Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes 1750–1914

1. Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes1750–1914 Strayer Chpt 17 1

2. Atlantic Revolutions & Echoes, 1750-1914 • The French Revolution influenced Revolutions in Haiti, Latin America, Europe & then even 200 years later China in 1989 • Atlantic Revolutions shared vocabulary & democratic character YET differed in circumstances & outcomes • The Atlantic basin evolved into a world not only of commerce & biological exchange, but also into one exchanging intellectual & cultural traditions • The Revolutions grew out of the Enlightenment; the idea that humans could positively shape their world • Enlightenment thinkers attacked tradition replacing it with concepts of liberty, equality, free trade, religious tolerance, republicanism & human rationality • Key concept: Popular Sovereignty – the authority for rulers derived from the consent of the governed, Locke’s Social Contract 2

3. Atlantic Revolutions & Echoes, 1750-1914 • Except in Haiti Revolution mostly benefited white elite class men or the middle class • Women, Slaves, Indians, the Poor in general didn’t gain much in the short term… • But…other long term movements for social change grew from Revolutions including: Abolitionism, expanded voting, greater equality for women • Revolutions entailed controversy over the details: How much liberty? How much equality? Are liberty & equality compatible? 3

4. The North American Revolution, 1775–1787 Brits surrendering at Yorktown to Gen. Washington’s colonial army

5. The North American Revolution, 1775–1787 • Was the American Revolution…Revolutionary? • In short, not so much • It generated political change, but it was a change in leadership aimed at the conservative goal of preserving ‘English Liberties’ • Salutary Neglect allowed English colonials to rule themselves for quite a while • Colonial society evolved differently: • Their society also allowed for more social mobility due to available land • No colonial legal distinctions between clergy & aristocracy • Adam Smith described the colonists as “republican in manners” • British victory in North American Imperial wars against rivals, mainly France, led to a British attempt to rule the colonies in order to raise $ to pay solve their large debt problem 5

6. The North American Revolution, 1775–1787 • The British attempted to rule & tax the colonies challenging them politically & economically • The political change challenged their tradition of self-rule • Economically the taxation threatened a colonial merchant & commercial elite • Key Idea: Not much changed after the American Revolution; colonial elites ruled • Some reduction in property requirements for voting • Some middling sorts elected to political office • Women, Slaves, Indians benefited little • Land remained in the hands of the rich • Slavery kept where it mattered economically • Contracts & property rights unchanged by revolution • Over time the U.S. grew more reformist, but initially the Rev was paradoxically ‘conservative’ 6

7. The American Revolution built the foundation for 19th c. westward expansion (expanding slavery, killing Indians & etc) 7

8. The French Revolution, 1789–1815 • While drawing inspiration from the American Revolution, as French soldiers returned to France carrying ‘republican ideas’, the French Revolution was different. It was driven by internal conflicts: • Monarchy v. Nobility • Growing Middle Class v. Nobility • Urban Poor & oppressed Peasants v. Monarchy & Nobility • The French Revolution represented a more successful class revolt • Rousseau wrote that it was ‘contrary to the laws of nature that a handful of people should gorge themselves while the hungry multitudes go in want’ 8

9. French Peasants Carrying the Clergy & Nobility Facing a huge debt issue Louis XVI called an ancient parliamentary body the Estates General The 1st & 2nd Estates, clergy & nobility, represented only 2% of the population The 3rd Estate, peasants, represented the other 98% of French people 9

10. The French Revolution, 1789–1815 • Once Louis XVI called the Estates General the 3rd Estate quickly formed the National Assembly and issued the “Declaration of the Rights of Man & Citizen” expressing freedom & equality for all • The 1st 5 years of the French Revolution were more radical and violent than the American Revolution; it was more like the later Russian & Chinese Revs 10

11. French citizens stormed the Bastille in 1789 in search of weapons They killed the jailers mounting a head on a pike

12. King Louis XVI suffered the guillotine and lost his head in 1793 The so-called Terror of 1793-94 followed the regicide Maximilian Robespierre & the Committee of Public Safety executed tens of thousands 12

13. The French Revolution, 1789–1815 • The French National Assembly abolished aristocracy & the legal privileges of feudalism. They also briefly abolished slavery • They started a new calendar in 1792 at “year 1”; Symbolic of the radicalism of the French Revolution; they envisioned the changes as starting a new society • European monarchs resisted the French Revolution (perhaps they wanted to keep their heads); the French Revolutionary forces fielded a huge army of 800,000 to defend itself; some of the officers were commoners; a citizens army • Common people who had identified locally started to identify with the ‘French Nation’; the state took over the Catholic Church functions of registering births, deaths, marriages • French Rev overturned old authorities; the Divine Monarch & Catholic Church; for a time the turned the Cathedral of Notre Dame into the “Temple of Reason”; they sang hymns to liberty 13

