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Daniel Shays
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===Debt and tax burdens=== Upon returning home, Shays was summoned to court for unpaid debts, which he could not pay because he had not been paid in full for his military service.<ref>Zinn, pp. 71β72</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/stream/massachusettssol14mass#page/76/mode/2up Massachusetts Soldier and Sailors in the war of the Revolution Vol XIV p.76 summary of Shays service record]</ref> Shays was alarmed to discover that many of his fellow veterans and farmers were in the same financial situation. At commoners' meetings veterans asserted that they were treated unfairly upon release, and that businessmen were trying to squeeze money out of smallholders in order to pay their own debts to European war investors. Many Massachusetts rural communities first tried to petition the legislature in Boston,<ref>Zinn, pp. 91β93</ref> but the legislature did not respond substantively to those petitions.{{cn|date=October 2021}} The petitions and proposals often included a request to issue paper currency. Such inflationary issues would depreciate the currency, making it possible to meet obligations made at high values with lower-valued paper. Merchants, among them [[James Bowdoin]], were opposed to these proposals because they were generally lenders who stood to lose. The proposals were repeatedly rejected.<ref>Szatmary, pp. 38β42, 45</ref> Governor [[John Hancock]], accused by some of anticipating trouble, abruptly resigned in early 1785. When Bowdoin (a loser to Hancock in earlier elections) was elected governor that year, matters became more severe. Bowdoin stepped up civil actions to collect back taxes, and the legislature exacerbated the situation by levying an additional property tax to raise funds for the state's portion of foreign debt payments.<ref name=Richards87_8>Richards, pp. 87β88</ref> Even comparatively conservative commentators like [[John Adams]] observed that these levies were "heavier than the People could bear".<ref>Richards, p. 88</ref>
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