CHAPTER 18
The West on the Eve of a New World
Order :
Toward a New Heaven and a New Earth:
An Intellectual Revolution in the west

• Who were the leading figures of the
Scientific Revolution and the
Enlightenment, and what were their main contributions
– Montesquieu Voltaire Rousseau
– Diderot Rene Descartes
– Philosophes
– Mary Wollstonecraft
– Adam Smith

• 17 th C scientists fomented a Scientific
Revolution:
• Changed the way people viewed the universe their place in it
• Challenged conceptions and beliefs about the nature of the external world
• Affected only a small number of European elite

18 th C Intellectuals
• Intellectuals popularized the ideas of the scientific revolution
• Used ideas to re examine all aspects of life and existence
• Challenged conceptions and beliefs about the world that were dominant in the Late Middle
Ages

• French Philosopher
Rene Descartes
• (1596 – 1650)
• Father of Modern
Rationalism
• Discourse in Method ,
1637
– would accept only things that his reason said were true.

Cartesian Dualism : Argued the separation of mind and matter
• since the mind cannot be doubted but the body and material world can the two must be radically different

• John Locks, Essay
Concerning Human
Understanding, 1690 ,
– Theory of knowledge
• denied the existence of innate ideas
• Tabula Rasa
– people molded by environment
– changing the environment and subjecting people to proper influences they could be changed and a new society created?

• a movement of intellectuals who were greatly impressed with the accomplishments of the scientific revolution.
• Advocated the use of Reason , or the application of the scientific method to the understanding of all life.
– Hoped that they could make progress towards a better society than the one they inherited

• Intellectuals or Philosophes of the
Enlightenment
– literary people, professors, journalists, economists, political scientists, social reformers.
• Nobility, middle class, a few from lower middle class origins
• Center of the enlightenment, Paris, France
– They affected intellectuals elsewhere and created a movement that touched the entire western world

• Montesquieu (1689-1755)
• French nobility
• The Spirit of Laws, 1748
– Comparative study of government
– Attempted to apply scientific method to the social and political arena to ascertain the “natural laws” governing the social and political relationships of human beings

 3 basic kinds of government
 1. Republic
 2. Monarchy
(England)
 3. Despotism

• Voltaire (1694-1778)
– prosperous middle class family from Paris
– Studied law, Play write, Prolific author
– Criticized traditional religions
– Advocated religious toleration
• He was famous for his declaration “Crush he infamous thing” being religious fanaticism, intolerance and superstition

• Championed Deism
– religious outlook shared by most other philosophes
– built on the Newtonian
World Machine,
– implied the existence of a mechanic or god who created the universe.

• Diderot (1713-1784)
– Son of a skilled craftsman from eastern
France
– Writer
– He condemned
Christianity as fanatical and unreasonable

• Encyclopedia , or
Classified Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades (28
Volumes)
– Purpose to change peoples general way of thinking

• The enlightenment belief that Newton’s scientific methods could be used to discover the natural laws underlying all areas of human life led to the emergence in the 18 th C of social sciences
• Economics, Education, Politics or political science

• Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) father of economics
– Believed that individuals should be free to pursue their won economic self interest
– Through the actions of these individuals all society would ultimately benefit
– Advocated laissez-faire
Economic policy of government

• He allotted government 3 basic functions
– Protect society from invasion
– Defend its citizens from injustice by means of police force
– Keep certain public works such as roads and canals that private individuals cannot afford

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 –
1778)
– Political beliefs presented in two major works
• Discourse on the Origins of the
Inequality of Mankind
– He argued that people had adopted laws and governors in order to preserve their private property
– In the process they became enslaved by government
» What should people do to regain their freedom?

• The social contract, 1762
– He found the answer in the concept of the social contract
– An entire society agreed to be governed by its general will
• which was in theory in the best interest of society by representing what was ethical

• Maria Winkelmann ,
Germany
– Practiced astronomer
• She applied for a position as assistant astronomer at
Berlin Academy
– Though highly qualified, denied the position
• Members feared setting a precedent by hiring a woman

•Associated with anti-government activity, means of spreading enlightenment ideas
© British Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library

• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 – 1797)
– viewed by many as the founder of modern
European feminism
• Vindication of the Rights of Woman , 1792
– The enlightenment was based on an ideal of reason innate in all human beings,
• if women have reason they too are entitled to the same rights that men have in education and in economic and political life

• Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
– (The Feminist Bible)
– First Serious political & social manifesto to address women’s servitude
• Linked demands to fundamental principles of
American democracy
• Helped make women’s movement part of mainstream reform
• Sociological approach to ideas of feminine & masculine challenged argument of female limitation

– Rights of Man should be extended to women
– “Natural Rights”
– White Men and slave justified in rebellion against monarchy &
Patriarchy
– Women also

• Unequal education created women’s dependency on men
• Women taught virtues that boys were punished for
• If women exhibited true virtues they were punished
– Curiosity
– Independence
– High spirits

• Legitimized prostitution
– Women trading bodies & Procreation for economic security
– Not good for men either long term
• Demanded replacing dependency with equality
• Marriage of friendship, respect & love
• Institution that subordinated women
– Economically
– Socially
– Psychologically
– Physically

The
Enlightenment in Europe

• Focus Question:
– What changes occurred in the European
Economy in the 18 th C, and to what degree were theses changes reflected in social patterns?
– Population growth
– Cottage industry
– Putting out system
– High and popular culture

• New Economic Patterns
– Population growth
• 1700 120 million – 1790 190 million
– Factors in population growth
• Falling death rate
• Disappearance of bubonic plague
• Relief of famines
• Improvement in diet
• Better transformation of food supplies

• Improvement in agricultural practices
– More land farmed
– Yields per acre increased
• Little ice age of the 17 th Century waned
– Better growing conditions
• Potato and Maize of Americas
– More plentiful and nutritious

• Cottage Industry/Putting-out system
• 18 th C oversea trade boomed
– Gold from the Americas to Spain
– Gold and silver to Britain, France,
Netherlands in return for manufactured goods
– British, French and Dutch bought spices, tea and silk, cotton goods from China and Indian to sell in Europe
– Slave trade between Europe, Americas and
Africa

Global Trade Patterns of the European States in the Eighteenth Century

th
• Traditional hierarchy and disparity of wealth based on heredity
• Nobles 2-3%
– exempt from all taxation,
– Administrative and military offices
• Patrician Oligarchies (in urban centers)
– Dominated & controlled through city & town councils
• Middle class
– Non noble office holders, financiers, bankers, merchants
– Rentiers -lived off investments
• Lower middle class – artisans, shopkeepers, small traders
• Working and unskilled class
• Peasantry (85%) Free and serf

© Collection of the Earl of Pembroke/The Bridgeman Art Library

• Focus Question:
– How did Spain and Portugal administer their
American colonies, and what were the main characteristics of Latin American society in the 18 th C?
– Mestizos, Mullatoes, Zambos
– Viceroy
– Republic of Zambos
– System of Asiento

• Casa de Contratacion
• Merchant Guilds
• Piracy
• Contraband trade
• Juana Ines de La Cruz
• Palenques & Quilombos
• La Republica de Zambos

• 16 th Century Latin America
– Portugal: Brazil
– Spain: Central America, most of South
America
• Multiracial society
– Mestizos : Intermarriage between Spanish and indigenous peoples
– Mulattoes : Intermarriage between Europeans and Africans
– Zambos: indigenous and African descent

• The Economic
Foundations
– Gold and Silver
– Agriculture
• Estates & Peons
– Trade
• Colonies a source of raw materials for exports
– Gold, silver, diamonds, sugar, animal hides

• Pack train of llamas

• System of Asiento
(middle passage)
– 16 th C 75,000 Africans
– 18 th C 9.5 million enslaved

• La Republica de Zambos , 1599
• 16 th C portrait of Don Francisco de Arobe , black ruler of an Ecuadorian province

• Casa de Contratacion (house of trade)
• est. 1503 in Seville
• Wealthier merchants of Seville and Cadiz
– Maintained trade monopoly
• Seville Merchant oligarchy or guilds
– kept the colonial markets under stocked
– forced colonists to pay exorbitant prices for all
European goods acquired through legal channels.
• generated colonial discontent and stimulated the growth of contraband trade.

• Piracy :
• Queen Elizabeth
– Sir Francis Drake,1577
• “singe the King of Spain’s beard”
– seized treasure ships
– ravaged colonial towns
• Treaty of Madrid in 1670 between England and Spain.

• Isabella & Ferdinand
– Founded the Spanish Inquisition
– Political and religious uses
– Nominated all church officials
– Collected tithes
– Founded churches and monasteries throughout Americas
• Pope Julius II (1508) accorded this privilege to
Spain’s rulers to assist in converting New world heathens

• Dominicans, under the leadership of
Bartholome de las Casas
– Believed the encomienda was incompatible with the welfare of the natives
• Dominican bishop Antonio de Valdivieso of
Nicaragua
– tried to enforce the abolition of indigenous slavery by the New Laws
• assassinated in 1550

• Franciscan Toribio de Benavente or
Motolinia
– Realist or moderate
• Believed the encomienda was necessary for the prosperity and security of the indies
• Phillip II,1556
– Encomenderos finally obtained the direct unchallenged dominion over indigenous peoples

• Mission, Presidio, Pueblo, Rancho
• Encomienda
• Repartimiento or mita
• Slavery
– New political climate marked by a growing belief in the constitutional inferiority of indigos peoples

• The Mission
– The Franciscans and
Other Mendicant
Orders
– Salvation in return for labor

–The Jesuit missionary Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) with the Guaraní´ Indians of Paraguay before their slaughter by Portuguese troops.
© Warner Brothers/Courtesy Everett Collection

• Persuasion
• Coercion
• Natives that practiced tradition were charged with heresy
• punished
– Hanged or burned at the stake

• Methods of repression continued by Totalitarian
Regimes & Police States
– Creation of racial & religious Ghettos
– Forcible wearing of badges of shame
– Formal state & religious propaganda
– Spying
– Seizure of property
– Intimidation & torture
– Sexual humiliation
– Good cop/bad cop routine
– Physical restraint
– Separation of families
• No recognition of natural or civil rights
• Threat and repression of Humanity

• Missionary fervor declined
– Concern with the accumulation of material wealth weakened the ties between the clergy and the humble masses.
– exploitation of native labor
• viceroy of New Spain, Marques de
Monteclaros, (1607)
– indigenous people suffered the heaviest oppression at the hands of the friars,
– concubine

• Francis Guest
– As is commonly known, Spanish law made the missionaries the legal guardians of their Indian converts.
– In virtue of their conversion and baptism the neophytes became the wards of the friar
• Lands confiscated
• Neophytes became property of the friars

• The Pueblo
– Agricultural Towns
– Indian Labor
– Hope to Decrease
Reliance on Mexico and Missions

The Presidio
• Forts to Protect the
Mission
• Garrisons Return
Fugitives
• Garrisons Capture
New Neophytes
• Four Built
• Weak Militarily

The Rancho
– Mission Herds
– Use Indian Labor
– Major Source of
Wealth in Mission
System
– Give Missions
Power over
Spanish
Government

• Excessive confining work
– Brick Manufacture
• Men made adobe bricks
• Women aided in transporting bricks & tiles
– Weaving lucrative for the mission
• Women & Children employed in processing wool and weaving
– Evidence of piece rate system, paid “in kind”

th
• French Explorer Jean Francois Galaup
Comte de La Perouse
– Likened the Indians of Mission San Carlos in
1786 to the Slaves of Santo Domingo
• Descriptions lf serious charges of cruelty
– George Vancouver Expeditions
– Naturalist Archibald Menzies, 1792
– Documents & letters authored by military authorities in 1785 & cited by George
Bancroft

“Cooperation”
Passive Resistance
Fugitivism
Active Resistance
Revolt
Homicide
Raids on livestock
Revitalization

• Indians attacking
Priests and setting fire
To their houses
Theodor de Bry
(1528 – 1598)

• They enjoyed economic importance as producers and traders of goods
– owned property in their own right, litigated
• countered male abuse
– mobilization of kin to witchcraft,
• played leading roles in the organization o resistance
– study of 142 native rebellions in colonial
Mexico, William Taylor notes the highly visible role of women
• aggressive, Insulting and rebellious.

Land
Population
Culture
Mission Santa Barbara

• Monopoly of colonial education at all levels
– Privilege of upper class Spanish and indigenous nobility
• Universities of Lima and Mexico City were chartered by the crown in 1551
– Theology and law were chief disciplines
• Contributions: fields of indigenous history, anthropology, linguistics, natural history

• imprisonment, torture and death for individuals who were charged with the possession and reading of literature that challenged royal or church doctrine

•The convent provided a means of achieving self expression and freedom from male domination and sexual exploitation fro elite and middle-class women
•17 th C 13 convents in
Lima
–20% of city’s women
© Schalkwijk/Art Resource, NY

 What do historians mean by the term enlightened absolutism?
 To what degree did 18 th C Prussia,
Austria and Russia exhibit characteristics

• Fredrick II “The Great”
– Maintained rigid social structure and Serfdom
– Enlarged the military
– High posts – hereditary elite
• Reforms:
– Abolished torture with exception of treason and murder cases
– Limited freedom of speech and press
– Religious toleration

• Empress Maria Theresa
– Growth & modernization of military
• Joseph II reforms:
– Abolished serfdom
– Abrogated the death penalty
– Established principle of equality of all before the law
– Religious reform & toleration
– (alienated nobility & the church – many reversals)