Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes

1. Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes 1775-1914

2. Importance of the French Revolution • The French Revolution was the centerpiece of a revolutionary process  all around the Atlantic world between 1775 and 1875 • Atlantic revolutions had an impact far beyond the Atlantic world • Inspired efforts to abolish slavery, give women greater rights,  and extend the franchise in many countries • Nationalism was shaped by revolutions • Principles of equality eventually gave birth to socialism and communism

3. Revolutions a Ripple Effect • Revolutions of North America, Europe, Haiti, and Latin America influenced each other - they shared a set of common ideas • Grew out of the European Enlightenment – Idea that it was possible to engineer, and improve, political and social life, traditional ways of thinking were no longer untouchable

4. Popular Sovereignty • Core political idea was “popular sovereignty”—that the authority to govern comes from the people, not from God or tradition • John Locke (1632–1704) argued that the “social contract” between ruler and ruled should last only as long as it served the people well • Main beneficiaries of revolution were middle-class white males (except in Haiti) • GOAL: extend political rights further than ever before, can be called “democratic revolutions

5. North American Revolution, 1775–1787 • Struggle fro independence from oppressive British rule • Launched with the Declaration of Independence 1776 • Military Victory against the British in 1781 • Federal Constitution drafted in 1787 – 13 colonies become one nation

6. Conservative Political Movement of AR • American Revolution was a conservative political movement • Aimed to preserve colonial liberties, rather than gain new ones • For most of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British North American colonies had much local autonomy

7. Maintaining Status Quo • Colonists regarded autonomy as their birthright • Few thought of breaking away from Britain before 1750 – because of security, protection in war, access to British Markets • Colonial society - was far more egalitarian than in Europe, (all free people enjoyed the same status before the law) • Less poverty, more economic opportunity , fewer social differences • They were republican well before the revolution

8. Causes for Revolution • Britain made a new drive to control the colonies and get more revenue from them in the 1760s • Needed money for its global war with France, imposed a number of new taxes and tariffs on the colonies • Colonists were not represented in the British parliament • Challenged colonial economic interests • Attacked established traditions of local autonomy • British North America was revolutionary for society that had already emerged, not for the revolution itself - no significant social transformation came with independence from Britain • Accelerated democratic tendencies - already established • Political power remained in existing elites -property requirements for voting were lowered but remained intact

9. Effects of Revolution • Many Americans thought they were creating a new world order - some acclaimed the United States as “the hope and model of the human  race” • Declaration of the “right to revolution” found in the Declaration of Independence inspired other colonies around the world – Latin America, Vietnam • U.S. Constitution- Bill of Rights, Checks and Balances, separation of Church and State - was one of the first lasting efforts to put Enlightenment political ideas into practice

10. The French Revolution, 1789–1815 • French soldiers had fought for the American revolutionaries • Government was facing bankruptcy – from helping with American Revolution • Attempted to modernize tax system and make it fairer, but was opposed by the privileged classes • King Louis XVI called the Estates General into session in a new effort to raise taxes • First two estates (clergy and nobility) were around 2 percent of the population • Third Estate was everyone else

12. National Assembly • When the Estates General convened in 1789, Third Estate representatives broke loose and declared themselves the National Assembly - drew up the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, launched the French Revolution

13. French Revolution a Social Conflict • Unlike the American Revolution, the French rising was driven by  pronounced social conflicts • Titled nobility resisted monarchic efforts to tax them • Middle class resented aristocratic privileges • Urban poor suffered from inflation and unemployment • The peasants were oppressed • Enlightenment ideas gave people a language to articulate grievances

14. Violent, Radical, French Revolution • Ended hereditary privilege, Abolished slavery (for a time), the Church was subjected to government authority, king and queen were executed (1793) • Terror of (1793–1794) - Maximilien Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety killed tens of thousands of people regarded as enemies of the revolution

15. A New France - French Revolution • Effort to create a wholly new society - 1792 became Year I of a new calendar • Briefly passed a law for universal male suffrage • France was divided into 83 territorial departments • Created a massive army (some 800,000 men) to fight threatening neighbors • Nationalism, with revolutionary state at the center

16. Influence of French Revolution • Napoleon Bonaparte (r. 1799–1814) seized power in 1799 • Preserved many moderate elements of the revolution - kept social equality, but got rid of liberty, subdued most of Europe • Imposed revolutionary practices on conquered regions • Resentment of French domination stimulated national consciousness throughout Europe • National resistance brought down Napoleon’s empire by 1815

17. The Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804 • Saint Domingue (later called Haiti) was a French Caribbean colony • Majority of population were slaves - around 500,000 slaves, 40,000 whites, 30,000  “free people of color” • French Revolution sparked a spiral of violence - revolution meant different things to different people • Massive slave revolt began in 1791 - became a war between a number of factions • Power gradually shifted to the slaves, who were led by former slave Toussaint Louverture

