Chapter 1: Revolt of the Regulators
“…a horrid and unnatural Rebellion and War, has been openly and traitorously raised and levied against this Commonwealth, and is still continued, and now exists within the same, with design to subvert and overthrow the Constitution and Form of Government thereof which has been most solemnly agreed to, and established by the Citizens of this Commonwealth…”
— Proclamation of Rebellion by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
“Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed-- and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors-- and they have no comforter.”
— Ecclesiastes 4:1
By the tenth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the First Republic of the United States was in terminal decline. The weak government established under the First Constitution [1] had barely remained cohesive during the War for Independence despite the need for unity during the conflict. With the pressure of the War removed the Republic began to evaporate into its constituent states as growing political and economic differences between each state brought new tensions. The only organ of government of the First Republic, the Congress of the Confederation, was paralyzed to inaction by a lack of funding and an inability to assemble a quorum with growing regularity. The weakness of the First Republic, and the growing divisions led to foreign powers wondering whether to send a single ambassador to the Congress of the Confederation or one to each of the individual states.
That something had to change was undeniable to almost all within the United States, and efforts at reform were in their embryonic stages. Nevertheless, this progress was proving too little too late for many, and the situation was coming to a head in Massachusetts. As with all other states, Massachusetts was heavily in debt by the end of the War for Independence, and a severe economic downturn in 1784 led to harsher taxes to finance the debt — taxation which exceeded levels imposed by the British before Independence. Furthermore, the new conservative and mercantile government led by Governor James Bowdoin within Boston forced debts only to be payable in specie rather than the paper currencies issued during the War of Independence or by the Congress of the Confederation. This requirement was virtually impossible for the general population to fulfill as gold and silver were functionally non-existent outside the relatively wealthy cities of Massachusetts’ coast.
Particularly grievous was the situation for the veterans of the War of Independence. Many had gone into debt during their service due to the First Republic’s financial woes frequently disrupting pay. Backpay and promised pensions arrived only in stunted quantities and in the form of now worthless paper currency; [2] those who had spent years fighting for the United States were left in debt and unable to pay it off. Further compounding the insult, the government of Massachusetts would begin to seize farms or throw these veterans into debtor’s prison in response.
By mid-1786, the people of Massachusetts began to organize in response to the degrading situation. On August 23rd, 1786, a convention in Hatfield led by one Captain Luke Day would demand the end of the seizures. Six days later, Captain Day would lead the disruption of the courts in Northampton. Matters were coming to a head across the state, and as confrontations between state officials and disenfranchised citizens grew increasingly hostile, fears of violence began to spread. Organizing under the name of Regulators, [3] the anti-government movement began to mobilize across Massachusetts, disrupting local courts and preventing tax collection throughout much of the state.
On September 26th, Massachusetts’ highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, was scheduled to assemble in Springfield. In response, a Regulator militia commanded by Captain Daniel Shays assembled to protest the Court and attempt to halt its proceedings. Opposing the Regulators, General William Shepard rallied a pro-government militia in Springfield to protect the Court. In contrast to the Regulator militia, which was large and poorly armed, Shepard’s militiamen were few in number but had armed themselves with supplies from the Springfield Armory. Both militia leaders would meet on horseback amiably, discussing the Regulators’ grievances and agreeing to allow the Regulators to protest.
For a brief moment the crisis seemed likely to have ended peacefully. However, in a moment on which history turned, tragedy occurred. Shays’ horse reared up, striking Shepard and throwing Shays. In the confusion, a single shot rang out, and the two sides set upon each other in a short but chaotic fight. [4] Four Regulators and six pro-government militiamen lay dead. The Regulators were victorious and the pro-government forces fled the city. In the aftermath, the Regulators discovered that Shays was dead. While it was most likely that Shays broke his neck due to the fall, some Regulators began to accuse General Shepard of having somehow murdered Shays.
Shepard, who survived his fall only to suffer a severe injury during the fighting, had been unable to flee with the rest of his men after the fight and was captured by the Regulators. With anger spreading as news of Shays’ death and the rumors of his “cowardly assassination” spread, a crowd of radicals seized Shepard, and the General was lynched in an outpouring of all the rage and fury at Governor Bowdoin’s government that the Regulators possessed. Unfortunately, the bloodlust of the mob proved unabated by Shepard’s death. After his lynching, the crowd stormed the courthouse in which the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court were still present and lynched the unfortunate justices as well. All five justices, William Cushing, Nathaniel Sargent, David Sewall, Francis Dana, and Increase Sumner, were killed in the violence.
