Chapter 16 Vocabulary: Eighteenth Century European Rivalries
Charles II (1661-1700) was the last Hapsburg king of Spain. He was not able to overcome his physical,
emotional and intellectual disabilities and just before he died, he named Philip, the 16-year old grandson
of his half-sister Maria Theresa and Louis, the Grand Dauphine and son of Louis XIV, as his successor.
Philip was born French of the House of Bourbon and his claim to the Spanish throne precipitated the War
of the Spanish Succession.
Charles III (1759-1788) of Spain was the eldest son of Philip V by his second wife and was determined
to reform the Spanish colonial system. Charles used royal ministers rather than councils and so he greatly
reduced the role of the Casa de Contratación and permitted more Spanish cities to trade with the
Americas. He also opened more South American and Caribbean ports to trade and allowed trading
between Spanish ports in the Americas. In 1776, he organized the fourth viceroyalty in South America
along the Atlantic, Rio de la Plata, which included much of modern-day Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay
and Bolivia. Finally, to make tax collection more efficient he used his own royal tax collectors (called
intendants). Although his reforms did stimulate the imperial economy, nevertheless increased control did
not bring reforms that withstood the test of time and revolutionary ideas.
Robert Clive (1725 – 1774) was a British general who established British supremacy in India. His
greatest victory was the Battle of Plassey in 1757 in which he defeated the Mughal ruler of Bengal and
his French allies. As a result of Plassey, the French lost their hold on India. He also sat as a Tory Member
of Parliament in England.
Joseph-François, Marquis Dupleix (1697 – 1763) the head of French forces in India and the rival of
Robert Clive.
Frederick II (Frederick the Great) became King of Prussia in 1740 and used his father’s superb army
and large treasurery to seize Silesia from Maria Theresa who had just come to the throne of Austria. By
skill, daring and luck he kept Silesia during both the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven
Years’ War – and made Prussia a major European power.
George III became King of Great Britain in 1760. He was born in Great Britain and English was his first
language. He believed that a few powerful Whig families controlled the government and had bullied his
predecessors for their own gain. He also believed that he should have ministers of his own choosing and
that Parliament should be answerable to him rather the dominant Whig aristocracy. After William Pitt’s
resignation in 1761, he appointed the Earl of Bute as his first minister and promptly ignored the Whigs.
Between 1761 and 1770, the king tried one minister after another in a vain attempt to gain enough
support in the House of Commons to dominate. Finally in 1770, he turned to Lord North, who in spite of
his blundering in the American War of Independence, remained the king’s first minister until 1782. The
Whigs despised the king for what they saw as his attempt to impose a tyranny but what George III was
really trying to do was to restore more royal influence to the government the only way he knew how. He
wanted to be king not a tyrant.
George Grenville was the British Prime Minister who presided over the passage of the Sugar Act in
1764 which infuriated the American colonists.
Prince Wenzel Kaunitz (1711-1794), was Maria Theresa’s foreign minister who wisely saw the
Convention of Westminster as an opportunity to form an alliance with France in order not just to regain
Silesia but to dismember Prussia.
Peter III was the successor the Russian Empress Elizabeth. Unlike Elizabeth, he admired the Prussians,
recalled the Russian armies – saving Frederick II - and made peace with Prussia. He would soon die
under ‘mysterious circumstances” and be succeeded by his wife, the powerful Catherine the Great.
Philip V (r. 1700-1746) was the first Bourbon king of Spain. In spite of the loss of the Spanish
Netherlands and possessions in Italy, he and his successors tried to use French administrative skills to
revive Spanish power in Europe and reassert Spain’s imperial trade monopoly with the New World.
William Pitt the Elder (1st Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778) was the de facto leader of the British
government who pumped great sums of money to Frederick the Great as a way to divert French resources
and money away from the colonial struggle in North America. Pitt sent 40,000 regular British soldiers
along with colonial troops to attack French Canada. The numbers of troops were unprecedented in
colonial struggles and the colonists gave strong support because they wanted to defeat their French
neighbors to the north. Pitt would later boast that America was won on the plains of Germany.
