Chapter 15: Chapter Outline

1. Revolutionary Transformations and New Languages of Freedom
1. The transatlantic disruption that occurred between 1750 and 1850 had its roots in the mercantilist system of the previous century
2. As wealth increased, men and women who partook of this wealth demanded a relaxation of mercantilist restrictions
1. They demanded greater freedom to trade
2. They demanded more influence in governing institutions
3. Over time, these demands became more radical and revolutionary
1. Revolutionaries championed the concept of popular sovereignty, free people, free trade, free markets, and free labor as a more just and efficient foundation for society
2. The question then emerged of how far to extend these freedoms
1. Revolutionaries disagreed whether these freedoms applied to women, slaves, Native Americans and other non-Europeans, and the propertyless
4. By and large, Europeans and Euro-American elite groups reserved these freedoms for themselves
5. Europeans also used force to open Asian and African markets to their trade and investment
2. Political ordering
1. The spread of revolutionary ideas across the Atlantic world in the second half of the eighteenth century followed the trail of Enlightenment ideas
2. As the rhetoric of revolution spread, people disagreed over the meaning of terms such as liberty, independence, freedom, and equality
3. These ideas spawned the American and French Revolutions
1. In both, revolutions replaced monarchies with republics
2. They in turn encouraged other similar developments in the Caribbean and much of Spanish America
4. After the break with monarchies, revolutionary societies tended to break into liberals or moderates and radicals
5. At first moderates won the debate but radical ideas proved difficult to contain
3. The North American War of Independence, 1776-1783
1. Britain's North American colonies proved highly prosperous by mid-century
2. This prosperity masked tensions
1. Land was a constant source of dispute
2. Big planters' interests often collided with independent farmers'
3. Western settlers, seeking available land, often clashed with Indian and French interests
1. In the Seven Years' War, colonists and the British military defeated the French and their Indian allies
3. After the Seven Years' War, the colonists increasingly protested British administration of the colonies, often claiming to defend their rights as Englishmen
1. Merchants protested the Revenue Act of 1764 designed by the British to make the colonists contribute more to the maintenance of the empire
4. Eventually this agitation turned into warfare and calls for independence by pundits such as Thomas Paine in Common Sense
5. In July 1776 the colonists declared independence
1. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, drew on Enlightenment themes
6. As the Americans fought the British militarily they began to try and develop new republican institutions
1. States held constitutional conventions
2. These new constitutions gave sweeping powers to the legislative branch
3. They reduced property qualifications that determined who could vote
1. Only New Jersey allowed a limited number of women to exercise the franchise
7. The new revolutionary rhetoric inspired common men no longer to defer to gentlemen of higher rank
1. Many women demanded greater respect and equality
2. Slaves often fled to British forces, expecting freedom in exchange for loyalty to the crown
3. In Shays's Rebellion in 1786, independent farmers in Massachusetts organized an armed rebellion against taxes they could not pay
8. The prospect of a radical revolution propelled elites to convene a Constitutional Convention in order to prevent "anarchy" from subsuming the new nation
1. While maintaining a republican form of government, the new constitution substantially enhanced the power of the federal (national) government over state legislatures
2. It included a system of checks and balances to deter majorities from trampling over the rights of the minority within the federal government
3. It eventually included a Bill of Rights to protect individuals from the federal government
9. While Federalists (supporters of the Constitution) and Anti-Federalists (opponents of the Constitution) continued to debate the function and size of the federal government, they kept this debate civil and within the confines of the constitutional arena
10. The election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800 signaled the triumph of a new model in which social tensions would be diffused through western expansion as land ownership became easier
11. For the time being, the Revolution ignored slaves, free African Americans, women, and Native Americans
1. Gabriel Prosser's attempted rebellion
4. The French Revolution, 1789-1799
1. The French Revolution, even more than the American Revolution, inspired many other rebellions around the world that lasted into the twentieth century
2. As in the American Revolution, Enlightenment ideas against oppressive government had gained legitimacy among millions and helped propel the nation into revolution
1. In addition, harvests had been poor for years, leading many peasants to protest heavy tax burdens
3. King Louis XVI opened the door for reform when he convened the Estates-General in 1788 in order to seek new forms of revenue to service the crown's debt
4. Reform quickly turned to revolution as members of the Third Estate (the common people) called for greater representation
1. Upon hearing of these events, peasants rose up in the countryside to protest the feudal dues and obligations they resented
2. On July 14, 1789, a Parisian crowd attacked the Bastille, an infamous political prison
3. In August, the Third Estate, calling itself a national assembly, abolished feudal privileges of the nobility and clergy and passed a "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens"
1. It recognized political equality and popular sovereignty
2. Some women suggested that women be included as citizens but their petitions were rejected
1. Olympe de Gouge completed "Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens"
5. As the Revolution gathered speed, it split into different directions
1. Liberals, or Girondins, wanted a constitutional monarchy
2. Jacobins wanted to create a pure republic with a new culture
3. When the king tried to flee the country in 1791, Jacobins gained the upper hand
1. They purged the assembly of "counter-revolutionaries," held new elections using universal male suffrage in 1792, declared France to be a republic, and executed the king in 1793
2. They launched a "Reign of Terror" under the leadership of Robespierre that saw the executions of 40,000 persons judged enemies of the state
3. The Jacobins reformed the army, introducing universal conscription and chose and promoted officers based on merit, not aristocratic privileges
1. The army promoted national identity and loyalty to the Revolution
4. The Jacobins tried to do away with aristocratic and Catholic influences on the nation's culture
1. These efforts were widely dismissed
4. In 1794, moderates regained control of the government
5. In 1799, in light of ineffective government, Napoleon Bonaparte and other generals from the army organized a coup
6. In 1804, Napoleon declared himself emperor of the French nation
1. His reign checked the excesses of the Radical era but let many revolutionary changes continue
2. He allowed religious freedom
3. He submitted a constitution to a plebiscite
4. His Code Napoleon codified the nation's laws into one legal framework
1. The code emphasized the equality of men and the protection of individual property
5. Napoleon's Empire, 1799-1815
1. Napoleon envisioned a new Roman empire based on the principles he espoused in France
2. His attempts to bring Europe under French rule laid the foundations for nineteenth-century nationalist strife
1. Strong local resistance appeared in Spain, Germany, and Egypt
2. As locals in areas occupied by the French tired of hearing that French ways were superior, they looked to their own past for inspiration
3. Napoleon's military campaigns became a global conflict, with fighting in Africa, Europe, and the Americas
1. A coalition of Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Britain finally defeated him in 1815
4. The victorious powers at the Congress of Vienna redrew European borders, established a balance of power among themselves and France, and promised to guard against future revolutions
1. Austria, Prussia, and Russia remained absolutist monarchies
2. The Congress of Vienna could not turn the clock back completely
1. In many areas, some of Napoleon's reforms were kept in place
1. The abolition of serfdom among German states
2. The nationalist sentiments that French troops stirred continued in places such as Germany and Italy
6. Revolutions in the Caribbean and Iberian America
1. The contagion of revolution spread to the Caribbean and Iberian America
1. In the 1780s, Andean Indians called for freedom from the forced labor draft and other regulations and besieged Spanish authorities
2. In the 1790s slaves successfully revolted against French authorities and French settlers in Saint Domingue
3. These rebellions confirmed Iberian American elites loyalty to the crowns of Portugal and Spain for the time being
4. Even when they joined in the call for severing colonial ties, they sought to establish regimes less committed to revolutionary goals than in the United States or in France
2. Revolution in Saint Domingue (Haiti)
1. The island slaves (500,000) outnumbered whites (40,000) and free people of color (30,000)
2. After 1789, whites campaigned for self-government while slaves used the language of the French Revolution to call for freedom
1. By 1791, the island had descended into civil war
2. In 1792, slaves fought French troops sent to restore order
3. In 1793 the French National Convention abolished slavery
4. Former slaves took over the colony
3. In 1802, Napoleon tried to reassert French authority and slavery by sending an army of 58,000 troops to the island
1. Toussaint L'Ouverture organized resistance among the former slaves
2. Most French troops died of disease or wounds inflicted by guerillas
4. In 1804, leaders declared the Republic of Haiti
1. International recognition proved elusive
3. Brazil and constitutional monarchy
