2. How did the Enlightenment
influence the French and
American revolutions?
Brief review of the American
revolution, and spend more time
thinking about the French and
Haitian Revolutions, and think
about the patterns to the Mexican
and South American revolutions
3. Center of European Enlightenment:
Eighteenth Century France, philosophes
Voltaire (pen name of François-
Marie Arouet, 1694-1778)
Voltaire – epitome of the enlightenment
philosophes - intellectuals, who apply reason
(scientific method) to improve society
Promotes the Secularization of Society
o“Ecrasez l'infâme." or "crush the damned,”
meaning the catholic church.
o"but let us cultivate our garden" – the
epitome of enlightenment thought
4. Political Thinkers of the Enlightenment
argue the natural laws of politics
Enlightenment ideals such as
opopular sovereignty - Kings to be
made responsible to subject
populations
oindividual freedom,
opolitical and legal equality,
othe social contract
formed the core of the philosophy of
these revolutionary thinkers
John Locke – 1609
(England, 1632-1704)
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau – 1762
(1712-1778, Geneva)
5. 5
English John Locke (1632-1704)
Second Treatise of Civil Government
(1609)
–Argues that rulers derive power
from consent of ruled
–Individuals retain personal rights,
give political rights to rulers
6. 6
French Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
The Social Contract (1762), argues
that society is collectively the
sovereign, the purpose of the
collective or government (or
people),
is to protect individual property
and natural liberties
A government of the people
would be the the best at ensuring
the general welfare
7. Wealthy Women of the French Salons
Sponsored dinners and
talks to discuss politics,
philosophy, arts and other
topics of the day
8. North America –1763 – 13 British Colonies
Why were they ready to
revolt?
o13 colonies regarded themselves
as British subjects
oLong cultural and personal
connections with England
oMutually profitable military and
economic relationship
9. 9
Revolution in America-
“No Taxation Without Representation”
o Bills come due from the Seven Years’
War, aka French & Indian War (aka
Virginians and French)
o Taxes start getting enforced – ones
that the British had already been
paying but the colonies had been lax
– Sugar Act (1764)
– Stamp Act (1765)
– Quartering Act (1765) (Housing British
Troops)
– Tea Act (1773)
10. Protests Against the Stamp & Townshend Acts
Pennsylvania Journal & Weekly
Advertiser. October 24, 1765
1765 Protest Against the Stamp Act
o magazines
o Boycotts of English products –
non-importation of textiles,
teas…
o Growth of radical “terrorist
groups” like the Sons of
Liberty
o Terrorizing royal officials -
tarring & feathering ,
o razing & burning homes of
tax collectors, mob actions
11. Resistance to the
Stamp Act
1766 – the Act was repealed.
1784 German pocket almanac,
imagining a Boston crowd burning
stamped papers.
13. Freedom Fighters? Or Terrorist groups?
Or trained mobs?
o Artisans
o Shopkeepers
o Farmers
o Religious leaders
o Wealthy merchants
Tarred and feathered
British Tax Collectors
Samuel Adams
Sons of Liberty
Boston Radicals
14. The American Colonial Rebellion:
Tarring & Feathering Tax Collectors
The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or
Tarring & Feathering. 1774.
Boston Tea Party in the
background, while Customs
official Malcolm is being tarred
and feathered.
15. The Boston Tea Party - 1774
Boston Tea Party – colonists dressed in Native American
costume dumped tea into the Boston harbor to protest the
Tea Act or taxes
17. The Declaration of Independence –
July 4, 1776
Influence of John Locke: retention
of individual rights, sovereignty
based on consent of the ruled
To sever ties with England
“…a history of repeated injuries
and usurpations, all having
in direct object the
establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States…
It is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such
Government.”
18. The Declaration of Independence –
July 4, 1776
“…We hold these truths to be self-
evident: That all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness…”
While beautifully written, all men
were NOT included, only
propertied white men
Thomas Jefferson, one of the
writers
19. Abigail Adams
Attempt to Include Women in the Revolution
“Remember the Ladies…”
Abigail Adams to husband John
Adams, one of the writers of the
Constitution
“We know better…than to repeal
our masculine systems…”
John Adams responds, despite
the fact that he loved and adored
his wife
21. The French Revolution Slogan
“LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY!”
