Enlightenment (1750-1900)

The Enlightenment (1750-1900) provided the ideological framework for various revolutions during this period.

Intellectual movement applying rationalism and empiricism to understand the natural world and human relations.

Reason is emphasized as the primary source of knowledge, rather than emotion or external authority.

True knowledge is gained through the senses, mainly through rigorous experimentation.

Empirical and rationalist thinking developed during the Scientific Revolution (16th-17th century).
Scientists like $Newton$ used reason to understand the cosmos and the human body.
This period also saw the questioning of the role of religion in public life.

The Enlightenment challenged the authority of revealed religions like Christianity, where biblical commands were unquestionable.
It represented a shift of authority from outside a person to within.
New ways of relating to the divine developed:
- Deism:
  - Belief in a God who created all things but does not intervene in the created order.
  - God set up the universe with physical laws and lets it run.
- Atheism:
  - Complete rejection of religious belief and any notion of a divine being.

The individual human is the most basic element of society, not a collective group.
Progress and expansion of the individual over society is essential.

Humans are born with rights that governments cannot infringe upon.
John Locke argued for the natural rights of life, liberty, and property, endowed by God and inalienable.

Societies must construct governments to protect their natural rights.
If a government becomes tyrannical, the people have the right to overthrow it and establish a new one.

The Enlightenment provided the rejection of traditions and new ideas for major revolutions, including:
- American Revolution
- French Revolution
- Haitian Revolution
- Latin American Revolutions
These revolutions intensified nationalism globally.
- Nationalism: a sense of commonality among people based on shared language, religion, social customs, and territory.

Enlightenment ideas led to the expansion of suffrage (the right to vote) in some places.
- Initially, in America, only landed white males could vote.
- Later, laws recognized the right of all white males to vote.
- Eventually, black males gained the right to vote.
- This expansion was influenced by enlightenment ideas such as liberty and equality.

Enlightenment thinkers criticized slavery due to its disregard for natural rights, especially liberty.
Great Britain abolished slavery in 1807, partly due to the abolitionist movement and economic factors linked to industrialization.
Enslaved people, such as in the Great Jamaica Refault of 1831, contributed to the push for abolition.

Serfdom became unnecessary with the transition to industrial economies.
Peasant revolts induced state leaders in England, France, and Russia to abolish serfdom.

Women in Europe and the United States did not fully share in revolutionary ideas of equality.
A burgeoning feminist movement arose, demanding equality in all areas, including voting.
- French activist Olompe de Gujes criticized the French constitution for sidelining women in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen.
- In the United States, women organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 to call for a constitutional amendment recognizing women's right to vote.