F ries's R ebellion

Abstract

Fries's Rebellion was a popular resistance movement, or “regulation,” by rural Pennsylvania Germans in the Lehigh Valley region in 1798–9. It followed two earlier post‐Revolutionary regulations: Shays's Rebellion of 1786 in Massachusetts, and the 1794 western Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion. In Fries's Rebellion the resisters sought to regulate the federal government by protesting against and petitioning for the repeal of the Alien Acts, the Sedition Act, and the Direct Tax, mostly the work of the Federalist Party. When a federal marshal arrested resisters for obstruction of process and sedition and prepared to transport them to the nation's capital for trial, the local militia mobilized to free the prisoners and secure a local trial. Within weeks, the national government sent an army into the region to quash the “insurrection” and make arrests. A year of trials followed with dozens of minor convictions, and three convictions of treason carrying the death penalty, including the rebellion's namesake, John Fries. President John Adams pardoned Fries at the eleventh hour.