1. Brazil's road to statehood avoided revolution
1. When French troops occupied Portugal, the royal Braganza family fled to Brazil and ruled their empire from there
2. In 1821, long after liberation, the king agreed to return to Portugal but left his son Pedro in charge
3. When calls for independence grew popular, Pedro declared himself head of an independent Brazil with a constitutional monarchy
4. He was supported by Brazilian elites who wanted to avoid slave insurrections or regional insurrections
1. The central government put down revolts by gauchos in the interior and urban slaves in Bahia
5. By the 1840s Brazil had achieved political stability without revolutionary unrest
4. Mexico's independence
1. Unlike Brazil, Mexico and other Spanish colonies gained autonomy from the Spanish crown during the Napoleonic Wars
1. When the crown regained power, creoles (American-born Spaniards) resented the reappointment of peninsulars (officials from Spain) to power and wished to regain this elite position
1. They used Enlightenment ideas to back up their grievances
2. In Mexico between 1810 and 1813, Fathers Hidalgo and Morelos organized a revolt of peasants, Indians, and artisans calling for the redistribution of wealth and land reform, among other things
1. Creoles, peninsulars, and the Spanish army overcame the rebellion after years of fighting
3. When the Spanish crown was unable to prevent anarchy, the local army joined the creoles in proclaiming Mexico's independence in 1821
5. Other South American revolutions
1. Men such as Simón Bolívar and San Martín waged wars for independence in the rest of Spain's colonies from 1810 until 1824
1. This warfare mobilized Indians, mestizos and slaves as well as elites
2. When the wars of liberation ended, civil war erupted between different social, ethnic, and religious groups
3. Multiple new states rather than a united federation appeared, and they were controlled by social elites and usually ruled by caudillos (military chieftains)
7. Change and Trade in Africa
1. Increased domestic and world trade led to new state-building
1. New and powerful kingdoms emerged around Lake Victoria in the first half of the nineteenth century
2. Abolition of the Slave Trade
1. In the aftermath of the American and French Revolutions, a small group of abolitionists emerged, often led by Quakers, who wanted to end the slave trade
2. Soon they achieved success
1. Denmark banned the slave trade in 1803
2. Great Britain banned it in 1807, and the United States banned it in 1808
3. France followed in 1814
4. By 1850, the amount of slaves traded had dropped sharply
5. In 1867 the last slave vessel crossed the Atlantic
3. The British navy was instrumental in suppressing the slave trade and enforcing these bans
1. Both Sierra Leone and Liberia on the West African coast became home to freed captives and former slaves returning from America
3. New trade with Africa
1. European traders promoted new forms of commerce, dubbed "legitimate" trade, after the demise of the slave trade
1. West Africans began to export palm oil, peanuts, and vegetable oils
2. Some deforestation occurred because of new export crops
2. This new legitimate trade gave rise to new political and commercial powers
1. New merchants amassed new fortunes
1. William Heddle of Sierra Leone
2. Jaja of Opobo
3. William Lewis
2. For some states, the demise of the slave trade was a disaster
1. The Asante state wavered but endured
2. The Yoruba state fell
3. The end of the slave trade strengthened slavery in Africa
1. More and more slaves were used for fieldwork or as porters, not domestic servants
2. The Fulani Emirates of northern Nigeria had a population that was 80% slave
3. Africa became the largest slaveholding continent in the nineteenth century
8. Economic reordering in the Atlantic world
1. The political upheavals shattered the old mercantilist system that encouraged an economic transformation known as the industrial revolution
1. By 1850 people in Western Europe and North America were wealthier and healthier than their counterparts anywhere else
2. Western European nations, especially Britain, were using this economic power to increase their political and economic power around the world
3. Why this area, and not China or India, advanced so has long perplexed historians and economists
2. Britain's economic transformation
1. A large number of factors came into play in the late eighteenth century to produce Britain's economic transformation
1. Britain had a large accessible source of coal and iron ore
2. Technological innovations, especially the steam engine, appeared
3. Britain had an effective system to mobilize capital
4. Britain had a well-developed internal market
5. British merchants had access to most of the world's markets
6. Britain had a large and adaptable labor force eager (or forced) to work for wages
7. Agricultural production had increased, allowing for more food with relatively fewer farmers
1. This in turn led to the growth of urban areas
2. It also increased the pool of wage laborers
2. This transformation spread and organized a new division of labor around the world
