Democratic Revolution
The Atlantic World in the mid-1700s
• politically organization: European nationstates with colonial appendages
• intense international competition (military
and commercial)
• globalized world economy
• “mature” plantation complex in the
periphery
• completed “commercial revolution”
• on eve of “bourgeois revolution”
Feudal politics (up to c.1500s)
• feudal principalities (local power
predominates)
• monarchies contesting power with
aristocracies
• ambivalent or hostile stance towards trade
and commerce
• local identities predominate
The rise of the nation-state (1400s-1700s)
• centralization of political power
(domination of local power centers)
• monarchies dominate aristocracies
• monarchies enhance power through
oversight of commerce
• notion of “people” (national identities)
emerges
Mercantilism
• A set of state-authored policies designed to
subordinate the practice of trade and commerce
to the interest of maintaining and enhancing the
power of the nation-state in an atmosphere of
international political competition.
• “Commerce is a perpetual and peaceable war of
wit and energy among all nations. . . . Each
nation works incessantly to have its legitimate
share of commerce or to gain an advantage over
another nation.” (Colbert, 1666)
Mercantilism
•
“For the increase of the shipping and the encouragement of the
navigation of this nation, which is so great a means of the welfare
and safety of this Commonwealth, be it enacted that: no goods or
commodities whatsoever of the growth, production, or manufacture
of Asia, Africa, or America, shall be imported or brought into this
Commonwealth of England, in any other vessels whatsoever, but
only in such as do belong only to the people of this Commonwealth.
And that t into no goods or commodities of Europe shall be imported
or brought into this Commonwealth in any vessels but in such as do
belong only to the people of this Commonwealth, except only such
foreign ships as belong to the people of that country.” (English
Navigation Act, 1651)
Mercantilism: goals
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reduce vagabondage and social unrest
enhance and expand domestic industry
exploit colonial resources
develop favorable “balance of trade”
attract bullion from foreign sources
enhance wealth of the nation-state
Mercantilism: methods
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redchartered corporations (joint stock concept)
monopolies
“mercantile” regulations
state-sanctioned piracyuce vagabondage and
social unrest
enhance and expand domestic industry
exploit colonial resources
develop favorable “balance of trade”
attract bullion from foreign sources
enhance wealth of the nation-state
Metropolitan
“core” in
Europe
Agricultural
“periphery”
In New World
Adam Smith’s critique of mercantilism:
• “After all the unjust attempts, therefore, of every country
in Europe to engross to itself the whole advantage of the
trade of its own colonies, no country has yet been able to
engross to itself anything but the expense of supporting
in time of peace, and of defending in time of war, the
oppressive authority which it assumes over them. The
inconveniencies resulting from the possession of its
colonies, every country has engrossed to itself
completely. The advantages resulting from their trade it
has been obliged to share with many other countries.”
• Wouldn’t it be better (especially for powerful trade
nations) for trade to be “free”?
Series of political upheavals in the
Atlantic World, 1770s-1848
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English Civil War
American Revolution
French Revolution
Haitian Revolution
Latin America
1641-1659
1775-1773
1789-1799
1791-1804
1817-1822
– Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and
Bolivia
• In African diaspora (our concern), from
1774-1825
Causes
• Core economies strengthening (w/help of
periphery)
• Bourgeoisie strong enough to contend for
control of state
• Imperial rivalries create fiscal crisis, create
a wedge for political contestation
• Enlightenment ideology conducive to
challenging the aristocracy
Democratic revolutions
•
Affirmed principles of modern democratic society
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written constitutions and rights
sovereignty of “the people”
notion of national citizenship
Sanctification of liberal property rights
Rejected:
– hereditary aristocracy
– link between religion and citizenship
– legal distinctions based on class
•
A “bourgeois” revolution
– Marks bourgeoisie’s new control of state
– Political freedoms become associated with “free” markets
•
An “industrial” revolution
– Bourgeois control of state
– State supports industrial expansion
– Relegation of periphery to support role
Ideology
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natural and absolute rights
self-sovereignty
right of revolution
constant vigilance vs. tyranny
civic virtues guarantee freedoms
Results
• modern notion of “freedom” (absolute right
to own one’s self and one’s labor as
property)
• redefines slavery: “slavery vs. freedom”
(as opposed to “slavery vs. belonging in”)
• slavery may be a moral evil conceivably
abolished
Revolutions and slavery
• Old World Slavery ➔ New World Slavery
(transitional) [c.1500s]
– Economy changes
– New (proto-capitalistic) style of slavery
– No notion slavery is illegitimate
• New World Slavery (transitional) ➔ New World
Slavery (mature)
– Economy changes
– Slavery stays the same
– New notion slavery is illegitimate
Granville Sharp, a British abolitionist, 1769: “The Laws of the Realm do
most certainly secure to every man, without exception, his private property.
. . . But those persons, who claim their Negro Servants in England, as
slaves, and private property, . . . usurp as an absolute authority over these
their fellow men, as if they thought them mere things, horses, dogs, etc. . .
. It must appear, that the plea of private property in a Negro, as in a horse
or a dog, is very insufficient and defective. . . . [Slaveholders] cannot be
justified, unless they shall be able to prove, that a Negro Slave is neither
man, woman nor child: and if they are not able to do this, how can they
presume to consider such a person as a mere . . . thing? The Negro must
be divested of his humanity . . . before such an action can lawfully take
place. . . . If [the Negro] is a Slave, yet is was not with his own consent
that he was made so. He neither sold himself, nor has be betrayed others,
and cannot therefore be liable to such severe penalties. He has not been
guilty of any offences, that I know of, for which he might lawfully be
divested of his humanity; and therefore it must certainly be allowed, that he
differs from a horse or a dog in this very essential point, viz, his humanity.”
Jefferson on Slavery
• The first difference which strikes us is that of
colour.. . . . And is this difference of no
importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater
or less share of beauty in the two races? . . .
Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant
symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour
of the whites, declared by their preference of
them, as uniformly as is the preference of the
Oranootan for the black women over those of his
own species. The circumstance of Superior
beauty, is thought worthy attention in the
propagation of our horses, dogs, and other
domestic animals; why not in that of man?
Jefferson on Slavery
• They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete
less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin,
which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.
This greater degree of transpiration renders them more
tolerant of heat, and less so of cold than the whites.. . .
They seem to require less sleep. . . . They are at least
as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may
perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which
prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. . . . They
are more ardent after their female: but love seems with
them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate
mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are
transient. . . . In general, their existence appears to
participate more of sensation than reflection.
Jefferson on Slavery
• Comparing them by their faculties of memory,
reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in
memory they are equal to the whites; in reason
much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be
found capable of tracing and comprehending the
investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination
they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would
be unfair to follow them to Africa for this
investigation.
Jefferson on Slavery
• This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of
faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of
these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish
to vindicate the liberty of human nature are anxious also
to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these,
embarrassed by the question `What further is to be done
with them?'join themselves in opposition with those who
are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans
emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when
made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of
his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown
to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the
reach of mixture.
Jefferson on Slavery
• Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into
the state, and thus save the expense of
supplying, by importation of white settlers, the
vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted
prejudices entertained by the whites; ten
thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the
injuries they have sustained; new provocations;
the real distinctions which nature has made; and
many other circumstances, will divide us into
parties, and produce convulsions, which will
probably never end but in the extermination of
the one or the other race.
Jefferson on Slavery
• There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the
manners of our people produced by the existence of
slavery among us. The whole commerce between
master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most
boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on
the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.
Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is
an imitative animal. . . . The parent storms, the child
looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the
same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to
the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and
daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it
with odious pecularities. The man must be a prodigy who
can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such
circumstances.
Jefferson on Slavery
• And with what execration should the statesman be
loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to
trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into
despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of
the one part, and the amor patriae of the other. For if a
slave can have a country in this world, it must be any
other in preference to that in which he is born to live and
labour for another; in which he must lock up the faculties
of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his
individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human
race, or entail his own miserable condition on the
endless generations proceeding from him.
Jefferson on Slavery
• With the morals of the people, their industry also is
destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for
himself who can make another labour for him. This is so
true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small
proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the
liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have
removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds
of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?
That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is
just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that
considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a
revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of
situation is among possible events: that it may become
probable by supernatural interference! The almighty has
no attribute which can take side with us in such a
contest.
Jefferson on Slavery
• “We have the wolf by the ears, and we
can neither hold him, nor safely let him
go. Justice is in one scale, and selfpreservation in the other.”
(1820)
Impact of the Revolution
• North: Abolishes slavery, 1777-1827
• Upper South: widespread ideological
manumission, but institution of slavery
survives
• Lower South: little manumission, slavery
remains strong
The abolition of slavery in the North
• 1777: Vermont (state constitution) [Vermont not
permitted into Union until 1791]
• 1780: Pennsylvania (by statute)
• 1783: Massachusetts (by court cases)
• 1784: Connecticut and Rhode Island (gradual
abolition laws)
• 1788: New Hampshire (state constitution)
• 1799: New York (gradual abolition law)
• 1804: New Jersey (gradual abolition law)
Types of emancipation
• Paternalistic manumission
• Indiscriminate manumission
– Ideological manumission
• Abolition
Before the Revolution
The North
Occasional paternalistic manumission with
transformation of urban economy
Upper South
(Chesapeake)
Very minimal paternalistic manumission
Lower South (Carolinas)
Occasional paternalistic manumission in urban
contexts
After the Revolution
The North
Widespread gradual abolition, often with
compensation, on ideological grounds
Upper South
(Chesapeake)
Widespread indiscriminate, ideological
manumission
Lower South (Carolinas)
No appreciable change
The coming of freedom
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The Lower South
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Upper South
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Slavery strengthened
Cotton gin (1793) + industrialization helps create
market for short-staple cotton
Widespread individual manumission, but slavery
survives
Creation of large, poor communities of free blacks
The North
The coming of freedom
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The North
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Slavery abolished
All states provide for eventual abolition, 1777-1827
Gradual, compensated manumission
Revolutionary ideology v. economic interest:
the more a region depended on slavery, the
harder slavery fell
Slaves in US, 1790
The abolition of slavery in the North
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1777: Vermont (state constitution)
1780: Pennsylvania (by statute)
1783: Massachusetts (by court cases)
1784: Connecticut and Rhode Island (gradual abolition
laws)
• 1788: New Hampshire (state constitution)
• 1799: New York (gradual abolition law)
• 1804: New Jersey (gradual abolition law)
Slaves in US, 1830
Constitutional settlement
Constitution spoke to slavery in three
places:
• 3/5 clause
• Protection of international slave trade until
1807
• Fugitive slave law
The Constitution and slavery
"Three-fifths" clause:
• Article I. Section 2. Clause 3: "Representatives
and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the
several states which may be included within this
union, according to their respective numbers,
which shall be determined by adding to the
whole number of free persons, including those
bound to service for a term of years, and
excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all
other Persons."
The Constitution and slavery
Continuation of slave trade until 1808:
• Article I. Section 9. Clause 1: "The Migragation
or Importation of such Persons as any of the
States now existing shall think prefer to admit,
shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to
the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight,
but a tax or duty may be imposed an such
Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each
Person."
The Constitution and slavery
Fugitive slave provision:
• Article IV. Section 2. Clause 3: "No Person held
to Service or Labour in one State, under the
Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein,
be discharged from such Service or Labour, but
shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to
whom such Service or Labour may be due."
For the
Industrializing
North
South becomes
agricultural
“periphery” . . .
• The United States South remained an
agricultural periphery, but one
geographically and politically connected to
the burgeoning metropolitan core of the
United States North
• It was not only fully empowered within the
nation (unlike its colonial counterparts in
the Caribbean), it was hyper-empowered
by the Constitution (3/5 clause)
Terms
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Maroon society/community
Maroon
Marronage
Quilombo
seigniorial:
– Production for use rather than for exchange
– control of state in the hands of military elites
• bourgeois
– the class of property owners under capitalist and proto-capitalist
systems of production
– wealth is urban- and trade-based rather than rural- and landbased (landed aristocracy)
– development of capitalism in Europe from 15th century = rise of
bourgeois to control of state
• Restorationist vs. revolutionary
Pre-capitalistic / Feudalistic / Seigneurial
• (c. 900c.e. - c. 1450 c.e.)
• state controlled by military elites (aristocracy)
• capital (the means of production) owned by military elites
(aristocracy)
• non-capitalistic relations of production (those who own
means of production [the aristocrats who own the land]
don’t manage production
• non-capitalistic relations of exchange (production
primarily for local consumption rather than exchange)
• no periphery (periphery “discovered” by explorers c.
1500)
• “freedom” not an absolute right; measure of possibility on
social hierarchy
Plantation Capitalism / Mercantilism /
Proto-capitalism
• (c. 1450 c.e. - late 1800s)
• state controlled by colonial elites (protocapitalists defeat military elites)
• capital owned by colonial elites (plantations)
• non-capitalistic relations of production (slavery)
• capitalistic relations of production (production for
exchange)
• production controlled from periphery (plantations
in colonies)
• rights of property developing; notions of
“freedom” emerging
Bourgeois Capitalism
/ Industrial Capitalism / “Mature” Capitalism
• (c. 1800 c.e. - present?)
• state controlled by bourgeoisie (defeat colonial
elites)
• capital owned by bourgeoisie
• capitalistic relations of production (wage labor)
• capitalistic relations of exchange (production for
exchange)
• production controlled from the core (plantations
relegated to secondary role)
• “freedom” is an “absolute” property right
Genovese
• Phenomenon: Until the
bourgeois/democratic revolutions,
collective slave resistance yielded
‘restorationist’ rather than ‘revolutionary’
results
Genovese
• Problem: Why did collective slave resistance
tend to yield, ‘restorationist’ rather than
‘revolutionary’ results until the
bourgeois/democratic revolutions?
• Premises
– Collective slave resistance
– Bourgeois revolution
– Before: only “restorationist” results
• What is “restorationist”?
– After: possibility of “revolutionary” results
• What is “revolutionary”?
Genovese
• Problem: Why did collective slave
resistance tend to yield, ‘restorationist’
rather than ‘revolutionary’ results until the
bourgeois/democratic revolutions?
• Explanation: something about the
bourgeois-democratic revolution changed
the character or consequences of
collective resistance, so that results could
become ‘revolutionary’
WHY did slave revolts in pre-capitalist (feudalistic, seigniorial)
societies tend to yield “restorationist” rather than “revolutionary”
results?
Before the bourgeois-democratic revolution:
• slavery not seen as a socially illegitimate
• wider range of acceptable social statuses
• focus on social hierarchy rather than the
presumption of “equality”
• slave differed from non-slaves in degree, not
kind
• to revolt in such a system is to leave society,
place one’s self outside the accepted social
order (“isolationism”)
WHY did slave revolt in bourgeois (industrial, mature) capitalist
societies tend to yield “revolutionary” results?
New values of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution:
• New commitment to the value of “absolute
property”
• Labor as a market commodity
• “Freedom” as an absolute property right
• Slavery = total denial of freedom
• Slavery irreconcilable with value of absolute
property, hence illegitimate
• Slave revolts can imagine slavery’s destruction
TIME
up to c. 1500
c. 1500 - c. 1770s
c. 1770s -
STYLE OF SLAVERY ECONOMY
IDEOLOGY
"Old World Slavery"
Pre-capitalistic /
Seigneurial /
Feudalistic
"New World Slavery"
(transitional)
Proto-capitalistic /
Plantation capitalism / Slavery a legitimate
Mercantilism
social institution
"New World Slavery"
(mature)
Bourgeois capitalism / Slavery violates values
Industrial capitalism / of bourgeoisdemocratic revolution
Mature capitalism
Slavery a legitimate
social institution