Fries's Rebellion (), also called House Tax Rebellion, the Home Tax Rebellion and, in Pennsylvania German, the Heesses-Wasser Uffschtand, was a tax revolt among Pennsylvania Dutch farmers between 1799 and 1800. It was the third of three tax-related rebellions in the 18th century United States, the earlier two being Shays's Rebellion (central and western Massachusetts, 1786–87) and the Whiskey Rebellion (western Pennsylvania, 1794). It was commemorated in 2003 with a Pennsylvania historical marker erected in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where it first erupted.

There were very few slaves in Pennsylvania, and the tax was accordingly assessed upon dwelling-houses and land, the value of the houses being determined by the number and size of the windows. For many residents of the area, this came to be known as The Window Tax. The inquisitorial nature of the proceedings, with assessors riding around and counting windows, aroused strong opposition, and many refused to pay, They captured a number of assessors there, releasing them with a warning not to return and to tell the government what had happened to them.

Spread

Opposition to the tax spread to other parts of Pennsylvania. In Penn, the appointed assessor resigned under public threats; the assessors in Hamilton Township and Northampton Township also begged to resign, but were refused as nobody else could be found to take their places.

Federal warrants were issued, and the U.S. Marshal began arresting people for tax resistance in Northampton. Arrests were made without much incident until the marshal reached Macungie, then known as Millerstown, where a crowd formed to protect a man from arrest. Failing to make that arrest, the marshal made a few others and returned to Bethlehem with his prisoners.

Two separate groups of rebels independently vowed to liberate the prisoners, and marched on Bethlehem. They prevailed without violence, and freed the tax resisters who had been arrested. In response to this action, President John Adams called out a force of federal troops and local militia. They marched into the rebellious counties and began making wholesale arrests of the insurgents. John Fries was among the men captured.

Trials

Thirty men went on trial in Federal court. Fries, Frederick Heaney (Hoenig/Haney), and John Getman were tried for treason and, with Federalists stirring up a frenzy, were sentenced to be hanged. President John Adams pardoned Fries and others convicted of treason. Adams was prompted by the narrower constitutional definition of treason, and he later added that the rebels were "obscure, miserable Germans, as ignorant of our language as they were of our laws" and were being used by "great men" in the opposition party. He issued a general amnesty for everyone involved on May 21, 1800.

Historians are in agreement that the Federalists overreacted and mishandled a small episode. The long-term impact was that the German-American communities rejected the Federalist Party.

See also

  • List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
  • Tax resistance in the United States
  • Whiskey Rebellion, in Pennsylvania 1794
  • List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States

Notes

Further reading

  • Adams, Charles, Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts That Built America (Free Press, March 1998)
  • Bouton, Terry. "'No Wonder the Times Were Troublesome': the Origins of the Fries Rebellion, 1783–1799," Pennsylvania History (2000) 67#1: 21–42 online
  • Churchill, Robert H. "Popular Nullification, Fries' Rebellion, and the Waning of Radical Republicanism, 1798–1801," Pennsylvania History (2000) 67#1: 105–14 online
  • Davis, W.W.H. The Fries Rebellion (1899) online
  • Dimmig, Jeffrey S. "Palatine Liberty: Pennsylvania German Opposition to the Direct Tax of 1798," American Journal of Legal History 2001 45(4): 371–390
  • Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism (1996) pp 696–700
  • Newman, Paul Douglas. Fries's Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution (2005) , the standard scholarly study
  • Newman, Simon. "The World Turned Upside Down: Revolutionary Politics, Fries' and Gabriel's Rebellions, and the Fears of the Federalists." Pennsylvania History 67.1 (2000): 5–20. online
  • Newman, Paul Douglas. "Fries's Rebellion and American Political Culture, 1798–1800." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 119.1/2 (1995): 37–73. online
  • Newman, Paul Douglas. "The Federalists' Cold War: The Fries Rebellion, National Security, and the State, 1787–1800." Pennsylvania History 67.1 (2000): 63–104. online
  • Pfleger, Birte. "'Miserable Germans' and Fries's Rebellion: Language, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Early Republic," Early American Studies: an Interdisciplinary Journal 2004 2(2): 343–361
  • Ridgway, Whitman H. "Fries in the Federalist Imagination: a Crisis of Republican Society," Pennsylvania History 2000 67(1): 141–160 online
  • John Fries Rebellion Part 1: The House Tax Rebellion
  • John Fries Rebellion Part 2: The Trial