APWM Unit 5 - Revolutions - 1750-1900

abolitionist movement

An international movement that between approximately 1780 and 1890 succeeded in condemning slavery as morally repugnant and abolishing it in much of the world; the movement was especially prominent in Britain and the United

States.

creoles

Native-born elites in the Spanish colonies.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Document drawn up by the French National Assembly in 1789 that proclaimed the equal rights of all men; the declaration

ideologically launched the French Revolution.

Declaration of the Rights of Woman

Short work written by the French feminist Olympe de Gouges in 1791 that was modeled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and that made the argument that the equality proclaimed by the French revolutionaries must also include women.

Estates General

French representative assembly called into session by Louis XVI to address pressing problems and out of which the French Revolution emerged; the three estates were the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners.

Freetown

West African settlement in what is now Sierra Leone at which British naval commanders freed Africans they rescued from illegal slave ships.

French Revolution

Massive dislocation of French society (1789-1815) that overthrew the monarchy, destroyed most of the French aristocracy, and launched radical reforms of society that were lost again, though only in part, under Napoleon's imperial rule and after the restoration of the monarchy.

gens de couleur libres

Literally, "free people of color"; term used to describe freed slaves and people of mixed racial background in Saint Domingue on the eve of the Haitian Revolution.

Haiti

Name that revolutionaries gave to the former French colony of Saint Domingue; the term means "mountainous" or "rugged" in the Taino language.

Haitian Revolution

The only fully successful slave rebellion in world history; the uprising in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (later renamed Haiti) was sparked by the French Revolution and led to the establishment of an independent state after a long and bloody war (1791-1804).

Hidalgo-Morelos rebellion

Socially radical peasant insurrection that began in Mexico in 1810 and that was led by the priests Miguel Hidalgo and José Morelos.

Latin American revolutions

Series of risings in the Spanish colonies of Latin America (1810-1826) that established the independence of new states from Spanish rule but that for the most part retained the privileges of the elites despite efforts at more radical social

rebellion by the lower classes.

Louverture, Toussaint

First leader of the Haitian Revolution, a former slave (1743-1803) who wrote the first constitution of Haiti and served as the first governor of the newly independent state.

maternal feminism

Movement that claimed that women have value in society not because of an abstract notion of equality but because women have a distinctive and vital role as mothers; proponents argued that women have the right to intervene in civil and

political life because of their duty to watch over the future of their children.

Napoleon Bonaparte

French head of state from 1799 until his abdication in 1814 (and again briefly in 1815); Napoleon preserved much of the French Revolution under an autocratic system and was responsible for the spread of revolutionary ideals through his conquest of much of Europe.

nationalism

The focusing of citizens' loyalty on the notion that they are part of a "nation" with a unique culture, territory, and destiny; first became a prominent element of political culture in the nineteenth century.

North American Revolution

Successful rebellion conducted by the colonists of parts of North America (not Canada) against British rule (1775-1787); a conservative revolution whose success assured property rights but established republican government in place of

monarchy.

petit blancs

The "little" (or poor) white population of Saint Domingue, which played a significant role in the Haitian Revolution.

Seneca Falls Conference

The first organized women's rights conference, which took place at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady

Leading figure of the early women's rights movement in the

United States (1815-1902).

The Terror

Term used to describe the revolutionary violence in France in 1793-1794, when radicals under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre executed tens of thousands of people deemed enemies of the revolution.

Third Estate

In prerevolutionary France, the term used for the 98 percent of the population that was neither clerical nor noble, and for their representatives at the Estates General; in 1789, the Third Estate declared itself a National Assembly and launched the

French Revolution.

Tupac Amaru

The last Inca emperor; in the 1780s, a Native American rebellion against Spanish control of Peru took place in his name.

bourgeoisie

Term that Karl Marx used to describe the owners of industrial capital; originally meant "townspeople."

Indian cotton textiles

For much of the eighteenth century, well-made and inexpensive cotton textiles from India flooded Western markets; the competition stimulated the British textile industry to industrialize, which led to the eventual destruction of the Indian textile market both in Europe and in India.

Labour Party

British working-class political party established in the 1890s and dedicated to reforms and a peaceful transition to socialism, in time providing a viable alternative to the revolutionary emphasis of Marxism.