John Trenchard (1662-1723) and Thomas Gordon (d. 1750) were two of the most influential writers of
the Commonwealth Party in Great Britain. Together between1720 and1723, they wrote a series of 144
weekly essays entitled Cato's Letters, which condemned the corruption and lack of morality within the
British political system and warned against tyranny that such a system engendered. They argued that
government patronage and the Parliamentary system begun by Sir Robert Walpole was corrupt
and actually undermined liberty. They regarded Parliamentary taxation as little more than financing
political corruption and considered standing armies to be a tyrannical act in itself.
George Washington was appointed commander in chief of the army of the American colonies; he used
creative, daring, hit and run tactics learned from the Indians. His character molded the Continental Army
together and effectively integrated local militias. As he gained experience, Washington began to win
more victories and eventually, with foreign aid, was strong enough to lay trap in 1781 for the army of
Lord Cornwallis in Yorktown, Virginia. With French naval help, he forced Cornwallis to surrender.
William Wilberforce was the best known abolitionist and a British politician who became a Member of
Parliament in 1780 - and from 1788 repeatedly pushed the British government to abandon the slave trade
and slavery. Wilberforce was hailed as the Hailed as a 'Renewer of Society', and until his death in 1833
was known as the “conscience of Parliament.” He lived to see the abolition of slavery in Great Britain in
the year of his death. Great Britain’s example would soon be followed by France in 1848 and the United
States in 1865.
John Wilkes was born in London in 1725; the second son of a distiller and well educated. He was first
elected to Parliament in 1757 and fought for the rights of voters—rather than the House of Commons—to
determine their representatives. He became the editor of a newspaper, The North Britton, and in 1763
strongly criticized Lord Bute’s handling of the Treaty of Paris. He was arrested, expelled from
Parliament, became extremely popular and was reelected to Parliament, refused a seat four times but
finally seated when he became Lord Mayor of London.
James Wolfe was the British general who defeated the French army under Louis Joseph de Montcalm
in September, 1759, on the Plains of Abraham overlooking the Saint Lawrence River at Quebec City
------------------------------------------The Asiento was contract to supply slaves and goods to Spanish colonies in the New World given to the
British by the Treaty of Utrecht which it easy for British privateers and smugglers to penetrate the closed
markets of Spanish America.
Abolitionists were Europeans who – even from the earliest days of the Slave Trade - called for its
abolition as labeled both slavery and the slave trade as the worst of evils.
Audiencias were review courts (subordinate judicial councils) which heard legal cases which were really
petitions to the king in Spain who could affirm the viceroy’s decisions or change them. These courts even
reviewed a viceroy’s conduct of office at the end of his term - and a negative review by an Audiencias
could lead to severe punishment.
The Battle of Yorktown was Washington’s victory over the British in 1781. Yorktown is important
because it was a terrible emotional blow to the British, who still had overwhelming force in North
America. Nevertheless, the loss at Yorktown brought home to the British how tired they were because
they weren’t able to destroy the American Army or hold much land.
The Boston Tea Party was a reaction to a 1773 tax on tea by the British Prime Minister Lord North in
which a shipload of tea was dumped into the bay. Ironically, the price of tea was lowered but the tax was
imposed without the colonists’ consent. In retaliation, many colonial ports boycotted the tea and in
Boston there was a “Tea Party” in which a shipload of tea was dumped into the bay.
Capitalism is the economic system in which private parties make their goods and services available on a
free market and seek to take advantage of market conditions to profit from their activities. Whether they
are single individuals or large companies, private parties own the land, machinery, tools, equipment,
buildings, workshops and raw materials needed for production. In Capitalism private parties also pursue
their own economic interests, hire workers and decide for themselves what to produce and make the
economic decisions necessary for production – and the government either stays out and benignly
supports.
The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) or Casa in Seville regulated all trade with the New World.
The Casa became the most influential institution in the Spanish Empire and its members worked in
conjunction with the Merchant Guild (Consulado) of Seville and other groups involved with trade to the
Americas based in Seville.
Commonwealthmen (or the Commonwealth Party) were highly outspoken Protestant political and
economic reformers during the early 18th century in Great Britain. They promoted Republicanism (the
ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than
heredity, often election) and had a great influence on Republicanism in the United States.
The Convention of Westminster of 1756 was an alliance signed between Great Britain and Prussia
because Great Britain was afraid that the French might attack Hanover in response to renewed AngloFrench conflict in North America which began in 1755 and called the French and Indian War. The result
was the France and Austria became allies in the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756.
Corregidores were Spanish local officials in the New World and who presided over municipal councils.
The Declaratory Act of 1766 was passed by Parliament after the American colonists united and
boycotted and refused to import British goods. In the act, Parliament asserted its power to legislate for the
colonies.
The Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 was the startling reversal of longstanding diplomatic alliances
among the major European powers which were in effect until the War of the Austrian Succession and
then reversed in the Seven Years' War. This Diplomatic Revolution has also been known as "the great
change of partners". The essence is summarized thus: Britain and Austria versus France and Prussia
became France and Austria versus Britain and Prussia.
The Encomienda System (first established on Hispaniola in the mid-1490s while Columbus was still
exploring) was the institution that gave Spanish settlers the right to compel the Native Americans to work
in their mines (or in fields and plantations). In theory, the Spanish assumed responsibility to look after
the workers’ health and welfare and to encourage their conversion to Christianity. In reality, the
Encomienda system was forced labor (almost if not slavery); that is, a forced conscription of brutal
proportions. The Indians were severely treated. If they refused or rebelled, they were crushed by superior
Spanish technology.
European Worldwide Expansion can be divided into four eras or stages:
1. The first stage began with the voyages of discovery, the initial conquest and settlement of the
New World along with the penetration of Indian and Southeast Asian markets by the Portuguese
and Dutch ending around 1700.
2. The second stage was that of the Mercantilist Empires, most of which is dealt with in this
chapter. It was dominated by colonial trade rivalry between Spain, France and Great Britain.
3. The third stage would occur in the latter half nineteenth century when European governments
carved out empires world-wide as they outright annexed most of Africa and India, settled
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Algeria; and economically penetrated the Ottoman
Empire, Persia, China and Japan. World War I would bring an end to stage three and slowly open
the door for stage four which would blossom after World War II.
4. The fourth stage was the Period of Decolonization, where almost all the peoples and nations
dominated by the Europeans freed themselves from colonial rule.
The First Continental Congress was organized in 1774 to coordinate the colonial resistance to British
action. The delegates organized an economic boycott of Great Britain in protest and petitioned the King
for a redress of grievances. The Second Continental Congress met after the war had begun at Lexington
and Concord and approved the Declaration of Independence, drafted the Articles of Confederation
managed the Revolutionary War.
The Declaration of Independence drew upon Enlightenment thinking and English Constitutional
tradition. It asserted that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, which among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. It echoed John
Locke’s contractual theory of government in arguing that individuals established governments to
secure these rights and that government derives its power and authority from the consent of the
governed. The declaration listed colonial grievances and declared that they had the right to be free and
independent states.
The Flota System consisted of fleets of merchant ships (guarded by warships), which used to carry
merchandise from Spain to three authorized ports on the Atlantic coast of Spain’s American empire. The
ships would then be loaded with gold and silver bullion, which would be taken back to Cádiz. This
tightly controlled monopoly allowed no other authorized ports in the south Atlantic or the Pacific and
other ports in the New World could receive goods only after they had been offloaded at the three
authorized ports. This imperfect system also prohibited Spanish colonists from trading with each other
and building their own ships, developing commercial industries or allowing foreign merchants to break
this Casa monopoly.
The Free Market is the heart of Capitalism in which businessmen compete with each other and the
forces of supply and demand to determine the prices received for goods and services.
The Golden Age of Smuggling is a name applied to the eighteenth century because countries tried to
hold complete trading monopolies. When colonies wanted trade with other countries or other colonies
mother countries prevented such economic contacts. The result was smuggling on a massive scale.
The Intolerable Acts of 1774 closed the port of Boston (until the value of the tea which had been
dumped into the harbor at the Boston Tea Party had been repaid), reorganized the colonial government of
Massachusetts, allowed troops to be quartered in private homes and moved the trials of royal customs
officials to England.
Loyalists (or Tories) were American colonists who supported Great Britain during the American War of
Independence and made up about a third of the population.
Maroons were runaway slaves who established communities away from their former master’s control.
Some maroons raided their former plantations for weapons, tools, and provisions - and to recruit other
slaves to strengthen their communities. In present day Suriname, for example, the Saramaka people
maintain an elaborate oral tradition that traces its descent from 18th century maroons.
Martinique and Guadeloupe were French sugar producing islands seized by the British at the start of
the Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War) which helped the British finance the war and drained
much needed revenue from France. By the Treaty of Paris (1763), France was given the choice of
retrieving either New France (Canada) or these islands and chose the islands in order to retain lucrative
sources of sugar.
Mercantilism (spawned by Capitalism and sometimes called Bullionism) is the economic philosophy
that tries to increase the power of a nation by increasing its monetary wealth through policies designed to
secure an accumulation of bullion (gold and silver), a favorable balance of trade, the development of
agriculture and manufacturing, and the establishment of foreign trading monopolies.
The Middle Passage was the middle leg of the Triangular Trade process and was often used to bring
slaves to America. Hence it became synonymous with the Slave Trade.
The Quebec Act of 1774 extended the boundaries of Quebec to include the Ohio River valley which was
a direct affront to American westward settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
The Results of the American Revolution:The greatest surprise of the American Revolution was
economic. The new nation needed money for investment and British financiers were only too willing to
lend money and British trade with the Americans after independence actually increased – dramatically!
Less surprising and more obvious were the political and social ramifications and consequences:
1.
The American colonists demonstrated to Europe that a successful governmental structure could be
established without kings or hereditary nobility. They founded a nation based on popular
sovereignty which had the highest legal and political authority. The implications were so dramatic
that Europe could not for long ignore them.
2.
The American Constitution extended what had been begun during the Glorious Revolution. They
American colonists believed that they were preserving traditional English liberties against the
tyranny of Parliament and King George III. And once their constitution was adopted, the
Americans quickly insisted on a Bill of Rights to protect their liberties.
3.
The Americans also rejected the social hierarchy of colonial days. Even though the franchise (the
right to vote) was limited to men of property, the Americans embraced the democratic ideal and
asserted the equality of all white males before the law. And they rejected social status based on
birth, wealth or political office.
4.
Even though by modern standards, the American political system of 1789 was not perfect (i.e.,
slavery), it nevertheless produced a society more free than the world had ever before seen and
achieved it in a relatively bloodless manner without violent, social upheaval.
5.
Thus the American Revolution was genuinely radical but peaceful and its influence would widen
with time, the westward movement and as Europeans interacted with the new republic.
The Saint-Dominique Slave Rebellion in 1793 was the only large scale successful slave revolt in
history. In 1803, the former French sugar colony became the republic of Haiti; the second nation after the
United States to win its freedom in the New World.
The St George's Fields Massacre resulted from the John Wilkes affair. During his repeated arrests and
being denied his elected seat in Parliament, he was very popular and unruly demonstrations by
shopkeepers, artisans, small property owners and Whig politicians kept pressure on Parliament and the
government. Their popular slogan was Wilkes and Liberty and when he was briefly imprisoned in May
of 1768; his supporters cried No Justice, No Peace. Soldiers fired on the unarmed crowd killing seven
and wounding 15, an incident that came to be known as the St. George’s Fields Massacre.
The Seven Years’ War was a global military conflict driven by Austrian determination to reclaim Silesia
(and its former glory) as well as the antagonism between Great Britain and the Bourbons of France and
Spain in their colonial empires.
The Sons of Liberty were a quasi-political group of American colonists centered in Massachusetts which
led vociferous protests which sometimes broke into violent demonstrations.
The Spanish Caste System in the New World:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
The Peninsulares or those born in Spain, who stood at the top of the social hierarchy. They
came to the New World fill administrative posts such as Royal intendants (tax collectors)
whose monetary rewards were highest.
Second came the Creoles, who were individuals born of European parents in the Americas.
They were slightly lower in the social hierarchy and over time came to resent the Peninsulares
and felt that they were second class citizens. In time, their resentment would fuel the
independence movements of the early nineteenth century which would drive the Spanish out
of most of Latin America.
Third were the Mestizos, who were born of mixed European and Indian parentage. At first,
they lived on the fringes of society until their numbers became so great that they integrated
into all but the uppermost levels of society
Fourth came Zambos (or as called in other countries Mulattos), persons of African and White
parents
Fifth were the Amerindians (indigenous conquered peoples) who were pushed onto useless
lands and used for slave labor.
And at the very bottom were the imported African slaves.
The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City and made a formal protestation to the king and
Parliament that (1) only colonial assemblies had a right to tax the colonies; (2) trial by jury was a right
granted to all English citizens, and that the use of Admiralty Courts was an abuse of that right; (3)
colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen and without voting rights, Parliament could not represent
the colonists. It is important to note that the Stamp Act crisis set a pattern in British-Colonial relations
that would last for ten years. Parliament, under the leadership of a royal minister, would approve new
taxes or administrative legislation and the Americans would then resist by reasoned argument, economic
pressure (usually boycotting British goods) and civil demonstrations often with violence. Then the British
would back down and the cycle would begin again. But each time tempers became more frayed and
attitudes more hardened as more and more colonists gradually evolved from Englishmen into Americans.
The Stamp Act of 1765 (passed a year after the Sugar Act by Grenville and Parliament) required
expensive stamps to be placed on publications and legal documents in the American colonies. The British
considered this tax legal because it was passed by Parliament and fair because the money was to be spent
(so they said) in and for the colonies.
The Sugar Act (pushed through Parliament in 1764 by George Grenville) attempted to produce more
revenue from imports – especially from sugar and molasses from British islands in the West Indies - into
the colonies by more rigorously enforcing existing laws in order to help pay for the expenses of the
French and Indian/Seven Years’ War. These importation duties were not new but colonists had become
used to smuggling and evading pay customs on imported sugar; and so they resented the Sugar Act and
especially its provision that smugglers would be tried in admiralty (not colonial) courts - without juries.
The Tories (Tory Party) were a conservative party in English politics (some supporting the claims of
James II’s heirs; but most supportive of stronger monarchy) which supported the Anglican Church as the
established church. The Tories sometimes disappeared as a political party and then reorganized but in
spite of many ups and downs, they survived to become the modern Conservative Party in Britain. Do not
confuse these Tories in the American colonies which – although they had much in common – supported
the British in the Revolutionary War.
The Townshend Acts of 1767 were pushed through Parliament by the British Finance Minister, Charles
Townshend, and taxed many imports, such as glass, paint, paper and tea. The colonists again resisted and
the British government sent its own enforcement agents to oversee the new regulations - along with
soldiers to protect them. The resulting stress and confusion led to sometimes violent demonstrations,
including the Boston Massacre in which British soldiers, who were ironically justified in shooting into a
crowd of violent demonstrator, since they were attacked by the demonstrators. Parliament quickly
repealed the Townshend Acts.
The Treaty of Hubertusburg in the same year ended the Prussian/Austrian/Russian part of the Seven
Years War. Frederick kept Silesia, Prussia gained enormously in influence at the expense of the Holy
Roman Empire and Austria became more dependent than ever on its Hungarian territories.
The Treat of Paris (1763) ended the Anglo-French part of the Seven Years’ War by which France ceded
Louisiana to Spain, and to Great Britain the rest of New France except for the islands of St. Pierre and
Miquelon. France was given the choice of retrieving either New France or its Caribbean island colonies
of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and chose the latter to retain these lucrative sources of sugar. Spain lost
control of Florida to Great Britain, but received New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory west of the
Mississippi River from the French. The exchanges suited the British as well, as their own Caribbean
islands already supplied ample sugar and they now controlled all of North America east of the
Mississippi.
