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Shays' Rebellion and Related Resources

K-12 Teachers' Workshop

March 7, 1998

 

Sponsored by the History Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Primary Source Materials

• Portrait of John Bowdoin, Massachusetts Historical Society
• Portrait of Hon. William Cushing, Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society
• Letter from George Washington to David Humphreys, October 22, 1786, [make sure that you enter 192 in the image box and hit the return key on your keyboard] George Washington Papers, Series 2 Letterbooks, Letterbook 13, Image 192, Library of Congress (transcription available)
• Letter from George Washington to Henry Knox, February 25, 1787, [make sure that you enter 29 in the image box and hit the return key on your keyboard] George Washington Papers, Series 2 Letterbooks, Letterbook 14, Image 29, Library of Congress (transcription available)
• Letter from George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, March 23, 1787, [make sure that you enter 50 in the image box and hit the return key on your keyboard] George Washington Papers, Series 2 Letterbooks, Letterbook 14, Image 192, Library of Congress (transcription available)
• Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787, The Early America Review, Summer 1996

Related Resources

Overviews of Shays' Rebellion

• Shays' Rebellion, Peg Larson, Wintergreen Associates, Amherst, MA -- contains an overview of Shays' Rebellion with the possibility of going on a "walking tour" of Amherst, MA
• Shay's Rebellion: An Exhibit Located at the Hampden County Superior Court, Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society

 

Other Rebellions

• Robert Beverley on Bacon's Rebellion (1704), MidAmerica Nazarene University -- transcribed notes of one of Virginia's earliest historians on the topic of Bacon's Rebellion (1676)
• Bacon's Declaration in the Name of the People (30 July 1676), The American Revolution HTML project -- transcription of the declaration
• Governor William Berkely on Bacon's Rebellion (19 May 1676), The American Revolution HTML project
• The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington's Proclamation (August 7, 1794), The Early America Review
• Whiskey Insurrection, excerpts from the diaries of George Washington, University of Virginia

 

Maps

• Historical Map Collection, University of Texas. Check out territorial maps among others.

 

19th Century References to Shays' Rebellion

• Eight Years in Congress, from 1857 to 1865. Memoir and Speeches, Samuel Sullivan Cox, 1865, see pp. 192 - 193, from the University of Michigan Making of America project
• A Comprehensive View of Our Country and Its Resources, James Dabney McCabe, 1876, see p. 1221, from the University of Michigan Making of America project
• Celebration by the inhabitants of Worcester, Mass., of the centennial history of the declaration of independence, Worcester (Mass.), 1876, see pp. 131 - 132, from the University of Michigan Making of America project
• Chit Chat, from Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Volume 29, Issue 174, June 1897, see pp. 660, from the University of Michigan Making of America project

Additional Resources

• The American Revolution, H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences On-line -- companion site to the PBS documentary series Liberty!
• Massachusetts Facts: A Review of the History, Government, and Symbols of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth
• The Charters of Freedom, National Archives and Records Administration -- Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights
• Constitution Day, National Archives and Records Administration -- Primary documents and lesson plans
• The Federalist Papers, The Constitution Society
• The Anti-Federalist Papers, The Constitution Society
• Chief Justice (1792 - 1806) Francis Dana, Edgar J. Bellafontaine, Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society
• Events in History (1775 - 1828), Worcester, MA K-12 project -- includes summaries of Whiskey Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion