HIS 102
Notes Week 2
WORLD CIV II NOTES
THE ENLIGHTENMENT

To open your mind. To challenge old ways of thinking.

Mid-1600’s- 1700’s

Human’s ability to understand the world around them.

People began to seek knowledge of their world outside of what the church told
them.

“Age of Reason”

Humans could understand the world around them through
o Observing human behavior
o Scientific experimentation

Humans ability to understand the world came through the grace of God. Only
God could have created a being that could comprehend the world around them.

Faith COULD go with reason.

Some Enlightenment thinkers used “the Enlightenment” to bring them closer to
God. Others used it as a way to pull away from religion, or more specifically to
pull them out from under the control of established religious institutions.
o Some thought that “now we have the ability to figure out things on our
own.”
o A wide range of thinkers, from diehard believers to diehard atheists.

Deists: God created everything, gave things their start then stepped back and let
things go.
o Believe that God created but does not control the Universe. Everything
AFTER creation occurs through randomness.

Separation of Church & State: Central to the ideologies of the founding of the US
o Not anti-religion (necessarily)
o Religion should not be involved in Government. Religious leaders should
not control politics.
o Citizens should have the right to worship (or not worship) as they choose.
o No state sponsored/ authorized religion.

Immanuel Kant: Described the Enlightenment as: “humankind’s release from
immaturity.”
o Immaturity: the inability to think for one’s self.
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HIS 102
Notes Week 2

Many were suspicious of older forms of government and older superstitions.
Humanity has the ability to think for themselves, thus any system that seeks to
subdue this is suspect.

Religious leaders tended to be suspicious of Enlightenment thinkers and vice
versa.

Enlightenment affected many aspects of human life:
o Religion/ Spirituality
o Art
o Economics
o Politics

Citizen’s rights… a concept originating in the Enlightenment. Humans have the
right to have a say in how they are governed.
Impact and contradictions

The enlightenment coincided with the expansion of the Transatlantic Slave
Trade.

TST based on race.

Humans are born with reason, and the intellectual ability to make their lives
better. Vs.
o It is ok to enslave one group of people because of their race.

Practiced “Scientific racism” came up with so called scientific reasons why one
race was superior (or inferior) to another. i.e. shape of their skulls, facial
features, style of dress, culture etc.
o The justifications were completely arbitrary and elaborate. Also
completely made up and ridiculous.
Historical context

Pre-1500 slavery
o Slaves were generally POW’s, debtors, etc.,
o Major slave routes all over the world,
 Came from Russia, Central Europe, India, and later Africa.
o TST saw a boom in the slave trade.
 Slavery became central to the economies of the Americas in the
1600’s- 1800’s.
 The Caribbean, South America, and North America.
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HIS 102
Notes Week 2

Slavery became a dominant factor in the economy because of
agriculture:

Sugar plantations and refining.

Europe ill-suited for growing sugar.




Portuguese explorers found islands, first off, the west coast
of Africa and then in the Americas that were perfect for
growing sugar.
Colonization/ Slave trade/ sugar plantations went hand in hand.
Sugar became the predominant crop in this time period.
Sugar harvesting was dangerous… chopping sugarcane with
machetes, axes, etc.

At first the plantation owners thought that they could use native
populations for labor, but disease and other factors weakened the
natives and made them ill-suited to this purpose. So, they brought
in Africans instead.
 1500’s to 1860’s about 13 million Africans were displaced to
provide slave labor to the TST.
o Slavery in practice:
 slave ships would land in West-Africa,
 Native Africans would sell people to the Europeans. These slaves
could be:

Prisoners,
No Class next Tuesday

Criminals,
(10 September 5, 2019)

Enemy POW’s
 Etc.
o Triangle trade
 Triangle shaped trade routes…
o Middle Passage:




Also see Django Unchained Video
on YouTube: “Skull Scene”
https://youtu.be/aQM4ebFILv4
Is the social contract designed to
protect citizens from each other
(Hobbes) or to protect citizens from
a government that might take our
rights away? (Locke)
Shipping of African people to the
Americas for the purpose of being
slaves.
Dehumanizing of African people,
Stacked, and packed into ships to
carry them to the Americas.
Many died of suffocation, disease, and suicide on the trip to the
Americas.
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HIS 102
Notes Week 2


Treated as cargo, not people.
Slave families were broken up, husbands going one way, wives
another way.