In India, the British retained the French territory around Madras, but returned all the French trading ports,
the fortifications of which had be destroyed and never rebuilt, with minimal garrisons rendering them
worthless as military bases. Combined with the loss of France's ally in Bengal and the defection of
Hyderabad to the British side as a result of the war, this effectively brought French power in India to an
end, making way for British hegemony and eventual control of the subcontinent. But the bottom line of
the 1763 Treaty of Paris was that Great Britain emerged as the strongest world-wide European state –
militarily and economically.
Triangular Trade was a technique used by European traders to maximize profits as trade between
Africa, the Americas and Europe increased between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The
commodities involved were several, but principally they were manufactured goods, sugar, rum, and
slaves. The idea was to make three trips across long distances of ocean instead of four. For example, an
English ship might leave England for Africa with clothing, firearms and tools. In Africa these would be
traded for slaves who would be transported to plantations in the West Indies. There, the slaves would be
traded for sugar which would be taken back to England and sold for a handsome profit.
The Treaty of Paris (1783) was the treaty that ended the American Revolutionary War. One interesting
provision was that Great Britain also ceded all land west of its former colonies to the Mississippi River.
The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, allowed Philip V of
Spain to keep his throne, blunted the territorial dreams of Louis XIV and preserved the Balance of Power
in Europe, also established the boundaries of the various European empires.
Viceroys (meaning in place of the king) were the principal Spanish administrators in the New World;
they were responsible to the king and made policy in his name.
The Viceroy System was a Spanish administrative system in the New World. It spread into four parts:
1. New Spain in 1521 which included Mexico and Central America;
2. New Castile in 1542 which included Peru, Ecuador and Northern Chile;
3. New Granada in 1717 which included Panama, Colombia and Venezuela;
4. Rio de la Plata in 1776 under King Charles III which included Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay
and much of modern Argentina.
The War of the Austrian Succession began when Frederick II, the King of Prussia, ignored the
Pragmatic Sanction Charles VI (by which the European powers had pledged to recognize Maria Theresa
as her father’s heir) and seized the Austrian province of Silesia. More troubling to Europe’s monarchs
was not so much the violation of the Pragmatic Sanction as much as it upset the Balance of Power in
Europe. The principal contenders were Austria, Great Britain and Russia fighting Prussia, France
and Spain. The war was inconclusive and by the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle Prussia retained Silesia,
Britain kept her Asiento and Maria Theresa lost Silesia but strengthened her control over Austria and
Hungary.
The War of Jenkins’s Ear was rooted in British resentment of the Spanish government’s enforcement of
its trading monopoly in the New World. In 1731, the British brig Rebecca was boarded by the Spanish
warship La Isabela, commanded by Julio Fandiño. After boarding, Spanish captain cut off the left ear of
the Rebecca's captain, Robert Jenkins, whom Fandiño accused of piracy. Fandiño told Jenkins, "Go,
and tell your King that I will do the same, if he dares to do the same." Jenkins kept his severed ear in a
bottle of brandy until 1738 when he produced his ear in Parliament as evidence of Spanish atrocities.
British merchants and West Indian planters pressured the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, to fight.
Walpole gave in and Britain went to war with Spain. The war itself was a trade war marked by a series of
skirmishes and much privateering finally concluded as a result of the War of the Austrian Succession.
The Whigs were a liberal English political party which supported constitutional monarchy, great
aristocratic families, the Hanoverian succession and toleration of non-Anglican Protestant churches.
The Yorkshire Association Movement took root in the late 1770s in Great Britain for three reasons: the
bungling of the war in North America and the policies of Lord North and high taxes. The movement was
organized in 1778 in northern England by Christopher Wyvil (1740-1822), a landowner and retired
Clergyman, to press for curbs on government expenditure and patronage and an increase in freely elected
members of Parliament (MPs). The Yorkshire Association disintegrated after the loss of the North
American colonies; and the association’s reform efforts were curtailed by more radical movements
inspired by the French Revolution.