Absolutism
Monarchies
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Definition: a queen or king that inherits power
Two Types -  Absolute Monarchy: no limit to the Queen or King’s power
 Limited Monarchy: Today most monarchies are one of two
types of limited monarchies:
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Parliamentary Monarchy:
Constitutional Monarchy:
Two European countries in the 1700s were not absolute
monarchies: the Dutch Netherlands & England
England had a parliamentary monarchy with the House of
Lords and House of Commons
Limits were placed on the monarchs power:
1215 Magna Carta
 King was bound to the law
 King could not collect taxes without consent of the Great
Council
 Right to trial by jury**
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“No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or
outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed—nor will we go
upon or send upon him—save by the lawful judgment of his
peers or by the law of the land.”
1628 Petition of Right (four limits)
 King could not collect taxes or force loans without
Parliament’s consent
 King could not imprison anyone without just cause**
 Troops could not be housed in a private home against the
owner’s will**
 King could not declare martial law unless the country was
at war
1689 English Bill of Rights
 No suspending of Parliament’s laws
 No levying of taxes without a specific grant from
Parliament
 No interfering with a member’s freedom of speech in
Parliament**
 No penalty for a citizen who petitions the king about
grievances**
 No standing army to be kept in time of peace
 No posting of excessive bail in royal courts**
Four long-lasting dynasties where absolute
monarchies took hold were:
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RUSSIA – Romanov (1613-1917) – 300 years
AUSTRIA – Hapsburg (1273-1918) – 600 years
PRUSSIA – Hohenzollern (1417-1919) – 500 years
FRANCE – Bourbon (1589-1792, interrupted, 1814-1848)
There was also one long-lasting dynasty that was NOT an
absolute monarchy (it was a limited (parliamentary)
monarchy: ENGLAND (Hanover, “Hanoverian”; today
known as the Windsor dynasty)
Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was preceded by a
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
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Francis Bacon
Rene Descartes
Isaac Newton
Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey
Robert Hooke
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestly, Antoine & Marie Lavoisier
Their significance was to begin to question past assumptions
and apply logic and REASON to scientific knowledge.
Enlightened thinkers (philosophes) began to apply REASON to
political and economic thought too.
Major Ideas:
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Reason – (Voltaire considered this also the absence of
intolerance, bigotry, or prejudice in one’s thinking)
Nature – there were natural laws, what is natural was
also good and reasonable
Happiness – they did not accept the medieval idea that
people should accept misery in this world to find joy in
the hereafter, they expected well-being on Earth
Progress – now that people used a scientific approach,
society and humankind could be perfected
Liberty – through reason, the philosophes believed
society could be free, they envied the liberties that the
English people had
Agree/Disagree
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Mankind is naturally selfish.
People are born given “natural rights” of life, liberty and
property.
The only way to protect people from injuring each other
is to give all power and strength to one person.
When there is not a Power (government) to keep men
under control they will go to war with each other.
What all men know is derived from their experience.
Men have the power to reason.
The human mind at birth is a blank slate.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
English philosopher, scientist and political theorist.
Leviathan
 The natural state of humans is to be constantly at war
with each other.
 People’s lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
 Out of man’s selfish interest, not to be killed, man
delegates total power to a monarch.
 If people rebel against the state, they deserve whatever
punishment the monarch gives them b/c they have broken
society’s basic contract. This is so they are protected
from acting out their natural state.
 Absolute monarchy is the best form of government.
John Locke (1632-1704)
English philosopher and political theorist
Two Treatises of Government
 The state/government exists to preserve the natural
rights (of life, liberty and property) of its citizens.
 When the government fails to preserve those rights, the
citizens have the right, even the duty, to withdraw their
support and rebel.
 An individual who breaks the law (breaks the social
contract) may lose his liberty, property or even his life.
 *Locke’s theory benefited the elite better than the
masses b/c of his emphasis on property.
Hobbes/Locke?
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Mankind is naturally selfish.
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People are born given “natural rights” of life, liberty and property.
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Locke
Men have the power to reason.
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Hobbes
What all men know is derived from their experience.
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Hobbes
When there is not a Power (government) to keep men under control they
will go to war with each other.
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Locke
The only way to protect people from injuring each other is to give all
power and strength to one person.
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Hobbes
Locke
The human mind at birth is a blank slate.
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Locke
Agree/Disagree?
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Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.
The conservation of liberty depends on the separation
and balance of powers: executive, legislative and judicial.
Man was originally good but had been corrupted by
society.
Man needs to put the interests of the community before
his own.
Freedom means doing what one ought, now what one
wants.
Baron de Montesquieu (1688-1755)
French political theorist. He spent two years in London.
On the Spirit of Laws
 Political liberty is the absence of one dominating power in
the state.
 The conservation of liberty depends on the separation
and balance of powers: executive, legislative and judicial.
 If a single power controls all 3 functions then the state
lives under despotism.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Political theorist. Born in Switzerland but spend his adult life in
France.
