Since August, well-organized crowds of hundreds of aggrieved debtors have stood at the entrances–and prevented the opening–of courthouses in Northampton, Springfield, Worcestor, Athol, and Great Barrington in western Massachusetts. On the first occasion, a farmer and Army veteran, Luke Day, stood on the courthouse steps holding a petition asking the judges not to execute any more foreclosures or debt processes until the protesters could meet with state legislators to craft relief for borrowers. Fifteen hundred men stood with Day. Most of the police officers accompanying the judges sympathized with the debtors and declined to make arrests. The judges, prudent men, went home.
In Concord, soon afterward, a similar scene unfolded. A 50 year-old Army veteran, Job Shattuck, and hundreds of other men drove their vehicles onto the central town green and sent a message to the judges they should stay out of the courthouses until some solution to the mass foreclosure and eviction crisis could be worked out. The Concord judges, also prudent, went home, too.
Some people have begun calling this loose-knit group the Regulators. As their symbol, they have chosen a sprig of hemlock. One spokesman, Plough Jogger, said, “The great men are going to get all we have and I think it is time for us to rise and put a stop to it, and have no more courts, nor sheriffs, nor collectors nor lawyers….”
These events took place in 1786. People kept shutting down courthouses until February of 1787. The practice spread to New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maryland, and South Carolina.
What Precipitated these Actions?
What happened was: a war, then a recession, then a call-in of debts. After Independence from Britain, British creditors asked Boston merchants to repay their debts. The sudden and severe post-war recession, though, left the Boston merchants short of cash. They leaned on their debtors. Those people, mostly low-income and rural, had very little cash at all. Some farmers offered to repay their loans in kind, with grain or cows. The merchants rejected those proposals and began legal action. Many men in the bottom tier of debtors had made sacrifices during the War of Independence, had fought in the Continental Army, had felt the heady thrill of standing up for themselves, and still had their guns. They weren’t ready to get thrown out of their homes and livelihoods quite so soon. As they had learned to do during the 1770’s, they organized and resisted.
You say “Viva Che”; I say “Viva Shays”
Americans may remember studying this drama in high school as “Shays’s Rebellion.” Daniel Shays didn’t join in, though, until September 19, when the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indicted three of his friends. Rumors flew that in a week the Court was going to meet again, in Springfield, to indict Luke Day. Shays pulled together seven hundred men and went to Springfield. He got permission to hold a “parade” through the center of town. Lots of on-duty soldiers joined the parade. With drums banging, fifes shrieking, and feet stomping, the marchers’ sentiments were audible. The judges postponed their hearing, then gave up and adjourned.
After this demonstration, sadly, protestors and soldiers met in armed conflict. As best I can tell, as many as ten men were killed in battle or surreptitious attacks. Leaders were arrested, including Shays, convicted and sentenced to death, then pardoned. Shays died many years later in New York, poor and obscure, like nearly everyone else in the rural Northeast.
The Effect on the Elections
The demonstrations, the petitions, and the fighting had political repercussions. In the next Massachusetts elections, candidates who supported relief for debtors won a majority of seats in the Legislature and passed their legislation. The same thing happened in Rhode Island.
Today
As far as I know, the Regulators never flew a flag. If they had, it might have looked like this one:
Parts of this story will repeat themselves, but which ones, where, and with whom? In your area, are people threatened with foreclosure or eviction organizing? Are judges delaying proceedings so that other measures can be experimented with? What are your state legislative and congressional representatives and candidates saying?
Further reading
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, New York, 2001
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