Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echoes (Chapter 16)

Flashcards of key vocabulary terms and figures from a lecture on the Atlantic Revolutions.

Atlantic Revolutions

A series of upheavals that shook both sides of the Atlantic world between 1775 and 1825, including the North American, French, Haitian, and Spanish American revolutions.

Popular Sovereignty

The idea that the authority to govern derives from the people rather than from God or established tradition.

John Locke

English philosopher (1632-1704) who argued that the social contract between ruler and ruled should last only as long as it served the people well.

North American Revolution

A struggle for independence from British rule, launched with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, resulting in military victory by 1781 and a federal constitution in 1787.

French Revolution

An insurrection driven by sharp conflicts within French society, leading to radical measures such as the end of legal privileges, the elimination of feudalism, and the execution of King Louis XVI.

Maximilien Robespierre

Leader of the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror (1793-1794), responsible for the execution of thousands deemed enemies of the revolution.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A highly successful general who seized power in France in 1799, credited with taming the revolution while preserving elements such as civil equality and religious freedom.

Haitian Revolution

A unique revolution in which slaves overthrew French colonial rule, creating the second independent republic in the Americas and the first non-European state to emerge from Western colonialism.

Toussaint Louverture

A former slave who led the Haitian Revolution, overcoming internal resistance and defeating attempts by Napoleon to reestablish French control.

Spanish American Revolutions

Revolutions in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of mainland Latin America, shaped by events in North America, France, and Haiti, leading to independence for various states by 1826.

Simón Bolívar

A leading figure in Spanish American struggles for independence, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

Creoles

Native-born elites in the Spanish colonies who were offended by the Spanish monarchy's efforts to exercise greater power over its colonies.

Nativism

An ideology that cast all those born in the Americas as Americanos, while the enemy was defined as those born in Spain or Portugal.

Abolitionism

A movement that sought the end of slavery, influenced by Enlightenment thinkers, religious voices, and the actions of slaves themselves.

Nationalism

A powerful political and personal identity that emphasizes the division of humankind into separate nations, each with a distinct culture and territory.

Feminist Beginnings

The emergence of an organized movement of women who challenged patriarchy and called into question the subordination of women to men.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the earliest expressions of a feminist consciousness, stimulated by the French Revolution.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

A key figure in the women's rights movement, who drafted a statement at the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence.

Kartini

A young Javanese woman who became a pioneer of both feminist and nationalist thinking, advocating for education and emancipation in the Dutch East Indies.