Introduction to Chapter 16

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CHAPTER 16

Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echoes

Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echoes 1750–1914

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Revolution and the Reversal of Class Roles Three French female figures, representing from right to left the clergy, nobility, and commoners (Third Estate), show the reversal of class roles that the revolution generated. Now the commoner rides on the back of the noblewoman and is shown in a dominant position over the nun.Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France/© RMN–Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

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Atlantic Revolutions in a Global Context

Comparing Atlantic Revolutions

The North American Revolution, 1775–1787

The French Revolution, 1789–1815

The Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804

Spanish American Revolutions, 1808–1825

Echoes of Revolution

The Abolition of Slavery

Nations and Nationalism

Feminist Beginnings

Reflections: Revolutions: Pro and Con

Zooming In: The Russian Decembrist Revolt

Zooming In: Kartini: Feminism and Nationalism in Java

Working with Evidence: Representing the French Revolution

The Haitian earthquake of January 2010 not only devastated an already-impoverished country but also reawakened issues deriving from that country’s revolution against slavery and French colonial rule, which finally succeeded in 1804. Twenty-one years later, the French government demanded from Haiti a payment of 150 million gold francs in compensation for the loss of its richest colony and its “property” in slaves. With French warships hovering offshore, Haitian authorities agreed. To make the heavy payments, even after they were somewhat reduced, Haiti took out major loans from French, German, and North American banks. Repaying those loans, finally accomplished only in 1947, represented a huge drain on the country’s budget, costing 80 percent of the government’s revenue in 1915. In 2010, with the country in ruins, an international petition signed by over 100 prominent people called on the French government to repay some $17 billion, effectively returning the “independence debt” extorted from Haiti 185 years earlier. While the French government dismissed those claims, the issue provided a reminder of the continuing echoes of events from an earlier age of revolution.

T he Haitian Revolution was part of and linked to a much larger set of upheavals that shook both sides of the Atlantic world between 1775 and 1825. Haitians had drawn inspiration from the earlier North American and French revolutions, even as their successful overthrow of French rule helped shape the Latin American independence struggles that followed. These four closely related upheavals reflect the new connections among Europe, Africa, North America, and South America, which took shape in the wake of Columbus’s voyages and the European conquests that followed. Together, they launched a new chapter in the history of the Atlantic world, while the echoes of those revolutions reverberated in the larger world.

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A MAP OF TIME
1775–1787 North American Revolution
1780s Beginnings of antislavery movement
1789–1799 French Revolution
1791–1804 Haitian Revolution
1793–1794 Execution of Louis XVI; the Terror in France
1799–1814 Reign of Napoleon
1807 End of slave trade in British Empire
1810–1811 Hidalgo-Morelos rebellion in Mexico
1808–1825 Latin American wars of independence
1822 Brazil gains independence from Portugal
1848 Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York
1861 Emancipation of serfs in Russia
1861–1865 Civil War and abolition of slavery in United States
1870–1871 Unification of Germany and Italy
1886–1888 Cuba and Brazil abolish slavery
1920 Women gain the vote in United States

SEEKING THE MAIN POINT

What were the most important outcomes of the Atlantic revolutions, both immediately and in the century that followed?