Vocab List Unit 2: The Atlantic Revolutions

Popular sovereignty

the principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political power.

Estates General

the legislative body in France during the Ancien Régime until 1789, representing the three estates of the realm (i.e., the clergy, the nobility, and the commons).

Louis XVI

was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution (died by the guillotine in 1793).

Ancien regime

was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from the Late Middle Ages until 1789 and the French Revolution, based on the rigid division of the society into three disproportionate and unequally treated classes.

Third Estate

the French bourgeoisie and working class before the French Revolution.

National Assembly

the elected legislature in France during the first part of the French Revolution, 1789–91.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution

Maximilien Robespierre

was a leader of the French Revolution best known for spearheading the Reign of Terror. He was an important member of the Jacobin political party

Reign of Terror

following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety

Olympe de Gouges

a French playwright and political activist whose writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in various countries

Napoleon Bonaparte

was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars

Saint Domingue

was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804

Gens de couleur libres

("free people of color") was commonly used in France's West Indian colonies prior to the abolition of slavery. It frequently referred to free people of mixed African and European ancestry

Creoles

native born elites, fought for Latin American Independence from the Spanish

Hidalgo-Morelos Rebellion

1810-1811 peasant insurrection led successfully by two priests, signaled the move towards independance in Mexico.

Simón Bolívar

a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire

Abolition

the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people

Frederick Douglass

an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings

Great Jamaica Revolt

1831-1832 around 60,000 slaves attacked several hundred plantations, important in prompting Britain to abolish slavery.

Nationalism

an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty over its homeland to create a nation state

Feminism

the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

Kartini

was a prominent Indonesian activist who advocated for women's rights and female education. She was born into an aristocratic Javanese family in the Dutch East Indies

John Stuart Mill

was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy

Suffrage

the right to vote in political elections.