Shays’s Rebellion (with the apostrophe after Shays) was named for army veteran Daniel Shays, who led an uprising against the Massachusetts state government in 1786.
This action was one of a series of protests in 1786-87 by American farmers and workers throughout the young nation against state and local enforcement of tax collection and judgments for debt.
Shays’s particular uprising was crushed by the state militia under General Benjamin Lincoln.