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 17th/18th 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.
II.
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 18th-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.
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. 1st 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: 1st Estate (clergy, ½ %
of pop), 2nd Estate (hereditary nobles, 1 ½ % of pop) and 3rd
Estate (everyone else). Clergy & nobility controlled huge wealth;
clergy tax-exempt, as were many nobles.
ii. 3rd 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 3rd Estate (and some 1st 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.
IV.
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.
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.
V.
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.
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.