1. Britain and other industrial societies increasingly exported manufactured goods to dependencies or colonies in exchange for agricultural products
2. Free trade and free labor was the new economic ideology
3. Trading and financing
1. New products such as tea and soap joined sugar and silver as strong international commercial commodities
2. In industrial societies, even the poor could afford these and other products
3. Merchants reaped the greatest reward from this expansion of international trade and gained higher status
1. They provided financing (took risks)
2. Accountants and lawyers also profited
4. This new class of commercial men and women were known as the "bourgeoisie"
5. The bourgeoisie's rise to prominence altered the social and political equation
1. Many assumed positions of authority
1. The Rothschilds, a German Jewish family, amassed huge fortunes and influence, loaning money to kings and governments
2. The bourgeoisie invested in trade in various places in the world and began to pressure governments to protect these endeavors
3. The bourgeoisie also began to push for free trade
1. The first region of the world to practice free trade was Latin America
1. The British seized on this opportunity for cheap foodstuffs and other staples
2. By the 1840s the British had ended most protectionist regulations and adopted the attitude that domestic wealth depended on the export of industrial goods and the import of basic commodities
4. Manufacturing
1. In the late eighteenth century, the build up of technical knowledge allowed for huge improvements in manufacturing
1. The steam engine developed by James Watt of Scotland and others was paramount here
1. Steam power allowed for trains and steamships that revolutionized transportation
2. Steam power also greatly improved iron production, sugar refining, pottery making, and textile production
2. One of the first areas to be revolutionized by these technological innovations was the textile industry in Britain
1. From 1782-1812 the price of cotton cloth declined by 90%
2. The cotton gin allowed the American South to become Britain's principal supplier of cotton
3. By 1848, cotton textiles were 40% of Britain's exports
3. This process gradually spread to other European nations and North America
5. Working and living
1. The industrial revolution altered where and how people worked for all those caught in its tentacles
1. Increasingly Europe's workers dwelled in cities
1. Cities were not healthy places
2. Children, wives, and husbands worked outside the home for often paltry wages
1. Real wages did not begin to rise until after 1850
2. Idleness meant no source of income
3. Hours were long and conditions often unsafe
4. A more rigid concept of work developed
1. Employers used clocks to impose discipline and measure efficiency
5. The impact of the industrial revolution caused widespread concern
1. Luddites smashed machines that rendered workers unemployed
2. Reformers and novelists publicized deplorable conditions and advocated reforms
1. Charlotte Brontë, Shirley
2. Charles Dickens, Hard Times
3. Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
2. This economic reordering transformed all aspects of the lives of those caught up in it
1. It altered what they traded and what they consumed
2. It required new methods of mobilizing capital
3. It changed patterns and rhythms of work routines
4. It changed where people worked and lived and family size and arrangements
5. It changed how those caught up in industrialism viewed those who were not
9. Persistence and change in Eurasia
1. Between 1750 and 1850, Europeans altered the status quo in Eurasia in order to secure "free" access to these markets
2. Revamping the Russian monarchy
1. Russia emerged victorious after Napoleon's invasion in 1812, but Napoleon's presence had presented an alternative to the absolutist system and serfdom that sustained the Romanov dynasty
2. When Alexander I died in 1825, some elites (Decembrists) called for a constitutional monarchy modeled on Britain and France or even a republic
3. The new tsar, Nicholas I, suppressed this reform movement
4. To avoid further dissent Nicholas projected the image of tsar as the head of the family and created a secret police force to root out opposition
5. In the 1830s he preached a conservative philosophy stressing "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Folk Nationality," that romanticized the people without enfranchising them
3. Reforming Egypt and the Ottoman empire
1. The Ottoman empire was also shaken by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt
2. In the wake of the French invasions, reformist energies swept Egypt and the Ottoman empire
3. In Egypt, Muhammad Ali brought a series of widespread reforms
1. He looked to France as a model for Egypt
1. The key to stability was a strong army
2. He hired French advisers to develop a modern army
2. He pursued education and agricultural reforms
1. He established schools of medicine and engineering
2. He made Egypt a major cotton exporter
3. His reforms altered the lives of the common people
4. Eventually, his threat to Ottoman rule compelled Europeans to force him to reduce the size of his military and allow unimpeded access to Egyptian markets