“Bloody Tuesday,” as the events in Springfield came to be known, marked the true beginning of the Regulator Revolt. In response, Governor Bowdoin declared the suspension of Habeas Corpus while the Massachusetts General Court [5] passed a brutal Riot Act and declared Martial Law in the state. To enforce these new decrees, several of the state’s wealthy citizens privately funded and organized a new pro-government militia to oppose the Regulators. [6] The Regulators, on the other hand, seized upon the initiative and seized control of the entire west of the State of Massachusetts.
Two weeks after Bloody Tuesday, several dozen representatives of the western regions of Massachusetts met in Concord to adopt a plan of action. The plan, which came to be known as the “Concord Resolution,” served as the first fully united program of the Regulators. Among other elements, the Concord Resolution fully announced the Regulators’ intentions to oust the current government of Massachusetts and establish a new constitution for the state. Luke Day, Captains Job Shattuck and Agrippa Wells, and Lieutenant Eli Parsons became the officers of the self-proclaimed “Executive Council of Massachusetts,” making the four the de facto heads of a rival Regulator Government that opposed the Bowdoin government.
Outside of a few minor skirmishes, no military action was taken either by the Regulators or the Bowdoin government for the rest of 1786. Neither side was fully ready militarily to launch a serious campaign, and an early frost squashed the campaign season regardless. Instead, supporters and opponents of the Regulator movement fought a propaganda campaign across Massachusetts and the United States. While Massachusetts had been the most fertile ground for a revolt against the government, similar grievances were also present in other states. This led to Regulator-inspired movements emerging in New Hampshire and New York and protest conventions occurring in rural portions of nearly every state. Opposition to the spread of Regulator ideals also began to stiffen across the United States, with the Governors of Connecticut and New York considering raising militias of their own to assist Governor Bowdoin in putting down the Regulator Revolt.
As the cold of February waned into a warm March, expectations of coming military action in Massachusetts were suddenly and abruptly overturned. Despite the best efforts of Governor Bowdoin and the Massachusetts government to maintain order, Boston erupted in a series of violent anti-government riots throughout the first week of March. The harsh measures to oppose the Regulators pushed by Governor Bowdoin had been unpopular with the city’s general population, and discontent stirred as the government’s preparation to smash the rebellion weighed upon the people of Boston. Furthermore, for some Bostonians, the draconian measures of Governor Bowdoin leaned unfavorably into comparisons with British actions before the War for Independence. Mocking comparisons of Bowdoin to the last colonial Governor, Thomas Gage, were frequently made, and the often harsh responses only furthered the discontent.
Finally, on March 1st, a former member of the General Court, Moses Harvey, was forced to stand on the gallows with a noose around his neck for an hour as a punishment [7] for his vocal support of the Regulators. The punishment was public, and while many such punishments had occurred before, the crowd that gathered to watch the punishment turned unruly and rioted. The rioting quickly spread across the city, and attempts by the government of Massachusetts to quell the riots failed. On March 5th, fearing the increasingly out-of-control mob, Bowdoin would flee the city for New York. Much of the city and state’s leadership fled Boston shortly after Bowdoin, leaving the town in the hands of the mob.
As the chaos began to die down, two men emerged as the de facto leaders of Boston. The first was Moses Harvey, who became a veritable living martyr with the mob, and the second was a previously little-known figure of Clark Hopewood. Hopewood, a native of Boston who worked as a printer, was a radical supporter of the Regulators. Having been imprisoned by Bowdoin’s government for his support of the Regulators, Hopewood was freed during the riots and stoked the flames of the chaos. Both men, along with some of the remaining members of the city government, would meet on March 8th and agreed to invite the Regulator government into the city. Boston, and therefore the last of the State of Massachusetts, fell to the Regulators without a shot.
With the flight of Bowdoin and the Regulator’s triumphal entry into Boston on March 15th, it almost seemed as if the past year’s violence was nothing more than a passing moment in Massachusetts’ history. As after a nightmare one had just woken up from, most expected the terror and violence would now fade into the normalcy of day-to-day life. Unfortunately, however, the bleeding had just begun; for now, the First Republic of the United States had suffered its first shuddering spasm before an unexpected and violent death.
[1] OTL the Articles of Confederation
[2] Just as in OTL
[3] A name used in OTL.
[4] Our POD.
[5] The name for the legislature of Massachusetts IOTL as well; a unique quirk of colonial history that survived.
[6] Similar measures occurred in OTL but in a somewhat different order.
