Latin America Revolutions

                The British North American colonists had many advantages over their neighbors to the south in Latin America, helping them to be better prepared for independence.  The populations of the two regions had drastically different racial composition.  The North American colonies lacked racial diversity, while Latin America had drastic diversity, which caused there to be a greater number of issues for Latin America.  The Latin American colonies faced more problems than the British North American colonies during and after the revolutions due to more problems with racial tensions and violence as well as labor systems and economics based on slavery.

                In the Latin American colonies, much of the revolting was due to racial tensions and violence.  In British North America; however, the colonies just wanted freedom from England and “slavery or racial questions were ever at issue between Britain and America at the time of the Revolution”¹.  In the Latin American colonies, not only did white people at the top of the social classes want freedom from their mother countries in Europe, but blacks wanted freedom from slavery.  The blacks “saw the whites fighting among themselves” and of course were “inspired” to fight for their freedom as well¹.  In the North American colonies, blacks did not revolt because they made up such a small percent of the population, but in the Latin American colonies, the blacks who were enslaved “outnumbered the whites ten to one”¹.

As seen in the graphs, the enslaved population made up the majority of the population in the Latin American colonies, while in the Northeast British colonies, enslaved blacks were a very small minority.  Not only did the enslaved blacks fight for freedom from slavery, but they acted out very violently which caused problems in the colonies.  The angry blacks tried “’to vex the whites, humiliate them whenever the circumstances permit, by outbursts, thefts, or insults that aren’t punished’” in the Latin American colonies¹.  The enslaved blacks in the British colonies had very little chance to break from slavery by revolting since there were very few enslaved black people in the colonies.  Racial tensions and violence in Latin America was a major problem, while the British colonies did not face these issues.

The British colonies were better prepared than the Latin American colonies because they were not as reliant on slave labor and had overall better labor systems and economics. In addition to the racial tensions between blacks and whites, once the enslaved blacks gained freedom in Latin America, many slaves did not want to work.  Most slaves did not want to return to working on plantations or doing any work they had done before or associated with slavery.  Many former slaves “refuse[d] to go to it now under pretext of freedom” and they “spend [spent] their time in wandering about”².  This was a major problem since the majority of the population had been slaves and had been the source of the success of their economy.

In the British colonies, since slave labor was not as heavily depended upon and many whites had jobs besides being owners of plantations, there was still plenty of labor to drive the economy after the revolution.  The British colonies were “a colony of farmers, a predominantly white society of European immigrant” and “blacks were a small minority within a predominantly white and fundamentally English culture”².

There was also approximately twice as many whites than slaves in the British colonies from 1790-1860, also showing they were not as dependent on slave labor.  Haiti, one of the Latin American colonies was suffering so much from the loss of slave labor that they needed to order “‘All field-labourers, men and women, now in a state of idleness, living in towns, villages, and on other plantations than those to which they belong’” to “‘to return immediately to their respective plantations…’”².  They were so desperate for labor they had to create a forced-labor program.  Latin America suffered from a loss of labor, while the British colonies’ labor system hardly changed at all after the revolution.

                The North American colonies who were not trying to fix as many problems and achieve as many ideals had more success after they gained freedom than the Latin American colonies.  The North American colonies were only trying to fix political problems where as the Latin American colonies were trying to also fix social problems.  Specifically, problems due to racial tensions and violence and labor systems and economics caused the Latin American colonies to be disadvantaged and not as successful as the British North American colonies.

  

Sources:

¹ http://comparativehistoryamericanrevs.weebly.com/doc-set-a.html

² http://comparativehistoryamericanrevs.weebly.com/doc-set-b.html

The Haitian Revolution

                Globally, the formation of the new Republic of Haiti was not received well.  Upset slaves in Haiti along with the governor of St. Domngue, black leader, Toussaint Louverture, worked and “gained its independence through a bloody 12-year slave uprising--the only time in the history of the world in which bond servants successfully overthrew their masters and formed their own state”¹.  The United States did not receive the independence of Haiti well because it gave ideas of freedom to American slaves in the south.  Thomas Jefferson said, “Haiti's revolt would inspire similar actions in the U.S.” and he wrote, “‘If something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children,’”¹.  Jefferson was very concerned that the slaves in the south would try to revolt if they kept contact with people in Haiti, so he pressed to cut off trade with St. Domingue.  He was turned down by congress though, because the trading was very profitable.  France too was not happy about independent Haiti because they lost a very profitable colony.  Due to Haiti’s “brutal system of slavery”, they were able to produce cash crops including coffee and sugar².  When Napoleon lost Haiti, he exclaimed, “‘Damn sugar, damn coffee, damn colonies!’”¹.  He lost an important claim in the western hemisphere.  By gaining its independence, Haiti hurt or threatened other countries causing the country to not be received well. 