Leads to a revolution much
more radical than the
American revolution
– Repudiation of many
aspects of the ancien
régime, or absolute
monarchy
– Creates a wave of
revolutions in Europe
22. 22
The French Revolution –
“liberty, equality, fraternity”
Serious fiscal problems in France
– War debts from Seven Years’
War or the French & Indian War
with the British/Virginians
– The same debts that brought
conflict between the American
colonies and Great Britain
o 50% of tax revenues to war
debts
o 25% of tax revenues to military
23. The Estates General
Three Estates
1st
Estate: Catholic Clergy -
100,000
2nd
Estate: Nobles - 400,000
3rd
Estate: (the 98%) Everyone
else - 24,000,000 serfs, free peasants,
urban residents
oKing Louis convenes the Estates General to call for new taxes, May 1789, which had met
only a couple of times in nearly 500 years
oThe Estates General originally founded 1303, but had not met since 1614
oOne vote per estate – means the first two can block the third estate, which they did, and
locked them out
othe third estate pledged to write a new constitution -“Tennis Court Oath” –June 20,
1789
oRenamed themselves the “National Assembly”
24. Storming of the Bastille!
July 14, 1789 - mob attacks
the Bastille (a prison with
military artillery), and won
a bloody battle
-grassroots, organic, not
organized, with the famous
slogan, “liberty, equality,
fraternity”
25. Declaration of Rights of Man & Citizen, 1789
o Equality of men
o Women not included: Olympe de
Gouges (Marie Gouze) unsucessfully
attempts to redress in “Declaration of
the Rights of Woman and Citizen”
1791
o Sovereignty resides in the people, a
social contract (Rousseau)
o Individual rights
o American influence? debated
26. Enlightenment Ideals
and Women
o Enlightenment thinkers remained
conservative regarding women’s
rights
o Rousseau argues women
should receive education to
prepare for lives as wives and
mothers
o Mary Astell (England, 1666-1731)
argues that women were
essentially born into slavery
o Mary Wollstonecraft (England,
1759-1797)
o A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman (1792) Mary Wollstonecraft
(England, 1759-1797)
Mary Astell (England,
1666-1731)
27. Women and Revolution
o Women active in all phases of
French revolution
o Women storm Versailles in 1789,
demands for food
o Republican Revolutionary Women
patrol streets of Paris with firearms
o Yet hold few official positions of
authority
o Revolution grants equality in
education, property, legalized
divorce
o Yet women not allowed to vote,
major task of 19th
century
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(U.S., 1815-1902)
Susan B. Anthony
(U.S., 1820-1906)
28. 28
Part II: Radicalization of Revolution
or the Reign of Terror
o National Assembly abolishes old
social order
o Seizes church lands, redefines
clergy as civilians
o New constitution retains king, but
subject to legislative authority
o Convention: elected by universal
male suffrage
o Guillotine invented to execute
domestic enemies of the revolution
o Eventually King Louis and
Queen Marie Antoinette also
executed in 1793
29. “Cult of Reason”
a secular alternative to Christianity
o Closed churches,
o forced priests to marry
o Calendar reorganized:
10-day weeks,
proclaimed Year 1
o Changed street names
from saints to secular
o Executed 40,000;
imprisoned 300,000
Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) –
Leader of Jacobin party,
“Committee on Public Safety”
sans-culottes
30. The Directory (1795-1799)
Revolutionary enemies of the
Jacobins & Committee on Public
Safety
oArrested and executed
Robespierre in 1794 and other
revolutionaries
oMen of property take power in the
form of the Directory
oUnable to solve economic and
military problems of revolutionary
France
31. General Bonaparte Comes to Power
through a coup d’etat
o Brilliant military
strategist
o Joins Directory in 1799,
then overthrew it
o Imposed new
constitution, named
himself “Consul for life”
in 1802
Napoleon Bonaparte
(1769-1821)
32. Napoleonic France
o Concludes agreement with the
church, Concordat, 1801
o France retains church lands, but pay
salaries to clergy
o Religious street names and holidays
to return
o Freedom of religion, also for
Protestants, Jews