[7] To set on the gallows was an actual non-lethal punishment employed at the time and in Massachusetts, and often was also accompanied by being whipped.
— Proclamation of Rebellion by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
“Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed-- and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors-- and they have no comforter.”
— Ecclesiastes 4:1
By the tenth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the First Republic of the United States was in terminal decline. The weak government established under the First Constitution [1] had barely remained cohesive during the War for Independence despite the need for unity during the conflict. With the pressure of the War removed the Republic began to evaporate into its constituent states as growing political and economic differences between each state brought new tensions. The only organ of government of the First Republic, the Congress of the Confederation, was paralyzed to inaction by a lack of funding and an inability to assemble a quorum with growing regularity. The weakness of the First Republic, and the growing divisions led to foreign powers wondering whether to send a single ambassador to the Congress of the Confederation or one to each of the individual states.
That something had to change was undeniable to almost all within the United States, and efforts at reform were in their embryonic stages. Nevertheless, this progress was proving too little too late for many, and the situation was coming to a head in Massachusetts. As with all other states, Massachusetts was heavily in debt by the end of the War for Independence, and a severe economic downturn in 1784 led to harsher taxes to finance the debt — taxation which exceeded levels imposed by the British before Independence. Furthermore, the new conservative and mercantile government led by Governor James Bowdoin within Boston forced debts only to be payable in specie rather than the paper currencies issued during the War of Independence or by the Congress of the Confederation. This requirement was virtually impossible for the general population to fulfill as gold and silver were functionally non-existent outside the relatively wealthy cities of Massachusetts’ coast.
Particularly grievous was the situation for the veterans of the War of Independence. Many had gone into debt during their service due to the First Republic’s financial woes frequently disrupting pay. Backpay and promised pensions arrived only in stunted quantities and in the form of now worthless paper currency; [2] those who had spent years fighting for the United States were left in debt and unable to pay it off. Further compounding the insult, the government of Massachusetts would begin to seize farms or throw these veterans into debtor’s prison in response.
By mid-1786, the people of Massachusetts began to organize in response to the degrading situation. On August 23rd, 1786, a convention in Hatfield led by one Captain Luke Day would demand the end of the seizures. Six days later, Captain Day would lead the disruption of the courts in Northampton. Matters were coming to a head across the state, and as confrontations between state officials and disenfranchised citizens grew increasingly hostile, fears of violence began to spread. Organizing under the name of Regulators, [3] the anti-government movement began to mobilize across Massachusetts, disrupting local courts and preventing tax collection throughout much of the state.
On September 26th, Massachusetts’ highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, was scheduled to assemble in Springfield. In response, a Regulator militia commanded by Captain Daniel Shays assembled to protest the Court and attempt to halt its proceedings. Opposing the Regulators, General William Shepard rallied a pro-government militia in Springfield to protect the Court. In contrast to the Regulator militia, which was large and poorly armed, Shepard’s militiamen were few in number but had armed themselves with supplies from the Springfield Armory. Both militia leaders would meet on horseback amiably, discussing the Regulators’ grievances and agreeing to allow the Regulators to protest.
For a brief moment the crisis seemed likely to have ended peacefully. However, in a moment on which history turned, tragedy occurred. Shays’ horse reared up, striking Shepard and throwing Shays. In the confusion, a single shot rang out, and the two sides set upon each other in a short but chaotic fight. [4] Four Regulators and six pro-government militiamen lay dead. The Regulators were victorious and the pro-government forces fled the city. In the aftermath, the Regulators discovered that Shays was dead. While it was most likely that Shays broke his neck due to the fall, some Regulators began to accuse General Shepard of having somehow murdered Shays.
Shepard, who survived his fall only to suffer a severe injury during the fighting, had been unable to flee with the rest of his men after the fight and was captured by the Regulators. With anger spreading as news of Shays’ death and the rumors of his “cowardly assassination” spread, a crowd of radicals seized Shepard, and the General was lynched in an outpouring of all the rage and fury at Governor Bowdoin’s government that the Regulators possessed. Unfortunately, the bloodlust of the mob proved unabated by Shepard’s death. After his lynching, the crowd stormed the courthouse in which the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court were still present and lynched the unfortunate justices as well. All five justices, William Cushing, Nathaniel Sargent, David Sewall, Francis Dana, and Increase Sumner, were killed in the violence.
