World History Lecture Four

Boston Massacre

Colonists in Boston, Massachusetts, pour tea down the throat of a tarred-and-feathered tax collector in this adaptation of a 1774 cartoon

Lexington & Concord

�Shots "heard 'round the world'"; April, 1775
�8 Americans & 293 British regulars killed in battles at Concord & Lexington
�War would last another 8 years
�George Washington (1732-1799); assumes command after British abandon Boston
�Out-numbered & ill-pro

Articles of Confederation replaced by the Constitution

�Federal government was considered too weak by its critics
�1787: Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia

Motivation for Second American Constitution

-Economic depression
-Social unrest
-veterans demanded back pay & pensions
-land demands
-cheap paper money to pay debts

United States Constitution

�Philadelphia Convention
�Checks and Balances
�Limited Powers
�Republic, not a Democracy
�George Washington: president of the convention
�55 delegates from12 states
�Shortest of Major Nations
�Ratified in all states by May 29, 1790. (9 required)

Road to the Constitution: What are the two primary stumbling blocks?

1. large & small states=representation in the Senate
2. Slave states allowed to count 60% of slaves
Other features:
-Checks and Balances
-President: Commander-in-Chief
-Indirect election of the senate & president
-Federalists (wealthy, educated) supported

Bill of Rights

�Because the Constitution of the United States granted the federal government so much power, as compared with the earlier Articles of Confederation, several states demanded a list of amendments to guarantee individual rights against intrusion by the feder

Unfinished Business of the American Revolution

�Women, African Americans, Native Americans, and many poor citizens denied rights, including the right to vote.
�American women
-massacre, rape, and disruption
-25,000 women moved on foot behind the armies
-only limited rights were gained after the end of

Black Emancipation Movement & Native Americans

�100,000 slaves escaped to Canada or to Indian tribes during & immediately after the war
�Some white, political radicals supported their cause:
-James Otis, Thomas Paine & Benjamin Franklin helped to limit or abolish slave trade; opposition even in the So

The Transatlantic Trade

�After 1500 Europeans broke the Muslim monopoly in the slave trade
�9 to 12 million Africans sent to Western Hemisphere as slaves
�16th century; trade controlled by Portuguese:
-3.85 million to Brazil
-Portuguese build ports along African coast
�17th/18th

Impact of the Slave Trade

-Warfare & instability: Emergence of warrior and soldier society
-Increased centralization & hierarchy & decreased self-sufficiency
-Coastal areas become locus of political control, while interior suffers loss of population to trade
-Slave trade harmed Af

The French Revolution:Crisis in Old Regime in France

�The revolution began with an uprising by the French aristocracy; autocratic rule of Louis XIV & his intendants lose ground under Louis XV's reign from 1715 to 1774
�The nobility & bourgeoisie build power base and refuse tax reforms; tax burden falls on p

The Constitutional Crisis

�Nobles, clergy, bourgeoisie, and peasants all see the king as the source of their discontent
-80% of the population are peasants who have no voice in the Estates General

Estates General comprised of three groups:

�First Estate: the clergy
�Second Estate: the nobility
�Third Estate: the bourgeoisie, including the merchants, financiers, & professionals

Bourgeoisie

�Bourgeoisie see themselves as the most productive, but least protected class in French society
�Some of the clergy & nobles supported their demands for wider political powers

Abolition of Privilege & Declaration of the Rights of Men

�the nobility, under pressure from the Third Estate, agreed to eliminate all feudal privileges
�the Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen:
-All men "are born and remain free and equal in rights"
-Entitled to "liberty, property,

The New Order

�20,000 people, mostly aristocrats, flee France, rejecting the revolution; at the other extreme were the "sans culottes" (in French literally "without breeches") radicals of the towns and the peasants wanting title to their lands
�Actual power was in the

Thomas Jefferson & "Liberty

�Goddess of Liberty
�Cupids:
�Genius of Peace
�Genius of Gratitude

Who seized power?

Bonaparte

Napoleon

�Sweeping reforms in every area of government:
1. Uniform system of weights and measures (metrics)
2. Made science a pillar of higher education
3. Extended infrastructure of roads to aid commerce
4. Codified laws and economic reforms under the new Napoleo

What was Napoleons biggest mistake?

�Napoleon's biggest mistake came when he attempted to invade Russia in summer of 1812
�When he reached Moscow in September, he found the city in flames, to deny him winter supplies
�Forced to retreat, without food or winter clothing, only 100,000 of 500,0

Final Defeat at Waterloo

�While the European heads of state met in Vienna to determine the fate of France and Europe, Napoleon left his exile in Elba for a last attempt to regain power in June of 1815.
�His army of 125,000 men met defeat against the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo