World Historic Events: The Age of Revolutions (American, French, Haitian)

Map labeling and exam prep

There is a version of the map on Moodle; this will be one part of the upcoming quiz. Do not freak out about labeling every single island.
Caribbean islands labeling expectations:
- Greater Antilles: you should be able to label the following (as listed in the lecture): Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, The Indian Republic, Cuba, Turks And Caicos, The Bahamas, the Kings. Note: the list contains some repetition and ambiguous terms as spoken in class.
- Lesser Antilles: you can label by drawing a circle to indicate the region; there will be one extra-credit item: Grenada. This is connected to later coverage on the Grenada Revolution.
The rest of the questions on the quiz will be multiple choice, not labeling every island. The quiz is designed to mirror what will appear on the midterm in terms of ID terms.
The instructor recommends staying up with both lectures and readings; class does not always discuss every reading in depth, but the readings are important for exams.

Course structure and study approach

The work has already begun: keeping up with lectures and readings is the baseline for success.
For freshmen (and others): college requires self-regulation and autonomous engagement with material; this is a shift from some high school experiences where busy work was common.
Pulse checks will occur intermittently to gauge progress.
Multiple-choice structure: questions cover material from day 1 up to the Friday class; ID terms will come from the lecture notes for the midterm and final.
The instructor will provide examples of what a typical ID term question looks like (e.g., a multiple-choice format showing what to reproduce on the exam).
If a student falls behind, there are paths to catch up; the process may feel stressful at first, but it’s not insurmountable.
The instructor emphasizes that a student with a pulse and a bit of effort should be able to recover if they fall behind early.

World historic events and the Age of Revolutions (overview)

World historic events: events with global impact that create a before-and-after moment with ripple effects across regions.
The Age of Revolutions: roughly from the 1750s to the early 1800s (often described as the late 18th century into the early 19th century, including the 1820s in some framings).
This era includes ongoing resistance, rebellion, and revolution by Indigenous peoples and enslaved populations seeking self-liberation and emancipation.
It is during this era that concepts we often take for granted—freedom, independence, national sovereignty, governance, citizenship—begin to be debated in earnest across the Atlantic world.
A key analytic point: before the Age of Revolutions, the idea of citizenship as a universal entitlement did not exist in the way it does today; many people were subjects under monarchies rather than citizens with rights.
The class will center on three major revolutions, discussed in chronological order:
- The American Revolution (the starting point in this course’s discussion, though we’ll revisit reasons for its labeling as a revolution vs. a war).
- The French Revolution (the middle, shaping ideas about rights, citizenship, and governance in Europe and beyond).
- The Haitian Revolution (the most radical of the three, with global implications for abolition, slavery, and independence).
All three revolutions are situated within the broader “revolutionary Atlantic world” and are linked by inter-imperial rivalries and shared ideas about rights and governance.
The term revolution is being defined with care: it is not merely a war or rebellion; it is a transformation that results in profound structural change and the replacement of an old order.
A cautionary note: revolutions often arise alongside conflicts and wars, but the decisive element is the post-conflict social and political restructuring that follows the upheaval.

The revolutions in context: key concepts and questions

What counts as a revolution? War can be part of it, but a revolution requires deep, lasting change that alters political, social, or legal structures.
The relationship between change and the removal of old structures: revolutions involve removing an old system and replacing it with a new order that reshapes society at large.
Are all wars revolutionary? Not necessarily; a war can be part of a revolutionary process, but without lasting change, it may not be a revolution.
The questions of citizenship, governance, and sovereignty become central during the Age of Revolutions; these concerns are debated globally as new state forms emerge.
The framing of these events as world-historic helps connect local struggles to broader international networks and theories about rights and governance.

The American Revolution within the Atlantic world (foundations and triggers)

The original 13 British colonies (in the Atlantic world) developed within an inter-imperial rivalry among European powers (Britain, France, Spain).
The British and other empires operated under the divine right of kings, with monarchs ruling as sovereigns appointed by God; colonial subjects had limited or no political rights.
Inter-imperial war dynamics matter: such wars spill into colonies and produce new forms of governance and taxation in the metropole and periphery.
A concrete example of imperial power politics: the port of Havana in Cuba, a wealth hub for the Spanish Empire, and its role as a supply/resupply point in the Caribbean trade network.
- In 1762-1763, Britain occupied Havana (El Morro) during the Seven Years' War, a move that opened Cuban trade to the British colonies.
- In exchange for Havana, Spain ceded Florida to Britain (Florida is traded back in exchange for reclaiming Havana).
The Seven Years' War (often called the French and Indian War in North America) ran from roughly 1756 to 1763 and linked imperial rivalry to colonial conflict across North America.
The war reshaped imperial power dynamics and set the stage for the struggles that followed in the American colonies.
After the war, the British Crown imposed new rules and taxes to rein in colonial dissent, intensifying tensions in the wake of wartime costs.

Taxation and protests as precursors to revolution

The Stamp Act of 1765 imposed a tax on all paper goods in the colonies (e.g., playing cards, stationery, notarized papers).
The famous slogan no taxation without representation captures colonial grievances: colonists argued they had no say in taxation by a distant parliament.
The Creole Peninsula divide shaped local reactions: many colonists in the Americas viewed British taxation as an imposed burden from afar, not a fair representation of their interests.
The British response to growing protests included sending troops to the colonies and disarming colonial militias rather than relying on local forces.
The presence of British regulars (red coats) on colonial streets increased civil disobedience and escalated tensions.