o 1804 promulgates Napoleonic Code
o Patriarchal authority
o Became model for many civil codes
o Tight control on newspapers, use of
secret police
o Eventually declared himself Emperor
33. Napoleon’s Empire & his Fall
o Expanded empire by conquering
Iberian, Italian Peninsulas,
Netherlands
o Forced Austria and Prussia to
enter into alliances
o Made a fatal mistake with the
disastrous invasion of Russia in
1812
o Burned Moscow, but defeated by
Russian weather
o “General Winter”
o British, Austrian, Prussian and
Russian armies force Napoleon to
abdicate, 1814
o Exiled to Island of Elba, escaped
to take power again for 100 days
o Defeated by British at Waterloo,
exiled to St. Helena, dies 1821
35. The Revolution in Haiti
o Only successful slave revolt
o Island of Hispaniola
o Spanish colony Santo Domingo
in east (now Dominican
Republic)
o French colony of Saint-
Domingue in west (now Haiti)
o Rich Caribbean colony
o Sugar, coffee, cotton
o Almost 1/3 of France’s foreign
trade
36. Society in Saint-Domingue c. 1790
– 40,000 white French settlers
o Dominated society
– 30,000 gens de couleur (free
people of color, i.e. mixed-
race, freed slaves)
o Held small plots
o Supervised plantations
– 500,000 black slaves of
African descent
o High mortality rate
o “Maroons,” escaped
slaves who flee to
mountains
37. The Slave Revolt
o Inspired by American and French
revolutions
o 500 gens de couleur sent to fight
British in American War of
Independence
o 1789 white settlers demand self-rule,
but with no equality for gens de
couleur
o 1791 civil war breaks out
o Slaves revolt under Vodou priest
named Boukman or Toussaint
o French, British, Spanish forces
attempt to intervene
38. Toussaint or Louverture
o Renames himself Louverture (“the opening”),
1791
o Descendant of slaves, freed in 1776
o Helped his original owners escape, then joined
rebel forces
o Built army of 20,000, eventually dominated
Saint-Domingue
o Toussaint played the French/British against
each other
o 1801 promulgated constitution of equality
o 1802 arrested by Napoleon’s forces, died in jail
o French troops driven out, 1804 Haiti declares
independence
François-Dominique Toussaint
(1744-1803)
39. Racial Hierarchies in Latin America
o 30,000 peninsulares, European
colonial officials from the Iberian
peninsula
o 3.5 million criollos (creoles),
Europeans born in the Americas of
Spanish or Portuguese descent
o Privileged class, but grievances
with peninsulares
o 1810-1825 led movements for
creole-dominated republics
o 10 million others
o African slaves
o mixed-race populations
40. Mexican Independence – 1821-3
o Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and Portugal
(1807) weakens royal authority in colonies
o Priest Miguel de Hidalgo leads revolt in 1810
o Hidalgo captured and executed, but
rebellion continues
o Creole General Augustin de Iturbide declares
independence in 1821
o Installs himself as Emperor, deposed in
1823, republic established
o Southern regions form federation, then divide
into Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica
General Augustin de
Iturbide (1783-1824)
41. Simón Bolívar Led Independence Movements
Ending Spanish Rule in South America by 1825
o Native of Caracas (Venezuela),
influenced by Enlightenment,
George Washington
o Rebels against Spanish rule 1811,
forced into hiding
o Forms alliances with many creole
leaders
o José de San Martín (Argentina,
1778-1842)
o Bernardo O’Higgins (Chile, 1778-
1842)
o Spanish rule destroyed in South
America by 1825
Simón Bolívar
(1783-1830)
42. Gran Colombia
o Bolívar hoped to form U.S.-
style federation
o Venezuela, Columbia, Equador
form Gran Colombia
o Attempts to bring in Peru and
Bolívia
o Strong political differences,
Gran Colombia disintegrates
o Bolívar goes into self-imposed
exile, dies of tuberculosis
Simón Bolívar (1783-1830)
43. Brazilian Independence
o French Napoleon’s invasion sends the
Portuguese royal court to exile in Rio de
Janeiro
o 1821 King returns, son Pedro left behind
as regent
o Pedro negotiates with creoles, declares
Brazil independent
o Becomes Emperor Pedro I
o Social structure remains largely intact
Emperor Pedro I
(r. 1822-1844)
44. Grace Chee
2015 (and Bentley et al. 2007)
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