Ch. 23: Revolutionary Changes in the Atlantic World, 1750-1850 I. Prelude to Revolution: The Eighteenth-Century Crisis a. Colonial wars and fiscal crises i. European rivalries intensified in the early 1600s as the Dutch attacked Spanish/Portuguese possessions in Americas & Asia. 1600s-1700s, British checked Dutch commercial & colonial ambitions, then defeated France in 7 Years War (1756-1763) and took French holdings in Americas & India. ii. Costs of 17 th /18 th century wars drove Eur. gov ts to seek new sources of revenue; @ same time, Enlightenment encouraged people to question & protest state s new attempts to collect revenue. b. The Enlightenment and the old order i. Enlightenment thinkers (philosophes) tried to apply methods/questions of Scientific Rev. to study of human society by classifying/systematizing knowledge and searching for natural laws underlying human affairs/devising scientific techniques of gov t & social regulation. ii. John Locke: gov t is to protect the people. Individual rights. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: will of the people is sacred. People act collectively on basis of shared historical experience. iii. Many were Deists; not all radicals or atheists. Voltaire believed monarchs could be agents of change. iv. Some nobles (Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia) patronized philosophes and used Enlightenment ideas to reform bureaucracies, legal systems, tax systems, and economies (@ same time, they suppressed/banned radical ideas promoting republicanism or attacking religion). v. Many intellectuals in contact w/each other & political leaders. Women instrumental in dissemination of ideas, purchasing/discussing writings and (in Paris) holding salons with gatherings of Enlightenment thinkers. vi. Enlightenment ideas particularly attractive to growing middle class in Europe & Western Hem. America seen as a new, uncorrupted place where material & social progress would come more quickly than in Europe.
vii. Benjamin Franklin symbolized the natural genius & vast potential of America. Business success, intellectual/scientific accomplishments, & political career proved genius could thrive where society is free from chains of inherited privilege. c. Folk cultures and popular protest i. Most Westerners did not share Enlightenment ideas; common people held to cultural values of preindustrial past, with traditionally accepted mutual rights & obligations connecting people to rulers. ii. When 18 th -cen. monarchs tried to increase authority and centralize power w/more efficient tax collection & public administration, people saw this as violation of custom & protested (sometimes violently). Protests aimed to restore custom & precedent, not achieve revolutionary change. Rationalist Enlightenment reformers also sparked opposition by trying to replace popular festivals with rational civic rituals. iii. Spontaneous popular uprisings had revolutionary potential only when they coincided with conflicts within the elite. II. The American Revolution, 1775-1800 a. Frontiers and taxes i. After 1763, British gov t faced 2 main problems in American colonies: danger of war w/amerindians as colonists pushed west across Appalachians and the need to raise colonial taxes to pay for increasing costs of administration and defense. British attempts to impose new taxes or prevent westward settlement provoked protests. ii. In Great Lakes region, British policies undermined Amerindian economy and provoked raids on settlements in Pennsylvania & Virginia. Amerindian alliance was defeated, but fear of more violence led British to establish a western limit for settlement (Proclamation of 1763) and slow down settlement in regions north of Ohio R./east of Mississippi R. (Quebec Act of 1774). iii. British gov t tried to raise new revenue through fiscal reforms and new taxes, including commercial regulations (Stamp Act of 1765, other taxes/duties). In response, colonists organized boycotts of British goods, staged violent protests, & attacked British officials.
iv. Relations between Am. colonists & Brit. authorities exacerbated by killing of civilians in Boston Massacre (1770) and British gov t granting East India Co. a monopoly on tea imports. After Boston Tea Party, British closed the port of Boston. b. The course of revolution, 1775-1783 i. Colonial governing bodies deposed British governors & established Continental Congress to print currency & organize army. Ideological support for independence given by streetcorner speakers, Paine s Common Sense, and Declaration of Independence. ii. British military sent to pacify colonies. 1 st main battles (shot heard round the world) @ Lexington & Concord. Brits won most battles but could not control countryside/achieve compromise political solution. iii. Amerindians allied with both sides. Mohawk leader Joseph Brant sided with British; after Revolution, he & followers fled to Canada. iv. France entered as an American ally in 1778 & gave crucial assistance, including naval support for Washington to defeat Cornwallis @ Yorktown, VA. British negotiators signed Treaty of Paris (1783) granting unconditional independence. c. The construction of Republican institutions, to 1800 i. After independence each colony drafted a written constitution submitted to voters for approval. Articles of Confederation served as constitution for U.S. during & after Revolution. Problems: weak federal gov t; Congress could not tax. ii. May 1787, Constitutional Convention began to write a new constitution establishing a democratic system of gov t but which only gave the vote to a minority of adult males and protected slavery (3/5 Compromise). Popular sovereignty, separation of powers, checks & balances, federalism. Bill of Rights added to protect individual rights and address grievances of Declaration. III. The French Revolution, 1789-1815 a. French society and fiscal crisis i. French society comprised of 3 groups: 1 st Estate (clergy, ½ % of pop), 2 nd Estate (hereditary nobles, 1 ½ % of pop) and 3 rd Estate (everyone else). Clergy & nobility controlled huge wealth; clergy tax-exempt, as were many nobles.