14. Robespierre oversaw the most violent phase of the French Revolution He then lost his head A military general, Napoleon Bonaparte, seized power in 1799 He ruled with much less democracy as First Consul and then Emperor until 1814 14

15. The French Revolution, 1789–1815 • Napoleon tamed the Revolution • He saved civil equality, secular law, religious freedom & promotion by merit, BUT dispensed with liberty • A big impact of Napoleon was felt in Europe in general. In lands he controlled he: • Ended feudalism • Proclaimed equal rights • Set up religious toleration • Codified laws • Rationalized government administration • A further impact was the stirring of European ‘Nationalism’ as conquered people resented French rule; they united into ‘nations’ to defeat the French • British & Russian opposition brought Napoleon down, but French ideas persisted 15

17. Touissant L’Overture, a former slave, led French slaves to victory in the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804 The people of this French Caribbean Island instigated the most revolutionary changes 17

18. The Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804 • The French Sugar Island Saint Domingue was peopled with 500,000 African slaves; 40,000 Europeans divided into classes (grands blancs – rich landowners & petit blancs – poor whites); and 30,000 gens de couleur libres mostly mixed race descendents of the progeny of slaves and masters • The island included enormous inequalities & rampant exploitation • At the start of the revolution the grand blancs wanted more trade autonomy; the petit blancs wanted a more equal citizenship for all whites & the gens de couleur libres sought equality; slaves wanted…freedom • Slaves revolted in 1791; the Island divided into warring factions & Toussiant L’Overture, a former slave, succeeded in maintaining a new free government 18

19. Titled “The Revenge Taken by the Black Army” this engraving illustrates both violence and the racial dimensions of the Haitian Revolution 19

20. Further illustration of the racial dimension and violence of the Haitian Revolution It inspired fear amongst slaveholders in many Atlantic communities, and offered hope to slaves in Jamaica and the U.S. 20

21. The Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804 • They named their new country ‘Haiti’ which in Taino means ‘mountainous’ or ‘rugged’ • Slaves achieved status as equal, free, independent citizens • The Republic defined all citizens as black, and gave all citizens regardless of race, color, class legal equality • Private lands redistributed to slaves as white plantation owners fled; state lands also distributed • Haiti transformed into a nation of small farmers not exporting so much; mostly they farmed & fed themselves • The island struggled to recover economically from the Rev; much property was destroyed & never recovered profitability • Other nations refused to deal with Haiti • Some irony can be found in the rise of the Cuban slave plantation economy to fill the sugar & tobacco void left by Haitian independence; also the expansion of US Slavery into the Louisiana territory as Napoleon sold it after Haitian Ind. 21

22. Latin American Revolutions, 1810-1830 Spain & Portugal pushed out of the Americas 22

23. Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1825 • The Latin American Revolutions were shaped by American, French & Haitian examples, but were distinctive • These Revolutions happened later…Why? • Authoritarian traditions of Spanish & Portuguese • Class divisions • The strict Catholic culture of the Counter-reformation • Whites outnumbered (Mestizos, Africans, Indians) & fearful of the effects of Revolution • Political elites offered slower support & feared lower class revolt • Despite these issues Creoles chafed at heavy monarchical rule from Europe • Once started these Revolutions took longer to resolve due to divisions internal to the colonies along the lines of race, class & ideology 23

24. Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1825 • Before the successful Revolutions there were lower class revolts in Latin America: • Tupac Amaru (name of last Inca emperor) revolt in Peru in 1780s • Hidalgo-Morelos revolt in Mexico (led by 2 Catholic priests) • When creole leaders such as Simon Bolivar & Jose de San Martin led successful Revolutions they needed support from commoners; they found it by creating a nativist ideology • They united colonials as Americanos - those born in colonies whether creole, Indian, mixed-race, or free black; all colonial Americanos v. the mother country 24

25. Nationalists such as Simon Bolivar mobilized people on the idea of freedom He likely genuinely believed in freedom as a liberal influenced by the Enlightenment Revolutions rarely kept many promises to the lower classes of Indians & slaves who benefited little from independence Revolutions eliminated the imperial state, but hierarchical colonial society persevered 25

26. Bolivar tried & failed to unite all of South America Geography separated the people as did long colonial regional rule After Latin American Independence the US rose even as they declined becoming less developed, poorer, less stable & dependent on foreign tech & $ 26

27. Echoes of Revolution • Western European Revolutions continued sharing values of republicanism, social equality & national liberation. Revolutions: • Failed Constitutional Revolution in Russia in 1825 • Some in 1830 • Widespread in 1848 • 1870s in Paris • Countries with reformed gov’ts faced pressure to continue to reform. W. Europe, the U.S. & Argentina were pushed to expand voting rights generally granting universal male suffrage by 1914 • 3 movements ‘echoed’ revolutions challenging oppression or exclusion • Abolitionism • Nationalism • Feminism 27

