate. In December 1786, a government militia assaulted a farmer and his family in Groton, crippling and then arresting the farmer, which further inflamed the farmers. Hmmm, sounds like an FBI predawn raid on the homes of those who attended the January 6th partriots day march in Washington DC.
In January 1787, Governor Bowdoin hired his own army, privately funded by Boston merchants. Some 4,400 men under the command of General Benjamin Lincoln were directed to put the farmers down. Hmmm, sounds like the antifa and BLM that do the governments dirty work today and are funded by today’s merchant class.
Shays and other leaders made plans to raid the federal arsenal in Springfield to procure weapons. On a snowy January 25, 1787, 1,200 men approached the arsenal. Some had guns, some had clubs, some had pitch forks.
General Shepard predicted the assault and was waiting for them at the arsenal. Or maybe some of Shepard’s men infiltrated the rebellion and planned the assault on the arsenal to set up Shays and the farmers. Shepard was asserting to anyone that would listen that the farmers planned to overthrow the government. Meanwhile, General Lincoln’s troops marched from Worcester to Springfield to provide additional support against the farmers. The farmers were taken by surprise, a brief skirmish broke out leaving 2 farmers dead and 20 wounded. The rest of the farmers scattered, Shays’s rebellion was over. The farmers lost.
The tactic of protesting in the towns, blocking courthouses, was working. But when they made or were tricked into making an armed assault on the Springfield arsenal it was all over. The urban money center business interests and crooked politicians won.
By the summer of 1787, many participants in the rebellion received pardons from newly-elected Governor John Hancock. Including Daniel Shays. Something we should not expect from the current regime. It would have been nice if Trump had pardoned the January 6th patriots instead of throwing them under the bus. The Massachusetts legislature made some reforms concerning debts and taxes easing the economic burden the farmers were struggling to overcome. Today we call that a Relief value.
Some farmers were publicly paraded to the gallows before release. Two were executed for burglary, well that is what the history books tell us but the punishment doesn’t really fit the crime. They were executed to send a message to any still malcontent farmers, much like the execution of Ashli Babitt for breaking a window on January 6th.
It is estimated that the number of people that took up arms in Shays’ rebellion was 4,000 people. That would have been close to 5% of the total state population of men at the time estimating from the 1790 census. In the affected western counties of Massachusetts it was probably between 10 to 20%, and they still lost to the money interests.
Yes history as Mark Twain once said does not repeat, but it often rhymes.
Jefferson from a safe distance in France while on diplomatic assignment wrote of the rebellion: A little revolution now and then is a good thing. God forbid we that we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. In the case of Shays’ rebellion the watering was done with the blood of patriots. Nothing really changed, in fact you can make an argument that things actually got worse. From 1792-1811, U.S. per capita tax rates were over 10 times higher than the imperial taxe rates levied by the British from 1765 to 1775. Such a deal
In 1792 Governor John Hancock hosted an equality ball honoring local Negro Americans. No farmers were present, but they did provide food at a discount.
The lesson for us today should be obvious, the battle is not with bullets or ballots, but with the verbiage and dialectics of going free. Westernkind is being continuously assaulted by antiWhites using military grade psychological warfare techniques. Decades of withering psychological assault has deracinated Westernkind, In order to retake control of our own destiny we must see ourselves as one people with many countries.