Calendar

Join us to learn something new every month! Talks will feature presentations by local authors,

academics, business owners, and history buffs. January’s Talk will take place virtually on Zoom.

You will need to pre-register to have access to this program. Please call us if you need any

assistance accessing the program.

About this book:

On January 25, 1787, in Springfield, Massachusetts, militia Major General William

Shepard ordered his cannon to fire grapeshot at a peaceful demonstration of 1,200 farmers

approaching the federal arsenal. The shots killed four and wounded twenty, marking the climax of

five months of civil disobedience in Massachusetts, where farmers challenged the state’s authority

to seize their farms for flagrantly unjust taxes.

Government leaders and influential merchants painted these protests as a violent attempt to

overthrow the state, in hopes of garnering support for strengthening the federal government in a

Constitutional Convention. As a result, the protests have been hidden for more than two hundred

years under the misleading title, “Shays’s Rebellion, the armed uprising that led to the

Constitution.” But this widely accepted narrative is just a legend: the “rebellion” was almost

entirely nonviolent, and retired Revolutionary War hero Daniel Shays was only one of many

leaders.

Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion: An American Story by Daniel Bullen tells the history

of the crisis from the protesters’ perspective.