Transcript 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
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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
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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
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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 streetcorner speakers, by Thomas
Paine’s pamphlet Common
Sense, and in the Declaration
of Independence
• The British sent a military force
to pacify the colonies
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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
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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
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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 monarchyrestructured 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
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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
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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:
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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
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1791-Slaves rebel, end slavery, create
the Western Hemispheres second
independent nation; Haiti
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
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 ruleextend 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