History Test (12.7.2023.)

• The Enlightenment was a revolutionary movement of ideas created by a group of intellectuals, mostly from France, England and Germany. It was based on the concept of reason
• By questioning everything, that group became dangerous to all institutions that required absolute or unconditional loyalty and acceptance: the state, the church, and the conservative social conventions.
• Among some of the members of the Enlightenment were Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu and Voltaire
• The books written by members of the Enlightenment became classics of questioning, changing and organizing the world, and were very popular. In them, they explained their ideas and positions rationally. The movement had thousands of followers in Europe and the Americas
• Secret societies having members of the Enlightenment in them were part of a growing organization called Freemasonry. Its motto was based on the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. They used building tools and Egyptian hieroglyphs such as the compass, the ruler, the pyramid, and the one-seeing eye as symbols of the moral truths accepted by men of good will
• Most leaders of the struggle of the independence of the Americas were freemasons, such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Simon Bolivar, Bernando O Higgins, Jose de San Martin and more. They questioned European authority over the New World, reject monarchical governments, and wanted to have more participation in political decision making
• The English began their colonization of North America in 1609, establishing independent colonies controlled by companies (Virginia) religious corporations (Plymouth, Massachusetts) or nobility ( Maryland and Pennsylvania). The kings authority was almost nil in the thirteen colonies established. Each individual colony had a local government with a parliament representing the colonial residents, and institutions that resembled the English parliament.
• Parliament is divided into two groups: an Upper Chamber or House of Lords (chamber consisting of sitting nobles, bishops and archbishops), and a Lower Chamber or House of Commons (chamber consisting of sitting representatives of towns and communities in England.
• Parliament slowly wrested a series of powers from the kings of England, among them the power of the purse, being the power to create and impose taxes
• The idea of an English Empire began to form as the English fleet defeated its enemies at sea, and took territories from all of them around the world. England also made laws restricting trade between its colonies and other nations, controlling the nationality of the crews on English ships. These laws were upsetting to the colonial merchants and houses of the trade
• After 1760, England raised taxes on various items in all its colonies. The first ones to protest were the tradesmen of Virginia and Massachusetts. They decided not to pay them
• The Prime Minister asked for several restrictive laws that included closing the port of Boston, sending troops to the colonies, and eliminating the royal charter that granted Massachusetts its autonomous status, thereby taking away the rights of its citizens. This action was in violation of the rights as Englishmen that the colonists believes they had
• On July 4, 1776 the delegates accepted the text of the declaration and signed it. At that moment, thirteen new countries were born; each one was independent and free from England. But England was the eighteenth centuries world super power, and the war would be a very difficult undertaking
• The thirteen independent states received military and monetary help from France, Spain and the Netherlands, assistance that permitted them to defeat England. In 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, and English army and fleet were forced to surrender to the American and French commanders who battled against them. England asked for a peace treaty, which was signed at Paris' Palace of Versailles in 1783
• The constitution created a federation, and a type of government divided into three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches. That federation is now the Republic of the United States
• A Republic is a system of government in which the executive is not a king
• Republics were the first American instance of liberation and separation from an European mother country. It was also the creation of a document, a constitution that served as a paradigm for Latin American leaders in their quest for independence and national organization
• A drought that lasted five years brought great hunger to France between 1784 and 1789. The masses had no wheat to make bread, nor any other foodstuffs. The country was in a state of rebellion against the nobility who controlled the fields and the production of wheat
• Droughts and riots forced King Louis XVI to request a meeting of the Estates-General, an institution similar to the English Parliament, but with fewer powers. The Estates-General was divided into three groups: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners, made up of merchants, lawyers, doctors and artisans
• The military governor of Paris was General Lafayette, who had led the French troops that defended the North American colonies in their quest for freedom from England. He accompanied the masses and ordered the opening of Bastille on July 14, 1789. Hundreds of prisoners were freed, and the Revolution began
• The Revolution was a process that led from a monarchy to a dictatorial republic, then to a consulate, and then to an empire. Eight thousand members of the nobility were killed at the guillotine, including King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette Habsburg, and their children
• The National Assembly had organized a national army led by a group of young and brilliant officers who rapidly rose through the ranks to become generals of great prestige. The most famous was Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1796, he was put in charge of the war against Austria. He not only routed the Austrians, but also conquered their territory in northern Italy
• The French government sent Napoleon away because they feared his growing popularity because he had political ambitions. Without finishing the task of subjugating Egypt, Napoleon left for Paris, arriving in October 1799. A month later, he forced the government to dissolve and took over as part of a triumvirate (a government of three men). After the years, Napoleon had complete control of France, had eliminated the other members of the triumvirate, and crowned himself emperor of France in 1804
• The French Revolution used ideas and reforms already discussed by Enlightenment authors. These ideas involved the writing of constitutions, the declaration of the rights of man, the separation of the church and the state, the protection of private property and enterprise, and laissez faire (non-intervention of the State in the economy)
• The French Revolution also played an active role in what happened in Latin America. The National Assembly abolished slavery in 1794, after a debate that began in 1789. The slaves of St. Domingue were aware that the Revolution was bound to change their condition , and in 1794, France abolished slavery. The Haitian Revolution of 1791 was directly connected to that event
• Napoleonic France attacked and invaded Spain and Portugal in 1808. This action sent a signal that led to the start of the movement that consummated independence for Iberian America