                The lack of support for independent Haiti caused them to become a very poor country and their economy to have drastically declined.  When Haiti had approximately 450,000 slaves the country made a lot of money by growing crops on plantations.  Now that Haiti was independent and had abolished slavery, the country was not as profitable.  France, angry at losing Haiti, surrounded the island with warships to force them to pay an “independence debt” of 150 million francs².  No country, including the United States, assisted Haiti.  The whites in Haiti who had owned slaves, pushed France to impose this debt on Haiti, since they had lost slaves and money.  Haiti was forced to pay, “ten times the fledgling black nation's total annual revenues” which caused their economy to quickly spiral downhill².  Haiti, having been an unsupported country continued to face many problems.

¹ Danticat Edwidge, "Ignoring the Revolution Next Door," Time Magazine, July 5, 2004.

² Macdonald Isabel, “France’s debt of dishonor to Haiti,” The Guardian, Monday, August 16, 2010, 0.500 EDT.

Napoleon’s Social, Economic, and Political Effects on Europe

                Napoleon’s reign over France and almost all of Europe affected Europe’s social systems.  By abolishing titles of the nobility and ending serfdom, the nobility lost some of their power.  Without titles they were like the rest of the lower class citizens.  Madame de Stael says that Napoleon has “profound contempt for all the intellectual riches of human nature: virtue, dignity, religion, enthusiasm”¹.  Before Napoleon was in charge, nobility would sit in salons and discuss enlightenment ideas.  Napoleon took that away and angered many people in the noble class.  Many of the lower class people, serfs, gained freedoms.  Some freedoms included rights to property and education.  The lower class people enjoyed these new rights and freedoms, but the upper classes were against the lower classes having these freedoms.  Napoleon was “‘a friend of human liberty, and eager to promote the advancement of the race, by opening the field to talent and genius, however low their birth’”².  He believed that the lower classes were entitled to the same rights as upper classes.  He also thought that if they were talented they should be able to work their way up and advance in society.    He also established “meritocracy” meaning that people could earn money based on their skills instead of based on their social class.  Again, this was an improvement for the lower classes, but an upset to the upper classes.

                Napoleon’s reign over Europe affected the economic systems.  The economic system of meritocracy helped lower classes make more money than they had been making.  The upper classes lost not only power, but wealth as well.  Through meritocracy, controlling prices, building roads and canals, and removing barriers against trading, he stimulated the economy.  He also stimulated the economy by having the Bank of France built.  Napoleon balanced the budget, and carried out major public works programs as well.  He helped other countries by stimulating trade, but he hurt other countries by stealing valuable items, such as artwork from Italy.  Napoleon brought mostly positive economic reforms to Europe.

                 The political systems in Europe were also affected by Napoleon’s rule.  The French Directory thought they would be able to use Napoleon to further their own goals, but instead, Napoleon planned to overthrow the Directory, causing five members to resign.  He also created an incredibly strong army that conquered many different countries in Europe.  Marshal Michel Ney discusses how Napoleon has improved the political and social situation in France and says that “The times are gone when the people were governed by suppressing their rights.  Liberty triumphs in the end, and Napoleon, our august emperor, comes to confirm it”¹.  Napoleon is loved by many and is viewed as improving the political and social situation for many previously suppressed people.  Though Napoleon was loved by many he “‘realized that he lacked the greatest of all props to political power-legitimacy-and that only continued success could assure the stability of his throne’”².  As soon as Napoleon stops being able to successfully conquer countries, then people will no longer have faith in him and Europe will fall into a political disaster.

¹              Two View of Napoleon, Sources (1) Ten Years of Exile by Madame de Stael, trans. Doris Beik (Saturday Review Press, 1972); (2) The French Revolution and Napoleon: An Eyewitness History, by Joe H. Kirchberger (Facts on File, 1985).

²              J. Vance, Thomas. "The Lost Voices of Napoleonic Historians," The Napoleon Series, http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/biographies/c_historians.html (accessed October 16, 2013).

United States and Great Britain Comparison Post

                During the industrial revolution, industrialists in the United States (US) had some success, but industrialists were more successful in Great Britain.  There were plentiful laborers in Great Britain, many whom used to be farmers and who could no longer make a living farming, as opposed to the US where there was not a lot of labor available.  Many of the laborers in Great Britain were children who worked long hours.  Many children, especially girls, were “Shut up from morning till night, except when they are sent home for their meals”.  Industrialists had children working for long periods of time for low wages to make a maximum amount of money.  However, in the United States, eventually “a ten­hour law was passed” meaning children could not work for longer than ten hours in a day and industrialists got less labor from children.  Also, industrialists in Great Britain had plentiful amounts of iron ore and coal.  They received raw materials from their colonies, and all of these resources allowed them to manufacture lots of different goods.  In the US, the only plentiful resource was wood and land.  Using their iron, coal, and other various resources, Great Britain developed extremely successful transportation, including canals, longer-lasting roads, and steam-powered locomotives and railroads.  The US had railroads and canals as well, but they did not have very good roads, so Great Britain had better transportation than the US.  These different types of transportation helped industrialists in Great Britain become and stay successful, because they were able to move and sell their goods to different areas.  In Great Britain, besides the inventions in transportation there were also lots of other inventions that helped industrialists succeed.  There were inventions like the seed-drill, water-powered loom, and flying shuttle.  These all helped speed up the manufacturing of products and thus increase the quantity that they were able to be manufacture.  Because of their additional resources, including labor, industrialists in Great Britain were more successful than industrialists in the United States.