18. Haitian - Unique Revolution • Only completely successful slave revolt in world history • Renamed the country Haiti (“mountainous” in Taino) • Identified themselves with the original native inhabitants • Declared equality for all races • Divided up plantations among small farmers • Haiti’s success generated great hope and great fear - created new “insolence” among slaves elsewhere, inspired other  slave rebellions, caused horror among whites, led to social conservatism , increased slavery elsewhere, as plantations claimed Haiti’s market share • Napoleon’s defeat in Haiti convinced him to sell Louisiana Territory to the United States

19. Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1825 • Native-born elites (creoles) in Spanish colonies of Latin America were offended at the Spanish monarchy’s efforts to control them in the 18th century • Latin American independence movements were limited at first because of: little tradition of local self-government, society was more authoritarian, with stricter class divisions , whites were vastly outnumbered • Creole elites had revolution thrust upon them by events in Europe • 1808: Napoleon invaded Spain and Portugal, put royal authority in disarray, Latin Americans were forced to take action, most of Latin America was independent by 1826

20. Spanish American Revolution • It was a longer process than in North America • Latin American societies were torn by class, race, and regional divisions • In Mexico, move toward independence began with a peasant revolt (1810) led by priests Miguel Hidalgo and José Morelos - creole elites and clergy raised an army, crushed revolt • Fear of social rebellion from below shaped the whole independence movement

21. Nativism and Reversal of Roles • Leaders of independence movements appealed to the lower classes in terms of nativism: all free people born in the Americas were Americanos • Lower classes, Native Americans, and slaves got littlebenefit from independence • Proved impossible to unite Spanish colonies, unlike the United States - distances were greater, colonial experiences were different, stronger regional identities • After Latin America gained independence, its relationship with North America gradually reversed • The United States grew wealthier and more democratic, became stable Latin American countries became increasingly underdeveloped, impoverished, undemocratic, and unstable

22. Echoes of Revolution • Voting rights: by 1914, major states of Western Europe, the United States, and Argentina had universal male suffrage • Even in Russia, there was a constitutional movement in 1825 • Abolitionist, nationalist, and feminist movements arose to question other patterns of exclusion and oppression

23. The Abolition of Slavery • Slavery largely ended around the world between 1780 and 1890 • Enlightenment thinkers were increasingly critical of slavery • American and French revolutions focused attention on slaves’  lack of liberty and equality • Growing belief that slavery wasn’t necessary for economic progress • Three major slave rebellions in the British West Indies showed that slaves were discontent; brutality of suppression appalled people • Abolitionist movements were most powerful in Britain - 1807: Britain forbade the sale of slaves within its empire 1834: Britain emancipated all slaves other nations followed suit, under growing international pressure • Most Latin American countries abolished slavery by 1850s  Brazil was the last (1888) • Resistance to abolition was vehement among interested parties in the United States, civil war to ended slavery 1861–1865

24. Results of Abolition • Abolition often didn’t lead to the expected results little improvement in the economic lives of  former slaves • Unwillingness of former slaves to work on plantations led to a new wave of global migration, especially from India and China • Few of the newly freed gained anything like political equality                                            

25. Nations and Nationalism (Change) • Revolutionary movements gave new prominence to more recent kind of human community—the nation • Idea that humans are divided into separate nations, each with a distinct culture and territory and deserving an independent political life • Before the nineteenth century, foreign rule in itself wasn’t regarded as heinous most important loyalties were to clan, village, or region • Independence movements acted in the name of new nations

26. Power of Nationalism 19th Century • Inspired political unification of Germany and Italy – Otto Von Bismark • Inspired separatist movements by Greeks, Serbs, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians, the Irish, and Jews • Fueled preexisting rivalry among European states - drive for colonies in Asia and Africa • Nationalism took on a variety of political ideologies • “Civic nationalism” identified the “nation” with a particular territory, encouraged assimilation

27. Feminist Beginnings • Feminist movement developed in the nineteenth century, especially in Europe and North America • Transformed the interaction of women and men in the twentieth century • European Enlightenment thinkers sometimes challenged the idea that women were innately inferior • During the French Revolution, some women argued that liberty  and equality must include women • First organized expression of feminism: women’s rights conference in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848

28. Transatlantic Feminist Movement • Argued for a radical transformation of the position of women • 1870s, movements focused above all on suffrage - became a middle-class, not just elite movement, most worked through peaceful protest and persuasion • By 1900: some women had been admitted to universities, women’s literacy rates were rising , some U.S. states passed laws allowing women to control their property and wages, some areas liberalized divorce laws, some women made their way into new professions • 1893: New Zealand was the first to grant universal female suffrage, Finland followed in 1906 • Movement led to discussion of the role of women in modern society • Opposition some argued that strains of education and life beyond the home  would cause reproductive damage, some saw suffragists, Jews, and socialists as “a foreign body” in national life