What was the significance of the American and French revolutions?

The French Revolution was influenced by the experiences and systems of other nations. The American Revolution of 1775-1789, which concluded as the revolution in France was unfolding, was perhaps the most significant. The American Revolution had a multifaceted effect in France, extending the national debt, contributing to political radicalism and showing how revolution can successfully transform a nation.

Background

In 1775, after a decade of political tension, the 13 British colonies in eastern North America rebelled and declared their independence from the mother country. After almost eight years of war, the American colonies achieved victory. They formed a new republic called the United States of America. This new nation was founded on three key documents: the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

The American Revolution became a model for those seeking change in France. It provided change-seekers with a working example of a successful and moderately peaceful revolution. It also facilitated the spread of revolutionary ideas in France.

Ironically, France’s King Louis XVI and his government had supported the American Revolution with financial aid and military support. France’s involvement in the American Revolutionary War placed even more pressure on the national treasury, contributing to the fiscal crisis of the 1780s.

French colonialism in America

France’s interest in North America dated back to the 1500s when French explorers attempted failed settlements along the eastern coast. The French eventually gained a foothold in the north (in modern-day Newfoundland) and the south (modern-day Louisiana, which was named for King Louis XIV).

These French colonists prospered and by the mid-1700s, they occupied large swathes of central North America including its southern coastline, the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, the Great Lakes and the eastern half of modern-day Canada. Collectively, these possessions were known as New France.

The British, in contrast, held a much smaller band of territory: a group of 13 small colonies clustered along the eastern coastline of North America. With British and French colonists living in such close proximity, tensions were often high. Whenever Britain and France went to war in Europe, as they did several times in the 17th and 18th centuries, British and French colonists in America would follow suit.

The Seven Years’ War

The balance of power in North America changed significantly after France’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763, known in America as the French and Indian War). As a consequence of this defeat and the treaty that followed, France surrendered most of its North American territory to Britain. The French government would spend the next 15 years yearning for the recovery of its former colonies, as well as a measure of revenge.

Despite their victory, the British also faced several challenges. The Seven Years’ War had pushed the British government into considerable debt. Britain’s acquisition of vast new territories in North America also entailed new costs and obligations, for managing settlement, administration and defence.

In London, British ministers moved to offset these new expenses by tightening foreign trade and collecting duties on imports and exports. They also levied a new tax, a stamp duty, on the British colonies in North America. They were policies the British government would live to regret.

The American Revolution unfolds

The American colonists, having lived a century in comparative isolation from Britain and exercising a high degree of self-government, resented this imposition of British taxes and trade restrictions.

To justify their opposition to British policy, the Americans turned to Enlightenment ideas. Taxation without political representation was illegal, they argued. No American sat in the British parliament, so the parliament had no right to tax Americans. Taxing citizens without representation and impinging on the right to free trade also conflicted with John Locke’s doctrine of natural rights.

Opposition to British policy began as debates and vocal criticism. As the British refused to concede, however, American revolutionaries began to engage in non-compliance, defiance, confrontation and acts of violence.

The ‘Boston Tea Party’

In December 1773, rebels in Boston, Massachusetts stormed British ships and tipped a fortune of privately-owned tea into the sea. London responded to this wilful vandalism with punitive measures, including the closure of Boston Harbour and the imposition of a military government.

Outraged Americans began mobilising to defend themselves from British aggression and within 18 months, Britain and her former colonies were at war. On July 4th 1776 the American revolutionaries, through the pen of Thomas Jefferson, declared their independence with a stirring synthesis of Enlightenment ideas and values:

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another… they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these [rights] are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. [And] whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”

France fascinated

The ideas and events of the American Revolution fascinated France. The politically minded salons and clubs thrummed with news of events across the Atlantic. American revolutionaries like Benjamin Franklin (already idolised in France for his scientific discoveries), Thomas Jefferson and George Washington became household names. Revolutionary tracts by American philosophes like Jefferson and Thomas Paine were eagerly sought and studied intently.

The French government also rejoiced at events in America, though for political rather than ideological reasons. Louis XVI and his ministers were delighted at the difficulties experienced by their British rivals. If British authority in North America collapsed, France may have an opportunity to regain her former colonies.

Short of money, munitions and naval power, the American revolutionaries lobbied Versailles for a military alliance. The king and his ministers resisted these calls at first. Instead, they quietly provided the American revolutionaries with financial aid and logistic support.

French volunteers

Dozens of French military officers and noblemen travelled abroad to serve with the Americans as volunteers. Their motives for doing so varied. Some were inspired by the ideas of the American Revolution; some were young military officers craving experience of battle; others were more experienced soldiers yearning for revenge against the British.

The most famous of these volunteers was Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette. The son of a colonel killed in battle, Lafayette followed his late father into the military and became a cavalry officer. In 1777 Lafayette ignored the orders of his superiors and set sail for America, where he had been promised a generalship, despite still being in his teens.

By September 1777, the young Frenchman was working as an aide to George Washington, the commander in chief of the American Continental Army. Lafayette acquitted himself well in battle and was given his own divisional command. He became close friends with Washington, who some historians suggest came to consider Lafayette as an adopted son.

France declares war

Through 1776 and 1777, Versailles resisted calls to ally with the Americans and declare war on Britain. The government’s hesitation was understandable: much of the French navy was in refit, the treasury was short of funds and the prospects for an American victory were unclear.

An American triumph at the Battle of Saratoga (October 1777) was a turning point in the war and persuaded the French king to commit further. France signed a military alliance with the American states in February 1778 and declared war on Britain the following month. In the first two years of the alliance, France’s military contribution was confined to naval support – however, this proved crucial because it negated Britain’s dominance on the seas.

Large numbers of French troops eventually landed in America in 1780. French troops under Count Rochambeau played an important role in the Siege of Yorktown (October 1781), the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War. The treaty to end this war was signed in Paris in September 1783.

Outcomes

The American victory thrilled onlookers in France but politically and geographically, Paris gained little from its involvement in the American Revolution.

The king and his ministers hoped to regain colonial territory in America – but their ambitions were undermined by the Americans, who initiated secret negotiations with the British before the treaty negotiations had started. Because of this, France’s only gains in America were the Caribbean island of Tobago and Senegal in western Africa.

Financially, the French war effort had been funded with new or refinanced loans rather than new taxes. The cost of this involvement exceeded one billion livres and left the French treasury with a massive interest burden. This worsened France’s parlous financial situation and contributed to the fiscal crisis of the late 1780s.

Impact on ideas

Ideologically, France’s elites hailed the American Revolution as a victory for Enlightenment ideals over the archaic monarchies and despotism of Old World Europe.

The ‘spirit of America’ filled the clubs and salons. Men like Lafayette, Washington and Jefferson were feted as champions of the emerging modern order. The new United States became a model for those seeking to modernise and revolutionise France.

The political ideas of the Enlightenment – Locke’s natural rights, Rousseau’s popular sovereignty, Montesquieu’s separation of powers – had once been political abstractions, little more than ideas in books. But the birth of the United States showed that these ideas could serve as a blueprint for modern government.

A historian’s view: “While [Lafayette] set out to win glory on the field of battle, the ‘American spirit’ impressed itself on his mind and made him a champion of the cause, turning this young and prestigious scion of the French nobility into a central figure of liberal and reformist thought prior to the revolution. As early as his first visit to America, he became an enthusiastic supporter of equal rights and a champion of the civic spirit demonstrated by American citizens.”

François Furet