1.
Explain the goals of Islamic revitalization movements such as Wahhabism in the Arabian Peninsula and dan Fodio’s movement in West Africa. How were these programs affected by the new world order? What alternative did Islamic revitalization propose?
2.
Read Primary Source 16.5 and answer the following:
According to Marx and Engels, how does class conflict change over time? Pay special attention to the range of groups opposed to one another.
Define the term bourgeois. How are the bourgeoisie different from all the prior dominant classes in history?
This document was initially conceived as a declaration of faith. What role, if any, does religion play in this final version?
CHAPTER 16
Alternative Visions of the Nineteenth Century
Copyright © 2021, W. W. Norton & Company
Protest movements challenge the nineteenth-century order based on industrial capitalism, the nation-state, and colonization.
Led by prophets, political radicals, and common people, the movements arise among marginal groups and regions and express visions of an ideal, utopian future.
The movements differ markedly, depending on the local circumstances of the global forces of change.
Although most movements are defeated, they give voice to the views of peasants and workers and have a lasting effect on the policies of ruling elites.
Global Storyline
What alternative visions challenged the ideals of industrial capitalism, colonialism, and nation-states in this period?
How similar were the utopian goals, immediate outcomes, and long-term influence of rebel movements around the world? How did they differ?
How did an urge for social justice animate the alternative visions?
What role did religion play in these alternative social visions?
Focus Questions
By the late nineteenth century, the United States confined almost all Native Americans to reservations.
One Paiute Indian named Wovoka had a vision in 1889, in which the “Supreme Being” told him if they shunned white ways, especially alcohol, and performed the cleansing Ghost Dance, then Native Americans would be reborn to live in eternal happiness.
The “Red Man’s Christ” inspired new hope and drew people, including the Sioux, to make pilgrimages from hundreds of miles around.
Sitting Bull, revered Sioux chief, killed by police in 1890
In 1890, the U.S. Army massacred Sioux Ghost Dancers at a South Dakota creek called Wounded Knee.
This movement exemplifies the prophetic crusades that challenged the emerging nineteenth-century order.
Alternative Visions of the Nineteenth Century
By the late nineteenth century, the United States had confined almost all Amerindians to reservations. The westward expansion of the United States drastically altered indigenous ways of life. The people of the Great Plains depended on buffalo, but these had declined in population as white settlers built towns and railroads on their natural habitat. As they saw their way of life disappearing, many Native Americans fell into despair.
One such person was a Paiute named Wovoka. In 1889, Wovoka had a vision that offered the hope of a revival of Native American life. In a dream, a “Supreme Being” told him that Native Americans should shun white ways, especially alcohol, and perform the cleansing Ghost Dance. If they did so, then the buffalo would return and Native Americans would be reborn and live in eternal happiness. The hope that Wovoka’s vision provided caused a stir among indigenous peoples. Calling Wovoka the “Red Man’s Christ,” people flocked to him, often making pilgrimages over hundreds of miles.
Sitting Bull, a charismatic Sioux chief, was one of the people inspired by the Ghost Dance movement. But, in 1890, he was killed by police on the Sioux reservation. A few days later, the army massacred Sioux Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.
Although it failed, this movement was one of many prophetic crusades that challenged the emerging nineteenth-century order. During this period, the notions of equality, popular sovereignty, and the nation-state increasingly defined political life. At the same time, the global economy was shaped by the rise of laissez-faire capitalism and deepening industrialization.
This chapter focuses on those who opposed global capitalism and colonialism during a time when these forces were dramatically transforming the world. The people who challenged this emerging order differed significantly, but they were all motivated by the impending loss of their existing worlds and by visions of ideal, utopian futures. Although many of these movements were ultimately defeated, some of them continued to shape the course of world history into the twentieth century.
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Political, social, and economic revolutions transformed the world order in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Imperial expansion
New nation-states
Alternatives to the emerging nineteenth-century order varied considerably.
Revitalization of traditional religions
Strengthening of village and communal bonds
Society with no private property and equal shared ownership of goods
Dissidents and their actions depended on their local traditions and the degree of contact they had with the effects of industrial capitalism, European colonialism, and centralizing nation-states.
Reactions to Social and Political Change
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, political, social, and economic revolutions dramatically reshaped the world order. Both the United States and Mexico initiated expansions that disposed hundreds of indigenous groups. New nation-states in Latin America confronted the question of how to govern their diverse populations. In Asia and Africa, people at all levels of society confronted the growing power imbalance between Europe and the rest of the world.
Resistance to the nineteenth-century order varied considerably. Some people thought that the solution to the problems of industrial capitalism and colonization was the revival of traditional religions. Others sought to strengthen village and communal bonds to fight against the forces of social transformation that threatened traditional communities. Still others envisioned a society with no private property and equal shared ownership of goods as the antidote to increasing inequality.
Opponents of the emerging order, and the counterproposals they made, differed depending on their local traditions. Their degree of contact with the effects of industrial capitalism, colonialism, and centralizing nation-states also affected their responses. The intense contestation over the meaning of power and justice offers unique opportunities to examine the lives and historical roles of ordinary people, whose perspectives elites often suppressed.
