You probably know of “Shays’ Rebellion” as the time where ‘farmers who were angry about taxes’ ‘created unrest’ that exposed the weakness of the Articles of Confederation, causing the Founding Fathers to write the Constitution.
Author Daniel Bullen has recently published a history that tells the story of what happened from the people’s perspective. Daniel Shays’ Honorable Rebellion shows that Shays and thousands of farmers were not trying to overthrow the government. They were protesting flagrantly unjust economic policies that were forcing them off their land, all to pay windfall profits to financiers. And the book draws on extensive research to show that the farmers kept the peace through five months of protests and won reforms in an electoral landslide. In a lecture and discussion program with deep contemporary relevance, Bullen will tell the story of this key moment in America’s legacy of dignified, nonviolent protest.
Daniel Bullen holds a Ph.D. in American literature. He is the author of two other books, The Love Lives of the Artists: Five Stories of Creative Intimacy and The Dangers of Passion: The Transcendental Friendship of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. He lives in western Massachusetts.