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The Social Contract
Rousseau felt that one of the illnesses of modern civilizations was - society - - that man was originally good but had been corrupted by
society.
The social arrangement involves consent, participation and
subordination of individual self-interest to the commonwealth.
Trusts the ability of the people to make good decisions.
Man needs to put the interests of the community before his own.
Freedom means doing what one ought, not what one wants.
This is a struggle between one’s conscience and the individual’s
passion, appetite and self-interest.
He differed from Locke b/c Locke thought the only purpose of gov’t
was to protect natural rights but Rousseau said gov’t must go
further and carry out the interests of the community.
Montesquieu/Rousseau?
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Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.
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The conservation of liberty depends on the separation and
balance of powers: executive, legislative and judicial.
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Rousseau
Man needs to put the interests of the community before his
own.
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Montesquieu
Man was originally good but had been corrupted by society.
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Rousseau
Rousseau
Freedom means doing what one ought, now what one wants.
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Rousseau
Agree/Disagree?
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This is the best of all possible worlds.
Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire) (16941778)
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Sickly as a child and throughout his life, frequently said he was
dying but lived until age 84
Imprisoned twice in the Bastille (criticized the French gov’t
and the Christian religion)
Spent some time in Britain between prison stays, read Locke
Citizen of the world
Spent three years at Frederick the Great’s palace in Prussia,
until they irritated each other
Wrote Candide in 3 days
Frequently ended his letters with “Ecrasez I’infame!” “Crush
the infamous thing!” became the battle cry of enlightened
thinkers
What government was most admired by Voltaire, Montesquieu,
etc.?
Enlightened Despots - Reading
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Absolute ruler who embraced the Enlightenment, but was
not willing to give up their power
1) favored religious tolerance
2) made economic and legal reforms
3) justify his/her reign based on usefulness rather than
divine right
Frederick II of Prussia: called himself “the first servant of
the state,” invited Voltaire to come to Prussia, granted
religious freedom to Catholics and Protestants, but
discriminated against Polish and Prussian Jews, reduced
(but did not abolish torture), acknowledged serfdom was
wrong, but didn’t end it b/c he needed the support of
landowners
Exploration “The Age of Discovery”
Exploration Terminology:
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Joint Stock Companies: organizations that sold stock or
shares, in the venture, enabling large and small investors
to share the profits and risks of a trading voyage.
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Examples: Dutch East India Company; Dutch West India
Company; (later-1700 and 1800s) British East India Company;
French East India Company
Mercantilism: economic system that believed:
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a nation’s real wealth was measured in its gold and silver
treasure
To build up gold and silver, a nation needed to export more
than it imported
Overseas colonies existed for the benefit of the “mother
country”
Columbian Exchange Map
Social Classes
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Peninsulares = people born in Spain
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Creoles = American-born descendants of Spanish
settlers
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Highest positions in colonial government and Catholic
Church
Owned most plantations, ranches and mines
Mestizos = Native American + European
Mulattoes = African + European
Lowest class = African + Native American
(zambos)
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Castas
http://faculty.smu.edu/bakewell/BAKEWELL/thinkshee
ts/castas.html
The idea that the Spanish and Portuguese focus so
much on COLOR – trying to breed out black and,
even more so, Indian blood - - focus is on trying to
get as white as you can
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Due to the high death rate from smallpox, etc. labor
shortages were acute. Several systems were attempted
to bring in laborers:
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Encomienda system: began as a response to the shortage of
Spanish workers in the Americas. Native Americans worked
and the Spanish settlers agreed to look after workers’ health
and welfare and their “souls” by converting them to
Christianity
Mita System: forced villages to supply a quota of workers
Debt peonage: Spanish settlers agreed to give loans for seed,
tools, etc. in exchange for labor but they kept wages so low,
the loans would never get paid off
Indentured servitude: Europeans would pay the trans-Atlantic
passage if the person agreed to work for a set number of years
(4-7 years)
Slavery
Columbian Exchange
Positive
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Central America got horses, cows, chickens, pigs, sheep,
goats, donkeys, oxen, wheat, barley, rye, oats, rice, oranges,
apples, bananas, apricots, peaches, pears, coffee, sugar
cane, and olives
Europeans got corn, potatoes, kidney beans, lima beans,
squash, avocados, pineapples, melons, tobacco, quinine, and
cacao
Negative
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Disease: smallpox, measles, influenza
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In 1492, there were 250,000 Indians in Hispaniola. Seventy
years later: 500
Slave Trade: At least 10 million African slaves reached
the Americas over a 400-year period
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Triangular Trade
Came over on a ship called a slaver. “Middle Passage” lasted 10
or more weeks
One out of five died on the journey (some estimates are 15-25
of every 100) by suffocation or disease
“Sharks routinely trailed the slave ships, enticed by the large
number of dead or dying Africans who were tossed overboard
during the Middle Passage.”