Farmers and the Revolutionary war
The Revolutionary War was demanding. During the time of the Revolutionary war, the demands for various agricultural products rose as well as the demand for soldiers. Therefore, many farmers borrowed large sums of money so that they could yield more than the average amounts of products and provide for the market. Also, many farmers left their farms to go fight for the Independence of their nation. While the Revolutionary demands were being met, all was well and good. Many farmers were making money off of their increased sale of products or were fighting for their country with the government’s promise of pay in mind. However the Revolutionary War eventually came to an end and its aftermath would prove to be devastating for these farmers.
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After the Revolutionary War
After the war, soldiers returned to their farms with hopes of compensation for their service. The high-producing farmers expected to continue with their rate of production and sales. What these men did not predict was the deep debt the United States would obtain as a result of the war. The National Congress set up by the Articles of Confederation looked past the well being of the farmers and put full effort into liquidating war debts and quickly nursing their credit back to health. The government was searching for routes to a prosperous future and found hope in potential to increase world trade. In order to establish these international trading ties, foreign debts needed to be paid.
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taxing the farmers
The question of how the debts should be paid had a simple answer: acquire the money to pay off the debts through taxes. As mentioned on the "Articles of Confederation" page, the federal government had no power to regulate state taxes, but the states had no problem raising taxes on their residents. Being taxed more was an annoyance to many, but was especially intolerable for the aforementioned farmers. The farmers returning from war were paid but in currency that had hardly any worth. Demand for agricultural products dropped after the end of the Revolutionary War, which put farmers who had borrowed money prior to the end of the war in a tough position. They did not make enough money to pay back their loans and added to that, had no hope of making enough money in the near future and were being taxed even heavier than before.
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The debtor farmers had several fates:
1) They could sell their property at an auction, 2) Someone would come to seize their livestock and land, 3) Or they would end up in debtors prison. As more and more farmers suffered their unavoidable fates, intolerance for the government's treatment of them grew. This intolerance was demonstrated to the extreme in the case of Shays’s Rebellion in Massachusetts. |
(1) - The Battle of Camden, photograph, American Powderhorns, accessed April 28, 2014, http://americanpowderhorns.com/.
(2) - Shays' Rebellion-From Revolution to Constitution, last modified 2008, accessed April 13, 2014, http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu.
(2) - Shays' Rebellion-From Revolution to Constitution, last modified 2008, accessed April 13, 2014, http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu.