Chapter 21: Revolutionary Changes in the Atlantic World, 1750-1850.

Chapter 21: Revolutionary Changes in the Atlantic World, 1750-1850

Essential Question:

• How did the costs of imperial wars and the Enlightenment challenge the established political structures and forms of governance and religion in Europe and the American colonies?

Prelude to Revolution: The Eighteenth-Century Crisis

• European rivalries increased• Dutch attacked Spanish & Portuguese possessions in

Americas and in Asia• British checked Dutch commercial & colonial ambitions• Defeated France in Seven Years War (1756–1763) • Took over French colonial possessions in Americas/India• Huge costs drove them to seek new revenue (taxes)• Enlightenment inspired people to question & protest new

ways of collecting revenue

The Enlightenment and the Old Order

• Enlightenment thinkers applied the methods & questions of the Scientific Revolution to the study of human society

Enlightenment and Old Order

• Enlightenment encouraged reform

• Radical ideas banned, suppressed

• Women were instrumental• New ideas attracted the

expanding middle class • Americas viewed as a new,

uncorrupted place in which progress would come more quickly

• Benjamin Franklin came to symbolize the natural genius and the vast potential of America

Folk Cultures and Popular Protest • Most people did not share in

Enlightenment ideas• people regarded the tax

reforms, etc. as violations of sacred customs

• sometimes expressed their outrage in violent protests

• aimed to restore custom and precedent, not to achieve revolutionary change

• Rationalist Enlightenment reformers also sparked popular opposition when they sought to replace popular festivals with rational civic rituals

• Only revolutionary potential when they coincided with conflicts within the elite

The American Revolution, 1775–1800

• After 1763, the British government faced two problems – Conflict between

settlers and Amerindians

– need for money to pay debts and for defense of colonies

• provoked protests in the colonies

• British policies undermined the Amerindian economy

• led to the Proclamation of 1763

• Quebec Act of 1774

American Revolution

• British government tried to raise new revenue– Stamp Act of 1765

• Colonists organized boycotts, staged violent protests, and attacked British officials– Boston Massacre

• East India Company granted a monopoly on the import of tea to the colonies– Boston Tea Party

The Course of Revolution,

1775–1783

• Continental Congress formed• support was given by the

rhetoric of thousands of street-corner speakers, by Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, and in the Declaration of Independence

• The British sent a military force to pacify the colonies

• won most of its battles– Unable to control the

countryside– unable to achieve a

compromise political solution to the problems of the colonies

The Course of Revolution, 1775–1783

• Amerindians served as allies to both sides

• France entered the war; ally of the United States in 1778– crucial assistance to the

American forces – naval support that

enabled Washington to defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia

• Treaty of Paris (1783), gave unconditional independence to the former colonies

The Construction of Republican Institutions, to 1800

• colonies drafted written constitutions

• Articles of Confederation served as a constitution for the United States during and after the Revolutionary War

• New Constitution was democratic but only a minority of the adult male population could vote

• protected slavery

The French Revolution, 1789–1815 • Clergy and nobility controlled vast

amounts of wealth• Clergy exempt from nearly all

taxes• The Third Estate included the

rapidly growing, wealthy middle class (bourgeoisie)

• While the bourgeoisie prospered, France’s peasants (80 percent of the population), were suffering in the 1780s from economic depression caused by poor harvests

• led to violent protests, but were not revolutionary

• During the 1700s, expensive wars drove France into debt

• French kings tried to introduce new taxes and fiscal reforms to increase revenue

• met with resistance

Protest Turns to Revolution, 1789–1792

• King called Estates General to get new taxes• Representatives of Third Estate & some members of First Estate declared

themselves a National Assembly- pledged to incorporate idea of popular sovereignty into constitution

• King prepared troops to arrest members of National Assembly, • Common people of Paris rose up against government- peasant uprisings

broke out• National Assembly wrote Declaration of the Rights of Man• Desperate Parisian women marched on Versailles-captured king & family• National Assembly passed new constitution-limited power of monarchy-

restructured French politics & society. • Austria & Prussia threatened to intervene-National Assembly declared war

in 1791

The Terror, 1793–1794

• King attempted to flee in 1792• Led to his execution & to formation of new government,

National Convention-dominated by radical Mountain faction of Jacobins & by Robespierre

• Under Robespierre: – executive power placed in hands of Committee of Public Safety– militant feminist forces repressed– new actions against clergy approved– enemies of revolution were imprisoned & guillotined in Reign of

Terror (1793–1794)

• In July 1794, conservatives in National Convention voted for arrest & execution of Robespierre

Reaction and the Rise of Napoleon, 1795–1815 • After Robespierre’s execution:• Convention reversed radical reforms- ratified more conservative

constitution- created new executive authority, the Directory• The Directory’s suspended election results of 1797 • End of republican phase of the revolution• Napoleon’s seized power-1799- marked beginning of popular

authoritarianism• Napoleon provided greater internal stability/protection of personal &

property rights by:– agreement w/ Catholic Church (the Concordat of 1801), promulgating the Civil Code of

1804, and declaring himself emperor (also in 1804)– denied basic political & property rights to women– restricted speech & expression

• Stability depended upon success of military & diplomacy• No single European state could defeat Napoleon, • Occupation of Iberian Peninsula turned into costly war of attrition w/ Spanish

& Portuguese resistance forces, • 1812 attack on Russia ended in disaster. • Alliance of Russia, Austria, Prussia, England defeated Napoleon in 1814

The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804 • French Saint Domingue was one of the

richest European colonies in the Americas

• one of the most brutal slave regimes in the Caribbean

• political turmoil in France weakened the ability of colonial administrators to maintain order and led to conflict between slaves and gens de couleur on the one hand and whites on the other

• A slave rebellion under François Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture took over the colony in 1794

• Napoleon’s 1802 attempt to reestablish French authority led to the capture of L’Ouverture but failed to retake the colony, which became the independent republic of Haiti in 1804

1791-Slaves rebel, end slavery, create the Western Hemispheres second

independent nation; Haiti

Congress of Vienna: Conservative Retrenchment, 1815–1820

• From 1814 to 1815, Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria met in Vienna to reestablish and safeguard the conservative order in Europe

• The Congress of Vienna – restored the French monarchy; – redrew the borders of France and other European states– established a Holy Alliance of Austria, Russia,& Prussia

• Holy Alliance defeated liberal revolutions in Spain and Italy in 1820 and tried, without success, to repress liberal and nationalist ideas

Nationalism, Reform, Revolution, 1821–1850

• Popular support for national self-determination & democratic reform grew

• Greece gained independence from Ottoman Empire in 1830• People of Paris forced monarchy to accept constitutional rule-

extend voting privileges• Democratic reform movements emerged in Britain & U.S.• In US, franchise extended after War of 1812 • In Britain, response to unpopular Corn Laws resulted in nearly 50%

increase in number of voters• In Europe, desire for national self-determination & democratic

reform led to series of revolutions in 1848– In France, monarchy overthrown-replaced by elected president (Louis

Napoleon)– revolutions of 1848 failed to gain nationalist-republican objectives

Conclusion: The American Revolution

• The expense of colonial wars led to new taxes on colonials• Resentment over taxation led British American colonies to fight &

win independence.• New American government reflected democratic ideals of the

Enlightenment

Conclusion: The French Revolution • Revolutionaries in France created a more radical form of

representative democracy than the one found in America and suffered more violence as well

• Events in France led to the Haitian Revolution and Haiti’s independence

• Entrenched elite forces within, and foreign intervention from without, made the French and Haitian Revolutions more violent and destructive than the American Revolution

• In France, chaos led to the rise of Napoleon

Aftermath of Revolution

• Conservative retrenchment after Napoleon prevailed in short term in Europe, but nationalism and liberalism could not be held in check for long

• The new social classes arising with industrial capitalism ultimately demanded a new social and political order

• The new political freedoms were limited to a minority– Women could not participate until the twentieth century– slavery endured until the second half of the nineteenth century

in America