Strayer, Ways of the World for the AP® Course, 4e, Chapter 16

Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Written by Mary Wollstonecraft, this tract was one of the earliest expressions of feminist consciousness.

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; its exponents 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.

American Revolution

Successful rebellion against British rule conducted by the European settlers in the thirteen colonies of British North America, starting in 1776; a conservative revolution whose success preserved property rights and class distinctions but established republican government in place of monarchy.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Charter of political liberties, drawn up by the French National Assembly in 1789, that proclaimed the equal rights of all male citizens; the declaration gave expression to the essential outlook of the French Revolution and became the preamble to the French constitution completed in 1791.

French Revolution

Massive upheaval of French society (1789-1815) that overthrew the monarchy, ended the legal privileges of the nobility, and for a time outlawed the Catholic Church. The French Revolution proceeded in stages, becoming increasingly radical and violent until the period known as the Terror in 1793-1794, after which it became more conservative, especially under Napoleon Bonaparte (r. 1799-1815).

Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794)

Leader of the French Revolution during the Terror; his Committee of Public Safety executed tens of thousands of enemies of the revolution until he was arrested and guillotined. (pron. ROHBS-pee-air)

Napoleon Bonaparte

French head of state and general (r. 1799-1815); Napoleon preserved much of the French Revolution under a military dictatorship and was responsible for the spread of revolutionary ideals through his conquest of much of Europe.

Haitian Revolution

The only fully successful slave rebellion in world history; the uprising in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (later renamed Haiti, which means "mountainous" or "rugged" in the native Taino language) was sparked by the French Revolution and led to the establishment of an independent state after a long and bloody war (1791-1804). Its first leader was Toussaint Louverture, a former slave.

Latin American revolutions

Series of risings in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America (1808-1825) that established the independence of new states from European rule but that for the most part retained the privileges of the elites despite efforts at more radical social change by the lower classes.

Hidalgo-Morelos rebellion

Socially radical peasant rebellion in Mexico (1810) led by the priests Miguel Hidalgo and José Morelos.

Tupac Amaru

Leader of a Native American rebellion in Peru in the early 1780s, claiming the last Inca emperor as an ancestor.

Great Jamaica Revolt

Slave rebellion in the British West Indies (1831-1832) inspired by the Haitian Revolution, in which around 60,000 slaves attacked several hundred plantations; the discontent of the slaves and the brutality of the British response helped sway the British public to support the abolition of slavery.

abolitionist movement

An international movement that condemned slavery as morally repugnant and contributed much to ending slavery in the Western world during the nineteenth century; the movement was especially prominent in Britain and the United States beginning in the late eighteenth century.

nationalism

The focusing of citizens' loyalty on the notion that they are part of a "nation" with a unique culture, territory, and common experience, which merits an independent political life; first became a prominent element of political culture in nineteenth-century Europe and the Americas.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

Leading figure of the early women's rights movement in the United States. At the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, she drafted a statement paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence, stating that men and women were created equal.