28. Between 1790 & 1890 ancient slavery was largely ended Revolutionary ideology played a key role in so-called Abolitionism Antislavery grew out of Enlightenment ideas of ‘natural rights’ for all Quakers & Evangelical Protestants also pushed abolitionism; this medallion was commissioned by an English Quaker 28

29. Echoes of Revolution: Abolitionism • The British banned the slave trade in 1807 (the U.S. in 1808) and then by 1834 freed remaining slaves • Certain pro-slavery myths were debunked: • In the early 19th c. England & New England proved slaves unnecessary for economic progress • Slave rebellions showed slaves were not content • Abolitionists used a variety of tactics: • Pamphlets • Petitions • Boycotts • Slave narratives & testimonies • Britain applied pressure with its most powerful navy; they seized slaves off ships & sent them to ‘Freetown’ in Sierra Leone • Slave traders & owners resisted abolitionism 29

30. Echoes of Revolution: Abolitionism • Most of Latin America abolished slavery by 1850s; Brazil in 1888 was the last to do so • Staunch resistance in the U.S. led to Civil War in large part over slavery; slaves freed by 1865 • Most abolition did not lead to improved economic positions for former slaves • Most slaves were bound as labor in various forms including sharecropping & tenant farming • Haiti was the exception that distributed land to slaves • Jamaican slaves were able to move into open land & subsist • In the U.S. brief freedom & equality for emancipated slaves was followed by harsh segregation & denial of rights • The Russian Tsar freed serfs in 1861; the serfs were given land, but dues & population growth left them poor • Africa without markets for slaves put slaves to work producing some crops for export; Ironically, later European ‘colonialism’ & conquest was justified as emancipating enslaved Africans 30

31. 2nd Revolutionary Echo: Nations & Nationalism • For most of history states didn’t coincide with the culture of just 1 people; Empires & states included diverse people; most people focused their identity on more local groups: • Clan • Village • Region • Nationalism rose with Revolutions; people identified as citizens of a nation; French speakers in France • Some changes in Europe pushed the nationalist trends: • Migration • Urbanization • Printing press; smoothed language dialects • The idea of ‘nation’ was constructed but drew on “folk culture” • Different forms of nationalism: • ‘civic nationalism” of the US anyone who adopts certain ideas can ‘become’ American • Germany is for Germans defined ‘racially’ & culturally • Nations outside Europe adopted Nationalism 31

32. Nationalism re-shaped Europe by the late 19th c. Germany & Italy formed ‘nations’ on nationalist principles by 1871 Major empires such as Russian, Austro-Hungarian & Ottoman faced internal divisions & tension along nationalist lines WWI was in part caused by nationalism Independence revolts caused by nationalism included: Greeks & Serbs v. Ottomans; Czechs & Hungarians v. Austria; Poles & Ukrainians v. Russia; Irish v. British; Zionism for Jews

33. ~ a Polish painting expressing nationalism ~ Poland, the women, getting shackled by Russia

34. 3rd Revolutionary Echo: Feminist Beginnings Some Enlightenment thinkers, including Condorcet, challenged patriarchy In 1791 Olympic de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women

35. 3rd Revolutionary Echo: Feminist Beginnings • In modernizing economies growing groups of middle class women worked for reform in temperance, abolitionism, pacifism & socialism • Seneca Falls Convention, NY, 1848, Declaration of Sentiments; equality of men & women • The feminist movement pushed for access to schools, universities & professions; by 1870 they tended to focus more on voting rights • 3 major movements: • 100,000 French feminists by 1914 • 2 million American women in NAWSA, National American Women’s Suffrage Association • The British Women’s Social & Political Union acted radically; bombs, ruined paintings, smashed windows • Women’s progress included greater access to education & property, entry into some professions (teaching, nursing & social work – Jane Addams) • Women voted in New Zealand in 1893; Finland in 1906; US in 1920 & France in 1945 35

36. 3rd Revolutionary Echo: Feminist Beginnings • Women divided over total equality v. ‘difference feminism’ • Difference feminists drew on their special roles as mothers to demand better status & treatment; they sought improved conditions without demanding ‘equality’ • Feminism faced bitter opposition • Feminism spread less widely than abolitionism & nationalism • Notable global expressions of feminism: • Brazilian feminist newspaper in 1852 • Mexican school for girls in 1869 • Japanese empress Haruko led a failed feminizing movement that the state crushed • Russia & China saw major feminist movements • Egyptian Huda Sharawi threw her veil in the sea in 1923 and others followed her • Feminism did not achieve a revolution by 1914, but it raised issues that persist into the present 36