Slave mothers used as “wet nurses” even to the detriment
and death of their own children.
o There was also an abolitionist movement, particularly in England in in the
North American colonies in the 1770s.
 Grounded in a moral argument
 Also, technological advances replaced the need for human labor
with mechanized farming methods.

In 1808 US and the UK banned the International Slave trade.
However, slavery continued to exist into the 1860s in the US, and
1888 in Brazil.

Brazil was the last nation in the West to ban slavery.
Enlightenment Political Thinkers

Thomas Hobbes: 1588-1679 (English)

Wrote Leviathan in 1651.
o Dealt with the concept of the “Social Contract” (An agreement between
individuals and the government)
 Individuals agreed to give up some of their freedoms to a leader in
exchange for that leader’s agreeing to protect their other rights.
 For example: We give up the right to walk directly to an airplane
and get aboard to the government (through the TSA, etc.) in
exchange for the protection that we have from being blown up
when riding airplanes.
o Hobbes saw this concept of “Social Contract.” As a necessity.
o He saw humanity, in a natural state, were violent, cruel, solitary (noncommunal), and in chaos. Motivated entirely by self-interest. Altruistic
actions that benefit the community is against human nature. This changed
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HIS 102
Notes Week 2
when the first humans developed society
and started forming the first social
contracts. This was done out of selfinterest in order to protect each individual
through mutual defense.
o In Hobbes mind, social contracts are in
place through studied self-interest for
each citizen to further their own goals
Social contracts gradually became more
intricately involved and migrated higher up
in social development This is the basis on
which larger governments have formed.
We have social contracts between our
leaders to protect the rights/ interests of
the citizens.
o Humans agree to abide by laws in
exchange for certain benefits that are in
place due to having the government in
place.
o He believed in strong, absolute leaders.
 Leaders with total control to keep
citizens in check.

John Locke: 1632-1704 (English)
o 1689 Second Treatise of Government.
o Social Contract- to protect rights, lives,
and property.
o In a state of nature, humans by their very
nature inherently understood that doing
harm to another human was wrong.
o Humans were not out of control or
motivated purely by self-interest.
o Humans came together to form
communities to protect their rights to life,
liberty, and property from outsiders.
The (US)
Declaration of
Independance
When in the Course of human
events, it becomes necessary for
one people to dissolve the political
bands which have connected them
with another, and to assume among
the powers of the earth, the separate
and equal station to which the Laws
of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle
them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that
they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be selfevident, 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.–That to secure these
rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the
governed, –That whenever any Form
of Government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established
should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly, all
experience hath shewn, that
mankind are more disposed to
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suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by
HIS 102
Notes Week 2
o Locke believed that humans much more driven by communal concerns
than Hobbes did.
o “Consent of the Governed”: those being governed only because they
allow, they consent to allow the government to have that power. Thus,
citizens decide that the government has power and can also decide to
take that power away. Locke believed that this right is inalienable. (“God
given” and cannot be taken away.)

John-Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778 (French)
o In 1762 wrote, “the Social Contract”
o He said that the best government was one decided by, Popular
sovereignty, where the people have a direct say in how they are
governed and in how their society operates.
o The United States is not a democracy, but rather a republic where we
elect people to make laws on our behalf. In a democracy we would
directly make those decisions.
o Popular sovereignty is the General Will according to Rousseau.
 In reality, not all citizens will understand how to best contribute to
the general will. (They won’t have the mental capacity.)
 Thus, societies ran by the general will still need to have some sort
of leader to guide things.

Influences
o Magna Carta (1215)
 Written by English Nobles: Not really poor or oppressed.
 They wanted a say in their government as people who had invested
in their nation.
o Enlightenment
 Social Contracts,
 Relationship between citizens and their government
 Purposes of government

Revenue?

Protection against foreign powers?



