HUMS 101:
Atlantic
Revolutions
and Their
Progeny
I. Atlantic Revolutions in a Global
Context
A. A “world crisis?”
B. Uniqueness of the Atlantic revolutions
C. The Atlantic as a “world of ideas”:
improvement, reason, social contract
(Locke and Rousseau), liberty and
equality
D. Democratic revolutions: gradually led
to expanded political participation.
E. Global impact of the Atlantic
revolutions, 1789-1989…
II. Comparing Atlantic Revolutions
A. The North American Revolution, 1775–1787
1. Revolutionary?
2. Differences between English in England and
English in America (no aristocracy, no
dominant church, lots of land) => ethos of
Freedom
3. New taxes (Seven Years’ War, 1754-1763)
and ideas from the Enlightenment
4. A revolutionary society before the revolution
5. But US constitution begins, “We, the
people…”
II. Comparing Atlantic Revolutions
B. The French Revolution, 1789–1815
1. Enlightenment
2. US Revolution’s influence: ideas, war debt, and
taxes
3. Resentment of privilege: Estate system, peasants’
burdens
4. 1788: Louis XVI calls a meeting of the EstatesGeneral (had not met since 1614)
5. Increasing radicalism (war)
6. 21 January 1793: Louis Capet guillotined.
7. Inventing a new, rational world: calendar, metric
system, uniform legal code
II. Comparing Atlantic Revolutions
B. The French Revolution, 1789–1815
4. Women’s participation and then repression:
march on Versailles, Olympe de Gouges; then
backlash; Jacobins were anti-women.
5. Birth of the nation and the citizen: cut off
king’s head, so what were they fighting for?
Women in French Revolution
(5 Oct. 1789)
• Charlotte Corday,
1768-93
• Jean-Paul Marat,
1743-93
• Jacques-Louis
David
Napoleon Bonaparte, b. 1769- d. 1821
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1799: coup becomes first consul
1804 emperor
Won many wars
Levee en masse
Lost war of 1812
Napoleon’s paradox: some
equality, but not much liberty:
ended feudalism
spread religious tolerance
rationalized administration
provoked nationalism
II. Comparing Atlantic Revolutions
C. The Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804
1. Saint Domingue, the richest colony in the world: 8000
slave plantations produced 40% of world’s sugar; 50% of
coffee
2. African slaves, white colonists, and gens de couleur:
a. 500,000 African slaves
b. 40,000 whites: rich grands blancs; poor petit
blancs
c. 30,000 free mixed race
3. Slave revolt, civil war, and foreign invasion
4. Toussaint Louverture, 1743-1803
5. Haiti: a post-slavery republic, but poor, isolated divided.
6. “Independence debt”: 150 mill francs; paid off in 1947.
II. Comparing Atlantic Revolutions in a
Global Context
D. Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1825
1.Creole resentment of Spanish rule and taxes
2.Napoleon’s 1808 invasion of Spain and
Portugal
3.Racial, class, and ideological divisions
4.Simón Bolívar and the Americanos
5.Independence without social revolution or unity:
little democracy before 20th century.
III. Echoes of Revolution
A.
The Abolition of Slavery
1. Protestant and Quaker moralism: abolitionist
movement
2. New economic structures: capitalism
preferred free labor.
3. Haiti and other slave revolts: Haiti set
precedent and proved it could be done.
4. British leadership: abolished slave trade in
1807; emancipated slaves in 1834.
III. Echoes of Revolution
A.
The Abolition of Slavery
5. Resistance to abolition: widespread, especially in
southern USA; led to civil war, 1861-1865.
Emancipation without socio-economic changes: no
land, few political rights granted.
6. Russia ended serfdom, 1860s, but sold former serfs
land.
7. Emancipation and colonialism in Africa and the
Islamic world: end of slave trade led to low priced
slaves and use in cash crops for export.
8. Europeans took colonies to “free” slaves.
III. Echoes of Revolution
B.
Nations and Nationalism
1. The “nation” as a new idea: Reformation,
printing press, Enlightenment, US and
French revolutions, Napoleonic occupation
of Europe
2. Unification (Germany, Italy) and
independence (Greeks, Poles, Ukrainians)
3. International conflict: wars of nations, not
just kings  WWI
4. Political uses of nationalism: could divide
and unite.
III. Echoes of Revolution
C. Feminist Beginnings
1. Enlightenment attacked tradition, promoted liberty
and rationality.
2. Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of
Women (1792)
3. Seneca Falls, 1848: Declaration of Sentiments:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men and women are created equal…”
4. Suffrage and professional opportunities
5. Opposition
6. Trans-Atlantic and global feminisms
Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797
IV. Reflections: Revolutions Pros
and Cons
A. Necessary? Promises? Worth
the cost?
B. Historians disagree and debate.
C. Ongoing struggle to
understand.