4. Pressure from Egypt and Europe forced reforms on the Ottoman empire
1. Sultan Selim III tried to reduce the power of the janissaries in 1805 and to create a modern army but they overthrew him in response
1. Clerics also resisted efforts to modernize the empire
2. Sultans did not want to appeal to common people for support in light of the multiethnic and multireligious nature of the empire
2. Mahmud II ended this political deadlock during his reign. His reforms and those of his successors were known as the Tanzimat
1. In 1826 he eliminated the janissaries with clerical support
2. He then proceeded to use European advisers to create a modern army
3. Schools began to teach European languages and sciences
3. These reforms were not revolutionary
1. Landowners resisted land reform
2. Merchants resisted financial reform
4. Throughout the nineteenth century, the empire fell further behind Europe in terms of military and economic power, and the dynasty became financially dependent on Europe for its survival
4. Colonial reordering in India
1. The English East India Company increasingly dominated India
1. Officials extracted a proclamation from the Mughal emperor in 1765 allowing the Company to collect tax revenue in Bengal and other places and the right to trade freely throughout the empire
2. In return, the company paid the emperor a fixed fee
3. After annexing more territory, the Company ruled over 200 million people by the early 1800s and became the dominant power in the subcontinent
2. The Company adopted a government structure to rule the territory
1. It used Hindu kings and Muslim princes in its administrative structure
2. It maintained a large standing army of 155,000 soldiers, one-third of them native recruits (sepoys)
3. It brought in English scholars in order to learn about Indian society, culture, and history
1. The Asiatic society formed
3. Company rule altered the lives of Indians in many ways
1. Its policies promoted private property and undercut village autonomy
2. Colonial cities such as Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay grew
1. Europeans lived in enclaves
2. Indian rural migrants lived in crowded "black towns"
4. In Britain, the Company's position in India generated calls for an end to its monopoly on trade with the subcontinent
1. In 1813, Parliament ended its monopoly
5. India now served all of industrializing Britain
1. It became a major market for British textiles and a major exporter of cotton to British factories
2. Partial deindustrialization occurred as India's traditional cotton manufacturing sector declined
6. British reformers began to call for changes in Hindu and Muslim society
1. They demanded an end to the sati
7. Increasingly, officials and scholars began to view Indians as backwards and in need of enlightenment
1. Educational and administrative institutions began to stress the English language and European ideas
8. India became a full-fledged colony as Indian merchants, intellectuals, and manufacturers were all forced to play a subordinate role to the British and their needs
5. Persistence of the Qing Empire
1. Expansion of the Empire
1. Emperor Qianlong expanded the empire to the north and the west
2. As a result, increased agricultural productivity allowed for greater commercialization and increased state revenue
2. Problems of the Empire
1. Rulers did not pay attention to what was happening in the Atlantic world
1. In 1793 Qianlong expressed no need to acquire European products
3. Unsettling trends began to emerge
1. The population expanded to 300 million
2. The Qing dynasty, which taxed lightly, found it difficult to administer the realm
1. Many local officials grew corrupt
4. Several rural rebellions against the dynasty occurred
5. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Chinese could no longer ignore European powers
6. The Opium War and the "opening of China"
1. By the eighteenth century, opium consumption had spread throughout China despite official bans
2. The English East India Company fueled this consumption by smuggling opium from India into China in order to purchase Chinese tea
1. The use of opium cut down on the need to pay for Chinese goods with silver
2. Silver began to flow out of China, reversing a long-term trend
3. In 1834, Parliament ended the Company's trade monopoly with China, meaning more merchants could provide opium for Chinese addicts
4. In 1838, Lin Zexu, a court official, tried to end the opium trade and enforce the ban
5. In 1840, a British fleet retaliated by bombarding the coastal regions and sailing up rivers
6. To restore order, the Qing sued for peace
1. They agreed to cede the island of Hong Kong to the British
2. They agreed to pay an indemnity for the war
3. They opened five "treaty" ports to foreign trade and settlement
4. They agreed to extraterritoriality for European residents
10. Conclusion
1. Changes wrought by politics, ideas, commerce, industry, and technology unleashed an upheaval in the Atlantic world that disrupted polities everywhere
2. The world remained multicentered, but economic power was shifting to the western end of the Eurasian land mass
11. Chronology
12. Study Questions
13. Further Reading