ii. 3 rd Estate included growing, wealthy bourgeoisie class. Bourgeoisie prospered, but peasants (80% of pop), artisans, workers, & small shopkeepers suffered in 1780s from economic depression caused by poor harvests. Urban poverty & rural suffering often led to violent protests (not yet revolutionary). iii. 1700s: war expenses drove France into debt & inspired kings to try to introduce new taxes/fiscal reforms to increase revenue. Attempts met with resistance in Parlements & from high nobility. b. Protests turn to revolution, 1789-1792 i. King Louis XVI called meeting of Estates General to approve new taxes. Reps from 3 rd Estate (and some 1 st Estate) locked out after arguments over voting; declared themselves National Assembly & pledged to write a constitution incorporating the idea of popular sovereignty (Tennis Court Oath). ii. King ordered troops to arrest National Assembly; common people of Paris rose up against the gov t (storming of Bastille, July 14, 1789) and peasant uprisings broke out in countryside. Many nobles fled (émigrés). National Assembly set forth position in Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. iii. Economic crisis grew. Parisian women marched on Versailles & captured the king & his family (Queen Marie Antoinette & kids). Moved to Tuileries palace in Paris. National Assembly passed a constitution limiting monarchy s power & restructuring French politics/society. When Austria & Prussia threatened intervention, National Assembly declared war (1791). iv. Legislative Assembly created. Conservatives sat on right (rightwing), radicals on left (left-wing), moderates in the middle. c. The Terror, 1793-1794 i. King s attempt to flee in 1792 led to his execution & formation of new gov t, the National Convention, dominated by radical Mountain faction of Jacobins and leader, Robespierre. ii. Under Robespierre, executive power given to Committee of Public Safety (HAH!). Militant feminist forces repressed (Olympe des Gouges beheaded); new actions against clergy approved; suspected enemies of the revolution imprisoned/guillotined in Reign of Terror (1793-1794). July, 1794: conservatives in National Convention voted to arrest/execute Robespierre.
d. Reaction and dictatorship, 1795-1815 i. Convention worked to undo radical reforms of Robespierre years, ratified a more conservative constitution, & created new executive authority, the Directory. Directory suspended 1797 election results, marking end of republican phase of Revolution. Napoleon s 1799 seizure of power* marked the beginning of popular authoritarianism. (*coup d etat) ii. Napoleon provided internal stability and protection of personal/property rights by negotiating Concordat of 1801 w/catholic Church, issuing Civil Code of 1804, & declaring himself emperor (1804). Napoleonic system denied basic political/property rights to women and restricted speech & expression. iii. Stability of Napoleonic system depended on success of military and upon French diplomacy. Conquered much of Germany (Confederation of the Rhine), ended Holy Roman Empire. No single Eur. state could defeat Napoleon, but his occupation of the Iberian Peninsula resulted in war of attrition w/spanish & Portuguese resistance forces (guerrillas) 1812 attack on Russia led to disaster for Grand Armee. Alliance of Russia, Austria, Prussia, & England defeated Napoleon in 1814 he was exiled to Elba. 1815, he escaped & attempted a return (the 100 Days); defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, he was exiled to St. Helena. IV. Revolution Spreads, Conservatives Respond, 1789-1850 a. The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804 i. French colony of St. Domingue was one of the richest colonies in the Americas, but its economic success was built on one of the most brutal slave regimes in the Caribbean. ii. Political turmoil in France weakened colonial administrators & led to conflict between slaves/gens de couleur and whites. A slave rebellion led by Toussaint L Ouverture took over the colony in 1794. iii. Napoleon s 1802 attempt to re-establish authority led to capture of L Ouverture but failed to re-take colony became independent republic of Haiti in 1804. Tens of thousands died in revolution; economy was destroyed; public administration corrupted by decade+ of violence.
b. The Congress of Vienna and conservative retrenchment, 1815-1820 i. 1814-1815: reps from Britain, Russia, Prussia, & Austria met in Vienna to create a comprehensive peace settlement to reestablish & safeguard conservative order. Austrian Prince von Metternich important. ii. Congress of Vienna restored French monarchy (Louis XVIII), redrew borders of France & other states (back to 1789 boundaries), established Holy Alliance of Austria, Russia, & Prussia. Holy Alliance defeated liberal revolutions in Spain & Italy in 1820 and tried (& failed) to repress liberalist & nationalist ideas. c. Nationalism, reform, and revolution, 1821-1850 i. Popular support for national self-determination and democratic reform grew in Europe. Greece gained independence from Ottomans in 1830; Parisians forced French monarchy to accept constitutional rule & extend voting privileges. ii. Democratic reform movements began in Britain & U.S. In U.S., franchise extended after War of 1812; in Britain, response to unpopular Corn Laws resulted in nearly 50% increase in # of voters. iii. In Europe, desire for national self-determination and democratic reform led to a series of revolutions in 1848. French monarchy replaced with elected president (Louis Napoleon, Napoleon I s nephew/step-grandson, later Emperor Napoleon III); elsewhere, revs failed to achieve their nationalist or republican objectives. V. Conclusion a. Era of revolution a product of costly warfare, which drove Eur. monarchs to try tax increases at a time when intellectual atmosphere encouraged reform or revolutionary change to make political institutions represent the will of the people. b. Revs in France & Haiti more violent than American because French & Haitians faced a more strongly entrenched/powerful opposition & greater social inequalities. c. Conservative retrenchment after Napoleon succeeded short-term, but in the long term conservative forces could not control Enlightenment legacy of rational inquiry, broadened political participation, and secular intellectual culture.