THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Age of Revolutions

Age of Revolutions

The world in 1800

In 1800 revolution was reshaping the Atlantic world. The French Revolution had toppled the monarchy, executed Louis XVI and spread war across Europe; Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul since his coup of November 1799, defeated Austria at Marengo in June 1800.

In the Caribbean, enslaved people in Saint-Domingue had risen up in 1791 and, under Toussaint Louverture, now controlled the colony. The young United States held its first contested election, won by Thomas Jefferson, and moved its government to Washington. Britain, fighting France at sea, was industrialising rapidly and expanding its rule in India, where Tipu Sultan had fallen in 1799; the Act of Union with Ireland was passed to take effect on 1 January 1801. Qing China, now under the Jiaqing Emperor, was the world's most populous state but faced the White Lotus rebellion. Spain and Portugal still held most of Latin America, though independence movements were stirring.

Open the map in 1800

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

Britain had seized the Dutch Cape Colony in 1795 to keep it from France, and fought the Xhosa on its eastern frontier. Portugal held Angola and Mozambique, both centres of the slave trade. Nguni chiefdoms in the south-east, including the Mthethwa, soon to be led by Dingiswayo, and the Ndwandwe, were consolidating, while the Zulu under Senzangakhona remained minor. Andrianampoinimerina was uniting the Merina kingdom in Madagascar, and Oman held Zanzibar and Kilwa, while its Mazrui governors in Mombasa were virtually independent.

Northern Africa

A French army had occupied Egypt since 1798; after Napoleon left, his successor Kleber was assassinated in June 1800, and British and Ottoman forces would expel the French in 1801. Sultan Sulayman ruled Morocco, and the Barbary regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli still took tribute from foreign shipping. In West Africa, Asante was at its height, Oyo was weakening, and Usman dan Fodio was preaching the reform that would launch the Sokoto jihad in 1804. Ethiopia remained divided in the Era of the Princes.

Europe

Napoleon ruled France as First Consul, and French armies controlled the Netherlands (the Batavian Republic), Switzerland and much of Italy as sister republics. George III ruled Great Britain, with William Pitt the Younger as prime minister. Francis II ruled Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, Paul I Russia, Frederick William III Prussia and Charles IV Spain. Poland had vanished, partitioned out of existence by Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1795, and Selim III was trying to modernise the Ottoman army.

Middle East & South Asia

The Ottoman Empire under Selim III was struggling with rebellious provincial governors and the French invasion of Egypt. Fath-Ali Shah of the Qajar dynasty ruled Iran from Tehran, and Zaman Shah ruled the Durrani kingdom of Afghanistan. The Saudi emirate was spreading across Arabia. In India, Governor-General Richard Wellesley was rapidly expanding British East India Company power after defeating Tipu Sultan of Mysore in 1799; the Maratha Confederacy under Peshwa Baji Rao II was divided after the death of Nana Fadnavis in 1800, the Nizam of Hyderabad was a British ally, and Ranjit Singh had taken Lahore in 1799 and was uniting the Sikhs.

Northern & Central Asia

Russia ruled all of Siberia, held the northern Kazakh steppe and had chartered the Russian-American Company in 1799 to run its Alaskan colonies. Qing China governed Xinjiang. The Kazakh hordes were divided, partly under Russian influence, and the Uzbek khanates of Bukhara (under the Manghit dynasty), Khiva and Kokand ruled the oases of Central Asia.

East Asia

The Jiaqing Emperor had taken full power in Qing China on the death of his father Qianlong in 1799, purging the corrupt minister Heshen and fighting the White Lotus rebellion in central China. China's population had passed 300 million. In Korea, King Jeongjo died in 1800 and the boy Sunjo succeeded him. Japan, under the shogun Tokugawa Ienari, remained largely closed, though Russian ships had begun to appear in the north.

Southeast Asia

Rama I ruled Siam from Bangkok, and Bodawpaya ruled Burma's Konbaung kingdom from Amarapura. In Vietnam, Nguyen Anh, with some French help, was defeating the Tay Son and would unite the country in 1802. The Dutch East India Company had been dissolved at the end of 1799, its possessions taken over by the Dutch state, then a French satellite, while Britain seized several Dutch outposts. Spain ruled the Philippines.

Northern North America

Britain ruled Upper and Lower Canada (created in 1791), Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, while the Hudson's Bay Company and the rival North West Company competed for furs across the west. Denmark-Norway held Greenland and Russia's fur traders held coastal Alaska. Inuit, Cree, Dene and many other Indigenous nations still controlled most of the land.

Southern North America

John Adams was president of the United States, whose government moved to the new capital of Washington in 1800; Thomas Jefferson defeated him in that year's election, though his tie with Aaron Burr was settled by the House only in February 1801. Spain still ruled Louisiana but secretly promised to return it to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso (October 1800), and governed New Spain, Florida and Cuba. In Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture ruled the colony after the great slave revolt, while Britain held Jamaica and other sugar islands.

Northern South America

Spain governed New Granada from Bogota and Peru from Lima, and the scientist Alexander von Humboldt was exploring Venezuela and the Orinoco. Portuguese Brazil, ruled by a viceroy in Rio de Janeiro, was larger than Portugal many times over and relied on enslaved labour. The British had seized Dutch Suriname and Guiana during the wars, and France held Cayenne.

Southern Cone

Spain's Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, ruled from Buenos Aires, included Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Upper Peru, and Chile was a Spanish captaincy-general. Creole merchants resented Spanish trade limits, and within a decade independence movements would begin. The Mapuche still held the land south of the Biobio, and other Indigenous peoples controlled the southern pampas and Patagonia.

Australasia & Oceania

The British colony of New South Wales, founded at Sydney in 1788, was spreading along the coast, and Philip Gidley King became governor in 1800; Aboriginal nations such as the Eora had suffered from smallpox and dispossession. Maori iwi held New Zealand, now visited by sealers, whalers and traders. In Hawaii, Kamehameha I had conquered most of the islands, and Tonga was entering a long civil war.

Events

  1. The French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille
  2. Enslaved people rise up in Saint-Domingue, beginning the Haitian Revolution
  3. The Third Partition erases Poland; Britain seizes the Cape Colony
  4. Napoleon invades Egypt
  5. Tipu Sultan dies at Seringapatam; Napoleon seizes power in France; Ranjit Singh takes Lahore
  6. Napoleon wins at Marengo; Washington becomes the US capital; Jefferson elected president

Wars of this period

More chapters

Sources