| Summary: | Agrarian protest was a well known phenomenon of colonial North America. Yet the continued presence of organized rural protest in the years following the revolutionary war has divided scholars as to its significance. Historians have focused their attention especially on two postrevolutionary movements, the Shays and the Whiskey Rebellions. In attempting to interpret these movements beyond their immediate agrarian grievances in a larger political framework of nation‑making, the works of David Szatmary and Thomas Slaughter, published in the 1980s, earned an important place in the scholarship of rural protest. How have studies of the Shays and the Whiskey rebellions evolved since then ? While historians have differed on the causes and the composition of agrarian protest, most tend to relegate these movements to a backcountry or frontier context, hence diminishing the political significance of the small farmer in the new nation. Still a divisive issue among historians of the Shays and the Whiskey rebellions is the extent of farmers’ involvement in the market. These movements need to be analyzed in a broader, more dynamic economic and social framework in order to reach a better understanding of their contribution to the development of democracy in the early republic.
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