Echoes of the Atlantic Revolution Chapter 16

Strayer, pages 798-811 and documents 812-825


The abolition of slavery
During the time of 1780 to 1890, slavery lost its legitimacy and ended in a lot of places around the world, if not all.
Note, that the enlightenment thinkers believed that slavery was an act that violated the rights of man, It was "repugnant to our religion"and a "crime in the sight of God". Soon the whole slavery thing became "out of date". It was understood that this act of holding someone's life was "not only morally wrong and economically inefficient, but also politically unwise". The Haitian Revolution was a great spark that made many realize slavery should be abolished.
I know this to us seems like common sense. But to people that have been born with the idea of slavery their entire life, its pretty huge. This made a huge mark on our history. We should also keep in mind that just because there was the abolition of slavery, not much changed as soon as that happened. There was a lot of racism where they made their lives pretty much impossible. Yeah, we can agree they were "free"on paper... but how free were they? Could they vote without feeling any pressure or uncomfortable? Did they have that political equality? No, there was a lot of racism and segregation (this was a huge disadvantage because the same opportunities were not given to these ex slaves or family from these ex slaves).

Nations and Nationalism
In addition to this end of slaver, the idea of humankind was divided into separate nations. Every single one of these carried different beliefs, a different culture. Governments of the Western part of the world claimed to act now on behalf of their nations and installed national loyalties in their citizens through schools, public rituals, mass media, and military service (803). Nationalism took a lot of political ideologies.

Feminist Begins
Soon after there was a uprising of the feminist movement. Slaves have now gotten up the ladder of this "equality" thing everyone wanted. What about us women? Again here, the enlightenment thinkers challenged this inferiority the women held. But there were different groups of women. Some women wanted to be free from the household and go to work or have an education. Some women wanted to help their family or their country become better. Those who wanted to free themselves from the household were seen as selfish since they were willing to sacrifice their family.
But this made sense, of course women would want to be seen as someone. They were tired of being that stay in home mom. You know what men thought? That having women do all these duties would cause them to have too much stress and this would eventually affect their reproductive health. Is that not crazy? I know. Pretty insane.