“Bloody Tuesday,” as the events in Springfield came to be known, marked the true beginning of the Regulator Revolt. In response, Governor Bowdoin declared the suspension of Habeas Corpus while the Massachusetts General Court [5] passed a brutal Riot Act and declared Martial Law in the state. To enforce these new decrees, several of the state’s wealthy citizens privately funded and organized a new pro-government militia to oppose the Regulators. [6] The Regulators, on the other hand, seized upon the initiative and seized control of the entire west of the State of Massachusetts.
Two weeks after Bloody Tuesday, several dozen representatives of the western regions of Massachusetts met in Concord to adopt a plan of action. The plan, which came to be known as the “Concord Resolution,” served as the first fully united program of the Regulators. Among other elements, the Concord Resolution fully announced the Regulators’ intentions to oust the current government of Massachusetts and establish a new constitution for the state. Luke Day, Captains Job Shattuck and Agrippa Wells, and Lieutenant Eli Parsons became the officers of the self-proclaimed “Executive Council of Massachusetts,” making the four the de facto heads of a rival Regulator Government that opposed the Bowdoin government.
Outside of a few minor skirmishes, no military action was taken either by the Regulators or the Bowdoin government for the rest of 1786. Neither side was fully ready militarily to launch a serious campaign, and an early frost squashed the campaign season regardless. Instead, supporters and opponents of the Regulator movement fought a propaganda campaign across Massachusetts and the United States. While Massachusetts had been the most fertile ground for a revolt against the government, similar grievances were also present in other states. This led to Regulator-inspired movements emerging in New Hampshire and New York and protest conventions occurring in rural portions of nearly every state. Opposition to the spread of Regulator ideals also began to stiffen across the United States, with the Governors of Connecticut and New York considering raising militias of their own to assist Governor Bowdoin in putting down the Regulator Revolt.
As the cold of February waned into a warm March, expectations of coming military action in Massachusetts were suddenly and abruptly overturned. Despite the best efforts of Governor Bowdoin and the Massachusetts government to maintain order, Boston erupted in a series of violent anti-government riots throughout the first week of March. The harsh measures to oppose the Regulators pushed by Governor Bowdoin had been unpopular with the city’s general population, and discontent stirred as the government’s preparation to smash the rebellion weighed upon the people of Boston. Furthermore, for some Bostonians, the draconian measures of Governor Bowdoin leaned unfavorably into comparisons with British actions before the War for Independence. Mocking comparisons of Bowdoin to the last colonial Governor, Thomas Gage, were frequently made, and the often harsh responses only furthered the discontent.
Finally, on March 1st, a former member of the General Court, Moses Harvey, was forced to stand on the gallows with a noose around his neck for an hour as a punishment [7] for his vocal support of the Regulators. The punishment was public, and while many such punishments had occurred before, the crowd that gathered to watch the punishment turned unruly and rioted. The rioting quickly spread across the city, and attempts by the government of Massachusetts to quell the riots failed. On March 5th, fearing the increasingly out-of-control mob, Bowdoin would flee the city for New York. Much of the city and state’s leadership fled Boston shortly after Bowdoin, leaving the town in the hands of the mob.
As the chaos began to die down, two men emerged as the de facto leaders of Boston. The first was Moses Harvey, who became a veritable living martyr with the mob, and the second was a previously little-known figure of Clark Hopewood. Hopewood, a native of Boston who worked as a printer, was a radical supporter of the Regulators. Having been imprisoned by Bowdoin’s government for his support of the Regulators, Hopewood was freed during the riots and stoked the flames of the chaos. Both men, along with some of the remaining members of the city government, would meet on March 8th and agreed to invite the Regulator government into the city. Boston, and therefore the last of the State of Massachusetts, fell to the Regulators without a shot.
With the flight of Bowdoin and the Regulator’s triumphal entry into Boston on March 15th, it almost seemed as if the past year’s violence was nothing more than a passing moment in Massachusetts’ history. As after a nightmare one had just woken up from, most expected the terror and violence would now fade into the normalcy of day-to-day life. Unfortunately, however, the bleeding had just begun; for now, the First Republic of the United States had suffered its first shuddering spasm before an unexpected and violent death.
[1] OTL the Articles of Confederation
[2] Just as in OTL
[3] A name used in OTL.
[4] Our POD.
[5] The name for the legislature of Massachusetts IOTL as well; a unique quirk of colonial history that survived.
[6] Similar measures occurred in OTL but in a somewhat different order.
[7] To set on the gallows was an actual non-lethal punishment employed at the time and in Massachusetts, and often was also accompanied by being whipped.
Then let us not focus on the bad anymore no
