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Launch of New Website on Daniel Shays’ Rebellion Leads Up to Constitution Day

The new website Shays’ Rebellion and the Making of a Nation: From Revolution to Constitution, chronicles the Western Massachusetts people and events of the 1780s and their pivotal role in the creation of the United States Constitution. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the website depicts issues and arguments on both sides of the conflict, as well as the lives of area residents in the years following the Revolutionary War.  The web address is http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu.

Scheduled to go live on September 12, the website is a lead-in to Constitution Day, September 17.  We may assume that the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and then the U.S. Constitution, were a natural, inevitable progression of events.  However, the Constitution might not have been written, or not in the form we know, were it not for a rebellion by citizens of the fledgling nation against their new government.

Thomas Jefferson said, “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”  The result of the “anarchy” demonstrated by Shays’ Rebellion was the creation of a more powerful central government, based not on states’ authority but on the authority of the people themselves – We the People.

A few years after the Revolutionary War, Captain Daniel Shays of Pelham and local farmers blockaded area courthouses to keep the courts from foreclosing on the property and livelihood of their families and neighbors. They had protested and petitioned the state government to no avail, before resorting to more militant actions. With the severe postwar economic depression, and the insistence of the state government that taxes be paid with hard money – gold and silver – it was extremely difficult for people to pay their debts, sometimes leading to liquidation of their assets.

In the bitter cold of January 25, 1787, nearly 1,400 men marched up the Bay Path (now State Street) in Springfield to attack the arsenal there, planning to take up arms to fight again for the freedom they thought they had won, through the Revolution.

Individuals on the two sides of the conflict – the Regulators, as Daniel Shays and his followers dubbed their group, seeking to regulate the state government, and the Militia, defending the arsenal and their elected government – were divided throughout towns, between neighbors, and possibly among families.  Many of the opposing men had fought together in the Revolution. 

Apparently no one on either side of the terrible encounter at the arsenal actually fired a musket.  It was the two cannon blasts of grapeshot ordered by General William Shepard – one in the air and a second at waist level – that routed the attackers.

The arsenal that was their target was located on what is now the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, home to the Armory Museum operated by the National Park Service, and the campus of Springfield Technical Community College (STCC). 

STCC and six other colleges will jointly promote the launch of the new website: Bismarck Community College in Bismarck, North Dakota; Brookhaven College in Dallas, Texas; Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, California; Sheridan College in Sheridan, Wyoming; York Technical College in Rock Hill, South Carolina; and Westfield State College in Westfield, Massachusetts.

The $240,990 National Endowment for the Humanities grant was awarded in 2006 to STCC in partnership with the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (PVMA) in Deerfield, which previously created the award-winning website The Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704, and the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

Dr. Lynne Spichiger, project manager for the Shays Rebellion website, said, “STCC is indebted to Tim Neumann, Executive Director of the PVMA, and his staff, for both researching primary source materials – some of which have previously rarely seen the light of day – and creating the content for this website.”  The 30 paintings used as illustrations for the website were created by noted historical artist Bryant White of Pennsylvania.

The website includes character narratives describing real people on both sides of the conflict, as well as historical themes, artifacts, original music recordings, maps, an interactive timeline covering 134 years, a teachers guide, and more.

An art exhibit of the original paintings illustrating the website will be on view from September 12 through October 4 at the Amy H. Carberry Fine Arts Gallery at STCC.  An artist’s reception will be held in the gallery on Friday, September 12 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., with a gallery talk by artist Bryant White at 5:00.  On Saturday, September 13, from 8:45 to noon, the website will be demonstrated, followed by a mini-symposium on The Continuing Relevance of Shays’ Rebellion, featuring Shays’ experts from throughout the region.  The Saturday program will be held in the seventh floor conference area of Scibelli Hall at STCC. The public is invited to these events free of charge.  To register for the Saturday program, contact Dr. Arlene Rodriguez at shaysreb@stcc.edu, or 413/755-4232.