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| First Peace Treaty of Paris |
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When: ?
Where: War in North America near Virginia over ownership of the Ohio River Valley
Who: England(British) Gen. Wolfe vs. France(French) Gen.?
Both had Indian Allies
Significance: Misnamed. English won and the fight really had nothing to do with the Indians. The English and French both wanted to claim the Ohio River Valley. |
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Age 22
Never finished Education
Brave General
1st US President |
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| Ohio River, Missisippi River and St. Lawrence River |
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| Emancipation Proclimation |
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| Le Hameau was built for Marie Antoinette in 1783, on the grounds of Versailles. In this quaint setting, Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting could escape daily court life, dress up like peasants, and spend an afternoon pretending to be simple milkmaids. Once constructed, the small village was perfectly functional, with a working farm, dairy, and mill. Even though the manor house itself looks very rustic (the outside is modeled on rural farms from the Normandy countryside), the interior is sophisticated; it even includes a billiard room. Many considered the construction of this toy village to constitute a mockery of actual rural life; it further widened the gap between Marie Antoinette and the rest of the French royal court. |
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| The Bastille was a Parisian prison, originally built as a fortification in the fourteenth century. In the seventeenth century, it was converted into a prison by Charles VI and was used to hold political and religious prisoners. In the late eighteenth century, the Bastille became a symbol of autocratic monarchy. On July 14, 1789, a crowd gathered outside the building, clamoring for the surrender of the prison guards and the release of the prisoners. At the time, there were only a few prisoners being held there, under the watch of thirty guards. By afternoon, the crowd had become violent and broken into the inner courtyard. The guards began firing into the crowd, killing almost a hundred attackers before Governor Bernard-Rene de Launay surrendered the prison. Although the storming of the Bastille did not result in any strategic or tactical advantage for the attackers, the event was a significant act of defiance against French authority and helped lay the groundwork for the French Revolution. |
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| Louis XIV developed Versailles from a hunting lodge (built in 1624 by his father) into a royal residence. Work began on the palace in 1664 and was finished in 1682. Shortly after completion, the entire court was moved to the Chateau of Versailles. Thereafter, it was the principle seat of the monarchy until the French Revolution in 1789. During the upheaval of the revolution, many of the furnishings and paintings were either sold or given to the Louvre. In 1837, the palace was turned into a museum, and in 1871, it again became the seat of the nationalist government. Though much of the later history of the residence is affected by the uproar of the French Revolution, it must be noted that, for a century, Versailles remained the ideal palatial residence for the monarchs of Europe. The harmony and structure of the gardens alone set a new standard for landscaping. The images shown here represents Versailles as it appeared in the late seventeenth century. Note the uniformity and scope of the grounds shown in these images. On any given day, Versailles had to accommodate anywhere from three to ten thousand people, some of whom were only day visitors and some of whom lived at court in permanent attendance upon the king. |
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| British and French Territories, 1755 |
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| his map was published in 1755, right before the Seven Years' War broke out in North America. Prussia, Britain, and Hanover (which was ruled by George II of Britain) were allied against France, Austria, and Russia in a conflict over colonial territories and the question of political supremacy in Germany. The conflict was mainly fought in the colonial territories (primarily India and North America) rather than on European soil. In North America, France and Britain battled for territory on the frontier, in the West Indies, and in New France. In 1763, the conflict in North America was resolved by the Treaty of Paris, which stated that France must relinquish its North American colonies. All territory east of the Mississippi River would be ceded to Britain, and territory west of the river would go to Spain. France retained sovereignty only over its territory in the West Indies, while also gaining control of Guadeloupe and Martinique. |
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| Drawn by Jacques Nicolas Bellin in 1764, this map depicts the island of Saint Domingue, modern-day Haiti. One third of the island became a French colony in 1697, when it was ceded to France by the Spanish; the Spanish remained in control of the remainder of the island, called Hispaniola. Like many other islands in the Caribbean, Hispaniola was used heavily by European empires to grow, with the use of intensive slave labor, crops such as sugar. Conditions for the slaves were terrible, and the majority succumbed to disease or to injuries sustained in the fields. By the late eighteenth century, anger grew among the native and slave populations, which led to repeated insurrections. Led by Toussaint L'Ouverture in 1804, the Haitian revolutionaries liberated themselves from colonial rule and the Republic of Haiti was established. |
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| Declaration of the Rights of Man |
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| The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was one of the documents crucial to the early stages of the French Revolution. The document was adopted by the new Constituent Assembly on August 26, 1789 and became the preamble of the 1791 Constitution. Similar to the American Declaration of Independence, the document was influenced by Enlightenment philosophy and ideals. The emphasis placed on the right of property was also found in the writings of John Locke, and Article 6, which refers to the "general will," echoes the ideas of Rousseau. The Declaration also attempted to redress the problems of the ancien regime, under whom the rights of citizens could be overturned at any time by the king. While reading this document, consider the changes to French society that it advocates. Who benefits from the rights set out in this declaration? |
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Decree Abolishing the Feudal System
c. 1789 |
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| Serfdom declined in the West throughout the Middle Ages, especially after the Black Death caused a massive labor shortage that led to significantly improved conditions for peasants. The reform of legal systems tended to lag behind changes in real-world relations. In France, it wasn't until 1789 that the revolutionary National Assembly formally dismantled the manorial system. The decree abolishing the feudal system came as a response to reports flooding in from all corners describing dreadful conditions throughout the countryside. The National Assembly hoped the decree would mollify the people and discourage them from revolting. |
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Civil Constitution of the Clergy
12 Jul 1790 |
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| On the eve of the French Revolution, Louis XVI found himself forced by a fiscal crisis to call the Estates General (a parliamentary body) for the first time since 1614. The king soon found himself contending with a movement intent on drafting a new constitution. The National Assembly was formed with the king's consent and swiftly undertook several radical measures, including the nationalization of church lands to pay off the public debt. The document reprinted here outlines the National Assembly's restructuring of the French church along the same lines as the restructuring of the state that was going on at the same time. |
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Hannah Stephens Letter
1791 |
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| Barbary pirates, or privateers, preyed on merchant ships in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean for centuries. Once a ship was captured, the seamen would usually be taken hostage and held for ransom from their governments. This type of piracy flourished until the nineteenth century, when American and European allies defeated many of the Barbary States and France gained control of Algiers as a colony. The process of ransoming hostages was long, and usually undertaken to ensure political favors. Neither England nor America had an established process, and captives were often held for years at a time. At the time that Hannah Stephens's husband was captured, the new United States government was eager to pay tribute to numerous Barbary powers for safe passage and return of its seamen. However, by paying the yearly tribute, several politicians (Thomas Jefferson among them) thought that this would only encourage more activity against U.S. merchant ships. While reading this letter, think about the situation that Hannah Stephens presents. What exactly does she request from the government? |
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Reflections on the Revolution
c. 1791 |
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| Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was an English politician and political philosopher. Though regarded by many as the founder of modern conservatism, his position on many issues betrayed a reforming spirit intent on the promotion of social justice. As a member of parliament, he supported the American colonialists' independence movement, he called for the abolition of the international slave trade, and he sought to bring aid to Ireland and to reform the Indian colonial system. |
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Duke of Brunswick
28 Jul 1792 |
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In the years 1789 through 1793, the French Revolution developed from a movement to radically restructure French society into a movement to overturn French society. Forced to call the Estates General (a parliamentary body) for the first time since 1614, Louis XVI found himself contending with a movement intent on drafting a new constitution. The National Assembly was formed with the king's consent and swiftly undertook several radical measures, including the nationalization of church lands to pay off the public debt. In 1792, the king, widely thought to be in secret talks with the kingdoms of Austria and Prussia, tried unsuccessfully to flee the country. Upon his capture, the French National Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, sparking the French Revolutionary Wars.