What exactly is the government there for, and could we do
without one?
John Locke (heavily influential)
Montesquieu 1689-1755 (French)

Wrote about the concept of separation of powers.
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HIS 102
Notes Week 2


Recognized that any one individual, or group of individuals
who held too much power were hard to keep in check.:
Thus, we have 3 branches of government in the US.
American Revolution
o “City Upon a Hill”
Enlightenment ideals
 Sense of destiny, particularly British
have a great influence
colonists believed that they would establish
on the US revolution,
a model that the rest of the world would
French revolution, as
follow.
well as the Haitian
o The American Revolution was started and driven
revolution.
by a group of wealthy intellectuals who did not like
being controlled by a government under which they
had no say.
o Declaration of Independence: the announcement to the world that the
citizens in the US intended to break away from the British government and
establish a new government and a new nation.
 This was a radical move. That they would win and achieve this was
by no means a surety. They were going against the world’s largest
(at that time) Empire.
 To rebel against a monarchy in this way was unheard of.
o Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called “Common Sense”.
 The cause of America is in great measure the cause of All
Mankind.”
o Eventually the Americans convince the British that the fight against the
“Americans” was no longer worth it. The Americans will not give up. Time
to count their losses and sign a treaty with the new government of the US.
 The efforts to control the North American colonies was no longer
cost effective. The British Government would be better off
spending their money elsewhere.
 In 1783, the British agreed to sign the “Treaty of Paris” which ended
the US revolution and granted the new nation rights to all lands
East of the Mississippi River.

French Revolution
o 1789
 French economy bad.
 Spending a lot of money on wars
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HIS 102
Notes Week 2

French aristocracy were heavily spending on luxury items and seen
as highly wasteful.
 French government invested in the American Revolution, as they
were traditional enemies of England.
o Louis XVI & his wife, Marie Antoinette the leaders of France in a time
when the economy was bad and as such received much of the blame for
the situation in their country.
 They seemed to not care about the plight of their citizenry, engaged
in wanton and unchecked spending in a time when the government
couldn’t really afford it.
o Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
 A statement of what the inherent rights of what a French citizen
should have. It delineated what rights a government should grant
its citizens in the present and future.
 “Men are born free and remain free and equal in right.”
o Enter the guillotine: Seen as a more “humane” method of execution (vs.
hanging or firing squad).
 Marie Antoinette & Louis XVI were executed by this means.
o Revolution quickly turned to chaos, violence, and terrorism. Leaders of
the Revolution became paranoid. They had revolted and overturned the
government, what would keep someone else from doing the same to
them.
o Maximillian Robespierre
 Committee of Public Safety.
 Arrest, torture of suspected enemies, and execution (by guillotine).
 “Reign of Terror” 1793-1794


Violence was used to swiftly crush anyone who might
attempt to overthrow the new government.
When the US started the first Republic, others were sure to follow.
When France staged their Revolution and became so violent, it
made Americans become wary and suspicious of any revolutions.
This would affect America’s policies regarding other nations
revolutions for a long time to come. The violence and terrorism
committed by the Committee of Public Safety greatly disturbed the
Americans.
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HIS 102
Notes Week 2


The French Revolution is an example of the corrupting nature of
power. (John Addams?)
Haitian Revolution
o A colony of France (on the Island of Hispaniola, shares island with the
Dominican Republic)
o Population of Haiti mostly slaves, growing sugar on vast plantations.
o Haitian blacks believed that John Locke’s ideals should apply to them too!
 We have the God-given right to freedom. The inalienable right to
Life, liberty, and property. At least the freemen of color.
o Haiti consisted of:


White French Plantation/Landowners (A minority)
Free Men of Color (Mixed African and French Heritage)
 Some were landowners, and slave owners.
 Slaves (The majority of Haitians.)
o Some wealthy landowning people of color in the 1790’s believed that they
should have the right to self-governance. They wanted the right to vote
and take part in the government like other “white” citizens. They
considered themselves Frenchmen. They argued that they were not trying
to overthrow slavery or the French government but were simply looking
after their own rights.
 Julien Raimond and Vincent Oge (ohjay)
 While all of this was happening was a slave revolt began in Haiti.


One primary thought of slave owners, “Why don’t they rise
up and kill us?”
Toussaint L’Ouverture:

One of the primary leaders of the Slave Rebellion and then
the Haitian War of Independence against France.

Considered one of the Founding Fathers of Haiti. Died of
Pneumonia in 1803.
 January 1st of 1804 Haiti declared a Free Republic by France.
o Thus, Haiti became the 2nd Republic in the world. (1, a former British
Colony, the other a former French Slave colony.)
o Rather than be happy for Haiti, the US government remains suspicious of
Haiti because Haiti has declared that they welcome any slaves from other
nations to be free citizens there. This was a concern to US slave owners.
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