The North American Revolution

The North American Revolution, 1775–1787
   1. basic facts of the American Revolution are well known

   2. a bigger question is what it changed

   3. American Revolution was a conservative political movement
        a. aimed to preserve colonial liberties, rather than gain new ones
        b. for most of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British North American colonies had much     
        local autonomy
        c. colonists regarded autonomy as their birthright
        d. few thought of breaking away from Britain before 1750

  4. colonial society
        a. was far more egalitarian than in Europe
        b. in manners, they were republican well before the revolution

  5. Britain made a new drive to control the colonies and get more revenue from them in the 1760s

        a. Britain needed money for its global war with France
        b. imposed a number of new taxes and tariffs on the colonies
        c. colonists were not represented in the British parliament
        d. appeared to deny the colonists’ identity as true Englishmen
        e. challenged colonial economic interests
        f. attacked established traditions of local autonomy
    
   6. British North America was revolutionary for the society that had already emerged, not for the          
    revolution itself
        a. no significant social transformation came with independence from Britain
        b. accelerated democratic tendencies that were already established
        c. political power remained in the hands of existing elites
            i. property requirements for voting were lowered
            ii. property rights remained intact

   7. Many Americans thought they were creating a new world order
        a. some acclaimed the United States as “the hope and model of the human race”
        b. declaration of the “right to revolution” inspired other colonies around the world
        c. the U.S. Constitution was one of the first lasting efforts to put Enlightenment political ideas into
        practice

The Enlightenment and Atlantic Revolutions

I. Introduction

    A. In 1989, celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution coincided with the Chinese
    government’s crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.

      1. The French Revolution was the centerpiece of a revolutionary process all around the Atlantic world   
      between 1775 and 1875

      2. Atlantic revolutions had an impact far beyond the Atlantic world
          a. French invasions of Egypt, Poland, and Russia
          b. inspired efforts to abolish slavery, give women greater rights, and extend the franchise in many  
          countries
          c. nationalism was shaped by revolutions
          d. principles of equality eventually gave birth to socialism and communism

II. Comparing Atlantic Revolutions
  
   A. The revolutions of North America, Europe, Haiti, and Latin America influenced each
    other.
       1. they also shared a set of common ideas
       2. grew out of the European Enlightenment
          a. notion that it is possible to engineer, and improve, political and social life
          b. traditional ways of thinking were no longer sacrosanct
      3. the core political idea was “popular sovereignty”—that the authority to govern
      comes from the people, not from God or tradition
         a. John Locke (1632–1704) argued that the “social contract” between ruler and ruled should last only  
         as long as it served the people well
      4. except in Haiti, the main beneficiaries of revolution were middle-class white males
          a. but in the long term, the revolution gave ammunition to groups without political rights
          b. goal was to extend political rights further than ever before, so can be called “democratic revolutions”
      5. considerable differences between the Atlantic revolutions