Marx, Karl

The most influential proponent of socialism, Marx (1818-1883) was a German expatriate in England who advocated working-class revolution as the key to creating an ideal communist future.

Model T

The first automobile affordable enough for a mass market; produced by American industrialist Henry Ford.

Peter the Great

Tsar of Russia (r. 1689-1725) who attempted a massive reform of Russian society in an effort to catch up with the states of Western Europe.

Populism

Late-nineteenth-century American political movement that denounced corporate interests of all kinds.

progressivism

American political movement in the period around 1900 that advocated reform measures to correct the ills of industrialization.

proletariat

Term that Karl Marx used to describe the industrial working class; originally used in ancient Rome to describe

the poorest part of the urban population.

steam engine

Mechanical device in which the steam from heated water builds up pressure to drive a piston, rather than

relying on human or animal muscle power; the introduction of the steam engine allowed a hitherto unimagined increase in productivity and made the Industrial Revolution possible.

Abd al-Hamid II

Ottoman sultan (r. 1876-1909) who accepted a reform constitution but then quickly suppressed it, ruling as a reactionary autocrat for the rest of his long reign.

Boxer Rebellion

Rising of Chinese militia organizations in 1900 in which large numbers of Europeans and Chinese Christians were killed.

daimyo

Feudal lords of Japan who retained substantial autonomy under the Tokugawa shogunate and only lost their social preeminence in the Meiji restoration.

Hong Xiuquan

Chinese religious leader (1814-1864) who sparked the Taiping Uprising and won millions to his unique form of Christianity, according to which he himself was the younger brother of Jesus, sent to establish a "heavenly kingdom of great peace" on earth.

informal empire

Term commonly used to describe areas that were dominated by Western powers in the nineteenth century but that retained their own governments and a measure of independence, e.g., Latin America and China.

Meiji restoration

The overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan in 1868, restoring power at long last to the emperor Meiji.

Perry, Matthew

U.S. navy commodore who in 1853 presented the ultimatum that led Japan to open itself to more normal relations with the outside world.

Opium Wars

Two wars fought between Western powers and China (1839-1842 and 1856-1858) after China tried to restrict the importation of foreign goods, especially opium; China lost both wars and was forced to make major concessions.

samurai

Armed retainers of the Japanese feudal lords, famed for their martial skills and loyalty; in the Tokugawa shogunate, the samurai gradually became an administrative elite, but they did not lose their special privileges until the Meiji restoration.

self-strengthening movement

China's program of internal reform in the 1860s and 1870s, based on vigorous application of Confucian principles and limited borrowing from the West.

Selim III

Ottoman sultan (r. 1789-1807) who attempted significant reforms of his empire, including the implementation of new military and administrative structures.

"sick man of Europe, the"

Western Europe's unkind nickname for the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a name based on the sultans' inability to prevent Western takeover of many regions and to deal with internal problems; it fails to recognize serious reform efforts in the Ottoman state during this period.

Social Darwinism

An application of the concept of "survival of the fittest" to human history in the nineteenth century. (NOT from Darwin - its from Herbert Spencer).

Taiping Uprising

Massive Chinese rebellion that devastated much of the country between 1850 and 1864; it was based on the millenarian teachings of Hong Xiuquan.

Tanzimat reforms

Important reform measures undertaken in the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1839; the term "Tanzimat" means "reorgani-zation."

Tokugawa shogunate

Rulers of Japan from 1600 to 1868.

Unequal treaties

Series of nineteenth-century treaties in which China made major concessions to Western powers.

Young Ottomans

Group of would-be reformers in the mid-nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire that included lower-level officials, military officers, and writers; they urged the extension of Westernizing reforms to the political system.

Young Turks

Movement of Turkish military and civilian elites that developed ca. 1900, eventually bringing down the Ottoman Empire.

cash-crop agriculture

Agricultural production, often on a large scale, of crops for sale in the market, rather than for consumption by the farmers themselves.

cultivation system

System of forced labor used in the Netherlands East Indies in the nineteenth century; peasants were required to cultivate at least 20 percent of their land in cash crops, such as sugar or coffee, for sale at low and fixed prices to government contractors, who then earned enormous profits from further sale of the crops.

Indian Rebellion, 1857-1858

Massive uprising of much of India against British rule; also called the Indian Mutiny or the Sepoy Mutiny from the fact that the rebellion first broke out among Indian troops in British employ.