Enlightenment Movement Dbq

The Enlightenment movement was wholly responsible for the revolutions that followed. Ideals of equality and liberty were cherished in the Enlightenment movement, and those who took those ideals to heart were able to jumpstart another movement, one of revolutions. Those who were responsible for starting the revolutions had voices and ideals that were heard across the globe, and while they clearly presented agreeable arguments they also had restrictions on how far they would or could go. The American Revolution was a fight for independence from the oppressive British rule. The revolution was a grueling war fought from 1775 until 1781 that would have been unable to be successfully launched if not for the Declaration of Independence. This document, …show more content…
Toussaint L’Ouverture organized a slave revolt in 1791 that was supported to begin with by a temporary government in France. Fearing a return to slavery by a new government called the Directory, L’Ouverture wrote a letter pleading a case that would not just benefit himself but one that would benefit all the newly freed slaves on the colony. In the first half of his letter, L’Ouverture appeals to the government to “turn over from [their] heads the storm in which the eternal enemies of [their] liberty [were] preparing in the shade of silence…to enlighten the legislature…to prevent the enemies of the present system from spreading themselves.” He wrote the letter as a plea to the conservative government to consider what they had just learned about equality from the revolution that had been fought, and to utilize that knowledge by not orchestrating a return of slavery to the colony. In the second part of his letter and not ignorant of the Enlightenment ideals that had taken hold in both the American and French Revolutions, L’Ouverture claimed that “France will not revoke her principles, she will not withdraw…the greatest of her benefits.” L’Ouverture was not going to let France, who had just fought for equality across the nation, reinstall slavery on Saint-Domingue. L’Ouverture was limited in not knowing the future of his country. L’Ouverture, despite not immediately wanting to go to war, was facing an inevitable battle due to the limitations found in both the American and French revolutions, which was the hypocrisy present in the desire for equality for only wealthy white men, not women or slaves. . L’Ouverture was fully prepared to guilt trip and even take up arms against France to ensure the complete abolition of slavery in his