Science and Enlightenment

• Ideas of Scientific Revolution spread to European public during 18th century
  • By popular press, growing literacy, and host of scientific stories m
• Adam Smith
  • Created laws that accounted for the working economy
  • If the laws were followed, there would be favorable results for society
• Enlightenment: long-term outcome of scientific development
• Immanuel Kant
  • Asked the question “What is Enlightenment?”
  • Have the courage to use your own understanding: motto of the enlightenment
• John Locke
  • Gave principles for creating a constitutional government
  • Contract that was created by human ingenuity
• Voltaire
  • Reflected outlook of the Scientific revolution
  • Commented sarcastically on religious intolerance
• Rousseau
  • Minimized importance of book learning
  • Immersion in nature: taught self-reliance and generosity
• Deists: believed in abstract and remote Deity, compared to a clockmaker who had created the world
• Pantheists: believed God and nature were identical

Women

• Parisian women hosted gatherings in their salons for male enlightenment figures
• Famous Encyclopedia included very few essays by women
• Man believed “the whole education of women ought to be relative to men”
• Other articles like “Journal des Dames’ defended women
• Voltaire idealized china as empire governed by elite scholars
  • Sharp contrast to Europe: aristocratic birth and military were more important
• Confucianism
  • Encouraged enlightenment thinkers to imagine future for European civilization
• Central theme of Enlightenment: idea of progress
• Quakers: emphasized tolerance

Looking Ahead: Science in the Nineteenth Century and Beyond

• Charles Darwin
  • Argues that all life was in constant change
• Karl Marx
  • Articulated view of human history that emphasized change and struggle
  • Conflicting social classes drove process of historical transformation
  • Saw himself as a scientist
  • Based his theories on historical research like Newton and Darwin
  • Believed that a society without classes or class conflict was not a good idea
• Sigmund Freud
  • Applied scientific techniques to operation of human mind and emotions
  • Cast further doubt on Enlightenment conceptions of human rationality

Atlantic Revolutions in a Global Context

• Many parts of world witnessed converging revolutions
  • Safavid Dynasty had collapsed
  • Wahhabi movement in arabia threatened Ottoman Empire
  • Russian Empire experience peasant uprisings
  • China hosted number of unsuccessful rebellions
• Atlantic revolutions in North America, France, Haiti, and Latin America
  • Occurred in context of expensive wars, weakening states, and destabilizing processes
• Costly wars that strained European imperial states were global rather than regional
• Britain and France joined battle in North America, Caribbean, West Africa, and South Asia
• Actions contributed to laughing of North Americana and French revolutions
• Atlantic revolutions were connected
  • Thoman Jefferson provided encouragement to French reformers
• Atlantic revolutionaries shared set of common ideas
  • Became a world of intellectual and cultural exchange
  • Human political and social arrangement could be improved by human action
• New ideas of liberty, equality, free trade, religious tolerance
• Popular sovereignty
  • Authority to govern derived from the ppl rather than from God or established tradition
• Ideas largely limited to Atlantic world
• Ideas born from Enlightenment created controversy
• Ideas of human equality in these revolutions was expressed in feminist, socialist, and communist movements

The North American Revolution 1775-1789

• Struggle for independence from oppressive British rule
• Launched with the Declaration of Independence in 1776
• Marked a decisive political change
• Conservative movement since it originated in effort to preserve existing liberties of colonies instead of creating new ones
• Britain's West Indian colonies seemed more profitable than those of North America
  • Local elected assemblies in north america achieved closeness to self-government
• No one in colonies though of breaking away from england because participation in British Empire provided advantages
  • Protections in war
  • Access to british markers
• English settlers developed societies in colonies
  • Much class distinction
  • Small class of wealthy gentlemen
  • Social life was far more open in Europe than in the colonies
    • Scarcity of people, absence of a titled nobility and church
  • All free men enjoyed same status
  • Less poverty, more economic opportunities, fewer social differences
• American revolution grew from British government tightening its control over colonies to extract more money from them
• British began to act like an imperial power
  • Imposed new taxes and tariffs on colonies without consent (not represented in british Parliament)
• With ideas of Enlightenment (popular sovereignty, natural rights) , they went to war and won
• After the war, political authority in the colonies remained in the hands of existing elites who led the revolution
• Many american patriots felt passionate that they were creating “a new order for the ages”
• American revolution started the political dismantling of Europe's New world empires

The Haitian Revolution 1791-1804

• Saint Domingue boasted 8,000 plantations
  • Produced 40% of worlds sugar and half its coffee
• White people: 40,000 people
  • Plantation owners, merchants, lawyers, and poor whites
• Slave labor force: 500,000 people
• Third social group: 30,000
  • Free people of color
  • Mixed-race background
• Ideas from French Revolution spread violence in the colony for more than a decade
• Principle of the revolution: different things to different people
  • To the rich whites, suggested greater autonomy for the colony and fewer restrictions on trade
• Petits Blancs: sought equality of citizenship for all whites
• To slaves
  • Promise of French Revolution was personal freedom that challenged entire slave labor system
  • In massive revolt in 1791, slaves burned 1,000 plantations and killed many whites
• Soon, slaves, whites, and free people of color battled
• Spanish and British forces also fought bc wanted to expand empires
  • During battles, power was given to the slaves
  • Former slave leader defeated attempt by Napoleon to reestablish French control
• Slaves thrown off French colonial rule

Effects:

• Created second independent republic in Americas
• Renamed country “Haiti”
  • Meaning mountains or rugged
• Haiti directly confronted elite preferences for lighter skin
  • Disallowed citizenship for most whites
• Countries plantation system had been destroyed
• White fled or were killed
• Haiti's race and class divisions contributed to poverty and unstable politics
• “Remember Haiti” reflected sense of horror to whites
• Haitian revolution led to temporary expansion of slavery in Cuba
• Napoleon's defeat in Haiti persuaded him to sell French territories to the U.S.
  • Louisiana Purchase

Latin American Revolutions

• Spanish colonies offended by spanish monarchs efforts to exercise power over colonies
• Conditions similar to North America led to uncoordinated protests rather than declarations of independence
• Spanish colonies
  • Spanish colonies governed in authoritarian ways
  • Sharply divided by class
  • More native american than whites in latin america
• Creole elites did not start a revolution even tho they were against spanish rule
• Napoleon invaded Spain and Portugal and exiled royal family
  • Latin Americans forced to take action and gained independence for states of latin america
• North america
  • Violence directed entirely against British
• Mexico
  • Fight for independence began in peasant insurrection, driven by hunger for land and high food prices
  • Creole landowners raised army and crushed insurgency
  • Alliance of clergy and creole elites brought mexico more social controlled independence
• Independence movement took place under great fear
  • Dread of social rebellion from below
• Violence of French and Haitian revolution was lesson to Latin American elites that political change was dangerous
• Creole sponsors of independence movement required support of the people
• Nativism
  • Americanos: all those born in the Americas - creoles, indians, mixed-race people, free blacks
  • Enemy: those born in Spain or Portugal

Women

• Did not gain much from independence struggle
• Wealthy women raised money for the cause and provided safe havens for revolutionary meetings
• Mexico
  • Women disguised themselves as men to join truggle
• Few social gains rewarded these efforts
• Latin American women continued to be excluded from political life

Differences

• Spanish colonies were larger than American colonies
  • Harder to communicate
• Occurred in different societies

Aftermath

• United states grew increasingly wealthy, industrialized, democratic
• Spanish colonies regarded as more promising regions compared to American colonies
• New independence countries in both regions launched new phase of history
  • Latin america became underdeveloped, impoverished, undemocratic
• Latin American and North american revolutions occurred in different societies

Echoes of Revolution

• Britain loss of American colonies fueled growing interest and interventions in Asia
  • Caused british rule in india
  • Caused opium wars in China
• Europe
  • Smaller revolutions erupted in 1830
    • Reflected ideas of republicanism, social equality, national liberation

3 major movements

• Abolitionists sought the end of slavery
• Nationalists hoped to gain unity and independence from foreign rule
• Feminists challenged male dominance

The Abolition of Slavery

• Enlightenment thinker believed slavery violates natural rights of every person
• These moral arguments against slavery became acceptable because slavery was not economically beneficial at all
  • Slavery viewed as out of date and unnecessary in the new era of industrial technology and capitalism

Great Jamaican Revolt

• A bunch of slaves attacked a lot of plantations
• Influenced the abolishment of slavery in britain
• Views on slavery were now seen as morally wrong, politically unwise, and economically inefficient

Abolitionist movement: condemned slavery as morally bad in like the 18th century

• Prominent in Britain and U.S.
• Active attempt to abolish slavery
• Slowly illegalizing the shipment of slaves
• Most latin american countries abolished slavery by the 1800s
• Plantation owners still vigorously held onto their slaves
• End of Atlantic slavery maked a major/rapid turn in worlds social history

Outcomes

• Economic lives of former slaves did not improve dramatically
• Only Haiti redistributed land after end of slavery
• Freedmen sought economic autonomy on their own land
  • Jamaica: independent peasant agriculture proved possible for some
• Southern U.S.
  • Forms of legally free but highly dependent labor emerged to replace slavery
  • Brief period of “radical reconstruction”
    • Freed blacks enjoyed political rights; was followed by harsh segregation laws - racism
• Reluctance of former slaves to continue working created labor shortages
  • Set a new wave of global migration
  • Indentured servants from India and China imported into Caribbean, Peru, South Africa, etc.
  • Worked in mines, on plantations, in construction projects
• Newly freed people did not achieve political equality except in Haiti
• White planters retained local authority in Caribbean: colonial rule stayed until 20th century
• West and East Africa
  • Decreased price of slaves
  • Increased use within African societies
• Islamic world
  • Freeing of slaves was recommended as mark of piety
  • Some Muslim authorities opposed slavery
    • Violated Qurans ideals of freedom and equality