Revolts Against Europe

Europe and its colonies were no strangers to revolutions and rebellions. In the mid-1600s, Europe began building a global empire and spent significant resources on taking possession of land overseas. The French, British, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and Russians are among the countries that built vast empires. Eventually, the motivation for doing so became primarily economic, and it was inevitable that clashes would begin to arise, starting with the American Revolution and lasting for about half a century around the globe. With many new territories under control, the colonizing countries struggled to govern their colonial possessions, ultimately sparking waves of revolution. The different revolutions across the world had many similarities, and most were characterized by the colonists’ desires to have a voice in governing policies.

The American Revolution lasted from 1775 to 1783 and was ultimately sparked by anger over taxes while the colonists had no say in Parliament. This is similar to what happened during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 to 1799. In fact, the Irish were inspired to rebel after the success of the Americans, but the Irish did not gain independence during their rebellion (Levack, Muir, & Veldman, 2011) despite turning to France for help. While the American Revolution culminated in autonomy for the thirteen colonies, Ireland did not achieve independence, though they did earn representation in Parliament and became part of the United Kingdom.

The Haitian Revolution fell between the American Revolution and the Irish Rebellion, lasting from 1789 to 1804. It is similar to what happened in America and Ireland because there was a desire for representation from the French National Assembly but was quite different from the American Revolution in that there was significant inter-colonial violence. In Haiti, it was only a portion of the population that sought representation. The white planters were, for the most part, content with the current colonial arrangement with France (Levack, Muir, & Veldman, 2011), but the free blacks wanted representation. That led to civil clashes among the people of Haiti, with the slaves fighting against the whites. In that sense, the Haitian Revolution was different from the American Revolution, as the inciting violence took place among the colonists until the French eventually sent soldiers overseas to combat the rebellion.

The Spanish Revolution occurred last and took place from 1810 to 1824, involving six colonies controlled by Spain. The desire to rebel began in Mexico, then eventually spread to Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Peru, and was sparked by dissatisfied creoles (Levack, Muir, & Veldman, 2011). In these territories, the rebellions grew slowly because the creoles recognized the need for military aid from Spain, but when France invaded Spain in 1808, the creoles took the opportunity to express their desire for independence. This revolution is different from the others, as the movement took more time to catch fire than the others, and was greatly influenced by an outside factor because of France’s invasion of Spain.

Meanwhile, in India, the Sepoy Rebellion began in 1857, which rose against the British East India Company because of a variety of factors. It was an unsuccessful mutiny against Great Britain’s control in India that led to the fall of the British East India Company. As a result of the rebellion, Great Britain took control of this entire region (Levack, Muir, & Veldman, 2011).

The discussion of these rebellions that occurred over about half a century fits well in this chapter, even if the discussion does not make chronological sense. The chapter focuses on the rise of Europe, yet these conflicts highlight the weaknesses that still existed despite the effort put into building empires. While the text could have spread the discussion out to fit chronologically in the book, it makes a better point by grouping them together to demonstrate that no single rebellion was isolated, and that colonized people across the entire world were not happy with their situations.

Reference

Levack, B., Muir, E., & Veldman, M. (2011). The West: Encounters & transformations, combined volume, Third Edition. Saddle River: Pearson.