French RevolutionKristaLinda

AyannaAlain- GBrooke

Roots of French revolution

Aristocracy- nobles

Seigniorial rights- taxes

Land owners taxing peasants

Louis the 16th installed in 1774

Church

Taxing of peasants through tithes (10% of wages per week)

The largest land owners in France

Financial problems

1763-Seven years war

1776-American revolution (French Indian war)

Food scarcity due to unusually bad harvest

1789- Start of the Revolution

Calling of the estates general

1st estate- clergy

2nd estate- nobility- Abbey Seyes- asked what was the 3rd estate

3rd estate- peasantry (every body in the country but politically nothing)

Tennis Court oath- June 20th, 1789– 3rd estate said they would not give up on their fight for political inclusion/equality

Storming of the Bastille July 14th, 1789

Key moments August 26, 1789 Declaration of Rights of Man and of

Citizen

October 5th, liberals Monarchial constitution- storming of Versailles

Peasant revolt against feudalism

Tri color adopted by revolutionaries

July 12th, 1790- civil constitution of the Clergy

Rise of the Jacobins/Robespierre

January 1793- Louis the 16th guillotined

Tennis Court OathBois Caiman Ceremony

French revolution in St. Domingue 1789-1792

Philosophes wrote against slavery

Amis de Noirs- believed in equality of all people, wanted to end racist and prejudice and slavery

Abbey Gregoire

Sonthonax

Robbespierre

Mirabu

Tri color in colony- petit blancs wear tri color (French flag)

- “ Signal of the manumission (freedom) of the whites… that the white slaves (petit blanc) killed there master and now govern themselves” -Governor of the island

1791-1792First civil commission (part of radical element- to enforce all laws and directives that F.R gov’t was passing- in French Revolution) sent to reestablish order in colony- sent by France

Frederick- Ignace de Mirbeck

Phillipe- Rose Roume

Edmond de Saint Leger

Proposed peace to Jean-Francois, Biassou if they stopped fighting

Rejected by colonial assembly

April 4th, 1792- Louis XVI gives royal decree grating full rights to all Affranchise (gens de couleurs)

Whites and colored begrudgingly came together to fight blacks

Cracks in the hegemony/ Revolution in St. Domingue cont.

Petit blanc, radical revolutionaries, see colonial atmospheres as a way to gain rights against the power of the Grand Blanc

Petit blancs try to get into colonial administration

Grand Blanc, loyalists, saw radical revolution as dangerous. They wanted to take over colonial administration

Pompoms Rouges wanted autonomy for the colony (Grands Blanc)- did not want revolutionaries to take control

Pompoms Blanc- against autonomy for the colony (Petit Blanc)- wanted to no longer be second place to Grand Blanc

Mulatto dissatisfaction- they have financial but not political power

Another fraction in colonial hegemony

Mulattoes saw the presence of petit blancs in assemblies as dangerous

Julien Raymond, Vincent Oge At National Assembly lobbying for Mullato rights- these two rich men are talking to the Amis de Noir (Anti-slavery) arguing for mullato rights

Colonial trade-

Committee on the colonies

Barnave (head of the committee ^)

If slavery is given up, French lose much money

Abolition of slavery taken off the table of financial gains

 

They saw French revolution as an opportunity to gain rights- Julien Raymond “argued that granting rights to mullatos would help kept the slaves in their place” (said in front of national assembly)

Saw increasing Petit Blanc presence in colonial assembly as problematic

Colonial committee – headed by Barnave

“Instruction” –March 1790 (Big event in French revolution)

Delineated rules for voting for colonial assemblies

“Every citizen, at least 25 years old, owning landed property, or in default of that, a resident for two years and paying a tax is an active citizen”

National assembly added “free men born of free parents” May 1790- made voting number even smaller

A lot of Petit Blanc did not own property therefore they couldn’t vote, started revolution to gain political power.

Colonial authority disregarded this because they wanted to keep the colored people in same place

Oge/Jean Baptiste Chavannes

Vincent Oge had been lobbying in France for Mulatto rights

Oge realized only have to get equality was with violence, got money and guns from England and US

Returned to Haiti to lead insurrection

Saw that the decree (Law) of 1790 would never be put into place

Wrote to governor of island asking him to apply the decree to the colony

Allie with Chavannes to lead uprising

Oge did not want to include slaves in the uprising, affranchise owned 25% of slaves on island so they thought they would want their freedom too

National assembly thought if slaves used in uprising they would then see that as proof that mulates should not have their rights

Chavannes wanted to include slaves, more radical

Second Civil Commission- comes to establish what French revolutionaries want- mulattos and

affranchise will have the right to take power in political rights- angers whites

Arrived in September

1792

Leger- Felicite Sonthonax

Etienne Polverel

6000 troops and national guard