Austria and Prussia responded to France's declaration of war by assembling an allied army under the command of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1735-1806), who was a top-shelf military commander. In an attempt to threaten the French public into submission, Brunswick issued a proclamation declaring that if the French royal family was not harmed, then the Allied army would not loot or harm French civilians; if the French royal family was molested in any way, however, the proclamation promised retribution. Brunswick had hoped to intimidate the French people into submission. In fact, the proclamation had the opposite effect, enflaming French ardor against the Allies and leading to Louis XVI's trial and execution the following year. |
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| An English writer and philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is widely considered to be the founder of modern feminism. This reputation rests on her treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), in which she argues that women should be allowed the benefits of formal education. She died in 1797 after giving birth to Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. |
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| The French Revolutionary government needed troops to fight its wars. Old methods of conscription proved unable to meet the demand, so in 1793 the government declared the levée en masse, thereby changing the face of warfare forever. The levée en masse, literally "mass levy," did more than simply press young men into military service; it mobilized the entire nation through the establishment of war-related tasks for women, children, and the elderly. The levy swelled the numbers of French troops to 1,000,000, providing the foundation for Napoleon's later domination of Europe. The levy transformed European warfare from an activity undertaken between rulers into one undertaken between peoples. The age of "total war" had begun. |
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| In the years 1789 through 1793, the French Revolution developed from a movement to radically restructure French society into a movement to overturn French society. On the eve of the French Revolution, Louis XVI found himself forced by a fiscal crisis to call the Estates General (a parliamentary body) for the first time since 1614. The king soon found himself contending with a movement intent on drafting a new constitution. The National Assembly was formed with the king's consent and swiftly undertook several radical measures, including the nationalization of church lands to pay off the public debt. Among those elected to the National Assembly was Maximilien de Robespierre. As the revolution progressed, Robespierre consolidated his power and influence, rising to become a virtual dictator of France. He oversaw the Reign of Terror, during which he put even good friends to death. Eventually, the French people turned on him; he was beheaded in 1794 in the Thermidorian Reaction against the extremist Jacobins. |
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Malthus on Population
1798 |
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| Thomas Malthus (1766-1835) was an English economist and mathematician who is remembered primarily for his Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he argued that any population whose living conditions are improved will expand faster than it can secure adequate food sources; therefore, checks on population, such as war and pestilence, will forever remain a part of human life. |
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Toussaint-L'Ouverture
1801 |
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| Toussaint-L'Ouverture (c. 1744-1803) was a Haitian revolutionary patriot. He organized the movement of black slaves to free themselves from their colonial masters. Though he swore allegiance to France, both under the republic and under Napoleon, he remained single-mindedly devoted to the cause of the Haitians. He fought with and against the Spanish, he drove the English off the island, and he resisted a force sent to subdue him by Napoleon. In 1802, he was betrayed and brought back to France, where he died a prisoner. |
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Napoleon On His Imperial Throne
1806 |
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| Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France from 1799 to 1815. Famous for his self-coronation as emperor, he expanded French territory throughout much of Western Europe. He was greatly influenced by the model of the Roman Empire and sought to consolidate France's power and territory in a similar fashion. His defeat in 1815 at Waterloo marked the end of French dominance on the Continent. This portrait of Napoleon was painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, one of France's most successful Neoclassical artists. |
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The invention of the cotton gin, a tool that enabled efficient deseeding of short-staple cotton (the type of cotton that grew away from coastal areas), irrevocably changed slavery. As of 1790, planters in the tobacco-growing states of Virginia and Maryland owned 56% of all slaves in America. By 1860, however, after slave-based agriculture refocused its efforts on growing cotton in the Deep South, these same two states owned only 15% of U.S. slaves. Until Eli Whitney's cotton gin appeared, long-staple cotton was the only profitable plant that grew in the United States, but soon after the gin (shortened from "engine") was invented, short-staple cotton became a staple crop in the South, along with rice and indigo (blue dye). This required a massive recommitment of labor and, along with the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1808 (by Congress), planters began to trade and sell slaves from the Upper South, where tobacco was the staple crop, to the Deep South.
This gigantic internal migration occurred in stages, with 155,000 slaves shipped south in the 1820s; 288,000 in the 1830s; 189,000 in the 1840s; and 250,000 in the 1850s. The majority of these slaves were bought, sold, and traded to provide the labor necessary to fuel the expanding cotton trade between southern states -- Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana -- and northern states, as well as European countries such as Great Britain. Southern cotton provided the raw materials for the textile factories in the North that were at the center of the ongoing Industrial Revolution.
The cotton gin dramatically reshaped the lives of slaves. Formerly, slaves had worked for the most part on tobacco plantations in small workgroups where women and men could both be expected to work in the field. As planters refocused their efforts on cotton, more and more slaves were organized into larger workgroups (similar to ones used for rice cultivation) that demanded intensive labor known as the "task system" where individual slaves were assigned tasks for a day. When a task was done, slaves could have the rest of the day to themselves. However, when a task was completed early, a slave would often be assigned a heavier task the next day and, if the task was completed late, the slave was punished. Meanwhile, slaves were surrounded by intense heat and humidity, as well as disease. This also kept whites out of the fields for longer periods of time, enabling slaves on large plantations in the Deep South to develop unique cultural communities. Some slaves even won the right to cultivate their own property by performing well in the fields. For a relatively simple machine, the cotton gin produced remarkable changes in the institution of slavery. |
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Britannia Bridge
1845 - 1850 |
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| Britannia Bridge was designed by Robert Stephenson Stone in 1849. The bridge crosses the Menai Strait and connects the Isle of Anglesey with Wales in western England. This image shows how piers support a hollow rectangular beam of riveted wrought-iron plates in order to span more than 1,500 feet between three pylons and the shore abutments. Here we see the bridge under construction. This railroad bridge was the first tubular bridge ever built, and its construction led to the development of similar bridges throughout England. |
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