Chapter 7

Mfecane

A series of wars and migrations (the breaking or crushing)

Popular sovereignty

The authority to govern derived from the people

John Locke

17th-century English Enlightenment philosopher whose ideas challenged absolute monarchy and gave the ideological foundations for the Atlantic Revolutions

Social contract

Agreement where people voluntarily give a small amount of freedom to a ruler or government for protection of natural rights

American Revolution

Struggle for independence by 13 British colonies in North America from oppressive British rule beginning in 1775

Declaration of Independence

Founding document in 1776 primarily written by Thomas Jefferson in which the thirteen American colonies formally severed ties with Great Britain

Bill of Rights

The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791, which protect individual civil liberties

Estate System

People were divided into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners (society was divided by birthright in pre-revolutionary France)

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

French Revolution document in 1789 asserting that natural rights belong to all men and that sovereignty resides in the nation

Louis XVI

The last absolute monarch of France before the collapse of monarchy during the French Revolution

Marie Antoinette

The last queen of France who married King Louis XVI

The Bastille

A large fortress, prison, and armory that symbolized the oppressive old regime

Robespierre

A radical French lawyer and politician who led the Committee of Public Safety, executing enemies of the revolution

Olympe de Gouges

A French playwright and journalist who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen in 1791

Women’s March on Versailles

The march of thousands of armed Parisian market women to the Palace of Versailles to demand bread, confront King Louis XVI, and force the royal family to relocate to Paris

Napoleon Bonaparte

A French military general who seized power in a 1799 coup, ending the radical phase of the French Revolution and crowning himself Emperor of the French

Grande Blancs

Very well-to-do white plantation owners, merchants, and lawyers, being the privileged elite class and having the right to vote in the French National Assembly

Gens de couleur libres

Free people of color depending on landholdings and the number of enslaved people they owned for social status

Toussaint Louverture

A formerly enslaved military and political leader who became the principal figure of the Haitian Revolution

Jean-Jacques Dessalines

A leader of the Haitian Revolution, the first ruler of independent Haiti, and the first Black head of state in the Americas

Hidalgo-Morelos Rebellion

A socially radical peasant insurrection that began in Mexico in 1810 against Spanish colonial rule led by two priests

Tupac Amaru

A wealthy indigenous noble in Peru who claimed descent from the last Inca ruler and led a massive anti-colonial uprising against Spanish rule from 1780 to 1783

Simón Bolívar

A wealthy Venezuelan creole who led the military and political struggle for South American independence from the Spanish Empire

José de San Martín

A South American creole general and key leader of the Latin American independence movements against Spain

Great Jamaica Revolt

A massive large-scale slave rebellion in Jamaica involving around 60,000 enslaved people that prompted Britain to abolish slavery in 1833

Abolitionist movement

An international social and political campaign to condemn slavery and the slave trade as morally and philosophically wrong, working to end them

Levee en masse

A mass military conscription policy introduced by the French Revolutionary government (the National Convention) in August 1793 to draft entire populations into a national war effort

Nationalism

An ideology and strong sense of shared identity centered on the belief that a group of people should have self-governance and their own sovereign nation-state

Mary Wollstonecraft

An English enlightenment writer and philosopher who is recognized as a foundational figure of modern western feminism

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

An American social activist and leader of the early women’s rights movement

Maternal feminism

The belief that women have a vital role and right to participate in civil and political life because of their role as mothers