Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes

1775-1914

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 little benefit 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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