                In the United States, however, workers had a more positive experience than they did in Great Britain.  Girls working in Great Britain were abused at times.  It was said that “In the eyes of her overseer she [a girl working in the factories] was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched and pushed about”.  In the United States, girls were not physically abused and “such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become mill­girls”.  Though young girls never made a lot of money, they were able to make more money in the United States than in Great Britain.  Also, in Great Britain, “the whole maintenance of the family devolves on the father”.  This was due to mothers and their children no longer being able to make money at home since “the establishment of the Spinning Machines in many Counties where I was last Summer, no Hand Work could be had”. The family was dependent of the father to survive and the father had the responsibility to support the family entirely on his own unless other members of the family went to work in the factories.  And, in Great Britain, when girls did go to work in factories, they were not able to learn how to take care of a family and perform the domestic duties expected of a woman when she married.  It was said that, “these girls are ignorant of, and unhandy at every domestic employment, whereas if at her wheel in her mother’s cottage, the girl assists in every occupation of the family”.  The girls would be ignorant of how to perform these tasks because they would be “Shut up from morning till night” in the factories.  In the United States though, this was not as much of a concern because “Those of the mill­girls who had homes generally worked from eight to ten months in the year; the rest of the time was spent with parents or friends” which would allow girls to be social and learn some of these important duties from their mothers.  While workers in the United States did not have a perfect experience, they had a more positive experience than in Great Britain.

Mary Paul Post

                Mary starts out optimistic and hopeful for her work in the mills in Lowell.  She begs her dad to let her go so she can “earn more to begin with than I can any where about here”.  She wants to buy clothes, and she already knows someone working at the mills.  Once she gets to the mills, however, she becomes extremely homesick.  She wants her family to contact her and visit her as soon as possible.  She also starts to realize, she may not make as much money as she thought she would, since the cost of boarding and just getting to the mills is so high.  She is still somewhat hopeful and says she will stay at least a year, maybe longer.  As time passes though, she sees just how dangerous working at the mills can be.  Even though she is not hurt, “one girl fell down and broke her neck which caused instant death”.  She is very worried and is telling her dad horrible things that have happened to some of the girls at the mills. She also has much less free time and says that “I have little time to devote to writing that I cannot write all I want to”.  She even mentions how she doubts that she will be paid, by the factory, the amount she has earned.  She also says that others comment on her worsening health and “tell me that I am growing very poor”.  She becomes very sick, and as she grows even sicker, she is forced to leave work for six months.  After she is better, however, she cannot get her job back and her experience in Lowell continues to worsen.  When she finally finds a new job, her work becomes increasingly difficult.  Her experience just keeps getting drastically worse.  She says that she “never worked so hard in my life”, and that she is making very little money.  About eight months later she reports okay health, but that she is still not making a lot of money even though she is working very hard.  Coming to the Lowell mills seemed like a great choice at first, but soon resulted in a downward spiral of unfortunate events and problems for Mary.

                Mary’s experience represents both the success and failure of the “Lowell Experiment”.  Mary and other girls endured hard work and unsafe conditions.  Often, they did not receive the pay they earned.  In this regard, the experiment was a failure because the people working were not treated fairly.  The girls, being female and young, were taken advantage of.  Many even died due to the dangerous conditions of the mills.  Mary describes horrific tragedies like how “one girl fell down and broke her neck which caused instant death” and “Another had nearly all of his ribs broken”.  Another aspect of failure is that due to being worked so hard, many workers became sick and had to leave, but could not come back once they were better.  When Mary becomes sick for six months, she “was unable to get my old place in the cloth room on the Suffolk or on any other corporation”.  Workers were overworked and there was no system so that a worker could still have pay or come back to work when they got better.  Overall, especially for workers, the “Lowell Experiment” as shown by Mary’s experience, was a failure.

                The factory owners, however, may still have viewed Mary’s experience as a success of the “Lowell Experiment”.  By using girls, they got away with not paying them what they earned and still filling all the mills with many workers.  The mills were so full that Mary finds it “very difficult for any one to get into the mill on any corporation”.  Even though the girls knew they would not be paid enough, they just accepted it.  The owners made lots more money this way, than if they had hired adults or young men.  Also, by making them pay to stay at boarding houses with the money they earned, the corporations and factories retained even more money.  Also, once girls were too old or became sick, they left, and new, young girls would come and replace the old girls.  Mary is replaced when she becomes gravely sick.  The factory owners made lots of money from using young women as mill workers, and in that regard, the “Lowell Experiment” was a success.    

Picture: http://www.uml.edu/tsongas/bringing-history-home/page_14/sb2.htm

Mary Stiles Paul. Letters. (Montpelier Vermont, Vermont Historical Society).