Escalation: from protests to violence

The Boston Massacre on 1770-03-05: British soldiers fired on a crowd, killing several protesters, including Christa?s Attucks (one of the first to die; he was a free person of color).
The Boston Tea Party on 1773-12-16: demonstrators (some dressed as Indigenous people) dumped tea into Boston Harbor to reject British taxation and the monopoly on tea; this act combined economic sabotage and symbolic political action.
- The event reflected both anti-tax sentiment and a demonstration of resistance to British economic controls.
- The disguise as Indigenous people is debated among historians (some argue it was a symbol of marginalized resistance; others see it as a strategic choice to reduce personal risk for the participants).
Across the colonies, symbols of British authority were challenged; e.g., in New York, a statue of King George III was pulled down and melted down to make musket balls, a dramatic embodiment of resistance.
Pamphleteers such as Thomas Paine helped articulate the ideological justification for independence; Paine is noted for a radical line of thinking that went beyond the immediate goals of the Continental Congress and later influenced revolutionary thought in France.
Deist influences: many American revolutionary leaders (e.g., Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington) identified with deism—a view that God set the world into motion and did not intervene in everyday life; this shaped religious and political narratives about governance and rights.
The American Revolution is framed as an anti-colonial struggle that produced a new nation, the United States, grounded in ideas of rights and constitutional government, including the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence and early ideals

The Declaration’s famous assertion: "Behold these truths: Be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" (paraphrased and summarized from the original text).
The declaration articulates a universal rights framework that becomes foundational for the new nation.
Critical tensions remain within the new republic:
- Slavery is codified or sustained in the new political framework, despite universal rights rhetoric.
- Indigenous peoples and their lands are largely excluded from the promised rights; many communities had inhabited the land long before European arrival.
- Women are excluded from political participation and suffrage in the early United States; women’s suffrage does not occur until 1920.
- The Continental Congress deliberations on slavery reveal internal debates about how to reconcile the ideals of equality with existing social and economic structures; the country chose to “kick the can down the road” on slavery rather than resolve it immediately.
The American Revolution thus marks the birth of a new nation and an important precedent for anti-colonial struggles, but its social and political changes were limited in scope and did not immediately transform the status of enslaved people or Indigenous populations.

Foreign involvement and the broader imperial context

The American War of Independence quickly becomes an international conflict, with support from France and Spain.
- France and Spain enter the conflict to counter Britain; this international dimension helps sustain and ultimately lead to American victory.
- Florida’s role is significant: West Florida and East Florida (the peninsula) were involved in the wider war dynamics; Spanish troops invade the Florida Panhandle to divert British forces from the main battlefield and aid the colonial cause.
- The Caribbean, including Pensacola, becomes a theater of military activity; Caribbean and Atlantic theater contributions are often underrepresented in typical narratives.
The broader lesson is that the American Revolution is framed as an inter-imperial contest as much as a domestic insurgency. The colonial struggle is connected to global power politics and colonial governance in the Atlantic world.

Why the American Revolution matters as a revolution

It is widely recognized as the first anti-colonial revolution that successfully dismantled colonial rule and established a new political order.
It introduces the principle that a nation's legitimacy can be derived from constitutions and universal rights claims rather than divine-right authority.
It demonstrates that a smaller or less powerful polity can defeat a global empire through political and military mobilization, alliance-building, and strategic diplomacy.
It set enduring precedents for constitutional government, individual rights, and the idea that governments exist to secure the rights of citizens.
Yet it also reveals the limits of revolutionary change, as real-world social structures—slavery, Indigenous dispossession, and gender exclusion—remain unresolved and are only gradually confronted in subsequent generations.

What comes next and framing for Friday’s class

We will extend the story to the French Revolution and examine how France adopts or adapts these ideas, and how it interacts with the Haitian Revolution.
The Haitian Revolution will be explored as the most radical of the three revolutions discussed, with its own unique dynamics and global implications.
The class will continue to analyze how revolutions are not isolated events but are shaped by and shape broader political, economic, and social systems across the Atlantic world.

Key dates and terms (quick reference)

1756-1763: Seven Years' War (global imperial conflict with North American theater often called the French and Indian War in the colonies).
1762-1763: British occupation of Havana (El Morro) and the Havana trade link; Florida exchange as part of the war settlement.
1765: Stamp Act enacted (tax on all paper goods in the colonies).
1770-03-05: Boston Massacre.
1773-12-16: Boston Tea Party.
1775-04-19: Battles of Lexington and Concord; start of armed conflict in the American War of Independence ("shot heard round the world").
1775-1783: American War of Independence (war for independence).
1920: Constitutionally, the year women gain the vote in the United States; earlier voting was restricted to white male property owners.
The period for the broader Age of Revolutions is roughly 1750s to 1820s, with the French and Haitian revolutions occurring in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Note: The lecture also emphasizes the interconnectedness of local uprisings with global imperial politics and highlights the tension between revolutionary rhetoric and the actual social changes achieved in practice, particularly for marginalized groups (Indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, and women).

Looking ahead

On Friday: we will extend the discussion to the French Revolution and examine how it builds on or challenges American revolutionary ideas, and then we will devote substantial attention to the Haitian Revolution and its radical implications for abolition, citizenship, and governance.