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Decline of Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires prompted modernization efforts
Further from main trade routes, people led religious revitalization movements.
Led by prophets
Sought to establish theocratic governments
In non-Islamic Africa, where long-distance trade and population growth were transforming the social order, charismatic leaders gained power by resolving local environmental crises.
Prophecy and Revitalization in the Islamic World and Africa
In the Islamic world, the decline of the great empires prompted religious revitalization movements. The age of Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal power was largely over, making an increasingly powerful Christian Europe seem all the more threatening. This danger prompted some elites to modernize their states. In places far from the main trade and cultural routes, people outside of the emerging capitalist order led revivalist movements that sought to return to the glories of the past. These movements were led by prophets who sought to establish new religiously based governments throughout the Islamic world.
Non-Islamic Africa was also experiencing the influence of long-distance trade and population growth. Prophetic figures played an important role in the response to these tensions. Similar to Muslim clerics, these charismatic leaders drew on peoples’ own spiritual and magical traditions. Their ability to gain and maintain authority often depended on effective responses to local issues, like environmental crises.
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Movements to revitalize Islam took place on the peripheries, in areas removed from trade networks and changes from global capitalism.
Looked to past traditions
Attempted to establish new full-scale theocratic polities as instruments of God’s will and the vehicles for purifying Islamic culture
Islamic Revitalization
In several Muslim regions, the reaction against capitalism did not occur in the areas most affected by its rise. Movements to revitalize Islam took root in the peripheries, removed from the centers of trade networks and the most dramatic changes brought by the new economic forces. These movements looked to past traditions, modeling their resistance on the life of Muhammad. At the same time, their goals represented something new: full-scale theocracies. Leaders of these movements saw the state as a vehicle for performing God’s will and purifying Islamic culture.
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One of the most powerful reformist movements came from the Najd region.
Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792)
Attacked lax religious practices and demanded return to pure Islam
Stressed the oneness of Allah
Criticized Sufi sects for extolling saints over worship of God
Wahhabism threatened Ottoman hold on Arabian Peninsula
Wahhabis became militant, and the Ottomans persuaded Egyptian troops to suppress the movement.
Although the Egyptians defeated the Saudis, Wahhabism continued to grow in the Muslim world.
Wahhabism
One of these reformist movements began on the Arabian Peninsula in the Najd region. There, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab founded a movement that would remain influential for centuries. Although Najd was far removed from centers of trade and cultural interaction, Abd al-Wahhab himself was not. He had traveled and been educated in Iran and Iraq. His experience of the outside world convinced him that Islam was facing a crisis. According to Abd al-Wahhab, the faith had fallen into a degraded state and was in dire need of a purifying return to its origins.
On returning to his homeland, he attacked lax religious practices that he saw as polytheistic and contrary to the tenets of Islam. Stressing the absolute oneness of Allah, he deplored the worship of trees, rocks, and tombs and criticized the Sufis for emphasizing saints over the worship of God.
The Ottoman state soon took notice of the new movement in their territory on the Arabian Peninsula. The influential Najdian House of Saud was especially attracted to the new ideology. Their followers became militant toward the end of the eighteenth century. The Ottomans persuaded Egypt to send in troops to crush the Saudi movement. But despite being defeated, the Saudis and Wahhabism continued to grow in the Muslim world.
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Muslim revolts erupted in West Africa in response to increased trade with the outside world and circulation of religious ideas from across the Sahara.
The Fulani were cattle keepers, both nomadic and sedentary.
Sedentary Fulani converted to Islam and sought to recreate a purer Islamic past.
Fulani had driven reform movements in response to disruptions of the slave trade since seventeenth century
Argued that rulers who turned away from Islam could be the target of jihad, or holy war
Fulani Muslim cleric and prophet Usman dan Fodio (1754-1817) created a vast Islamic empire in modern northern Nigeria.
Encouraged jihad against unbelievers
Dan Fodio targeted local leaders for failure to respect Islamic law in an 1804 revolt, with support from Fulani tribes and Hausa peasantry.
Usman dan Fodio and the Fulani (1 of 2)
Muslim reformist movements also emerged in West Africa. There, several Muslim revolts erupted in the early nineteenth century. One such movement was led by Usman dan Fodio and the Fulani people. The Fulani were a mix of nomadic and sedentary cattle keepers. The sedentary peoples converted to Islam and had contact with religious leaders from North Africa, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula. Soon many of these sedentary Fulani also began to conclude that Islam had fallen into a degenerate state and needed to be purified.
Fulani clerics had led Muslim reform movements in response to the since the late seventeenth century. Such movements were not against slavery in itself. Rather, they saw the practice of capturing freeborn Muslims and selling them into captivity as against the tenets of Islam. Fulani clerics charged that elites profiting from the slave trade had turned away from the fundamental principles espoused by the Prophet Muhammad. Because of this, jihad—or holy war—could be waged against them.
These sentiments coalesced around the figure of Usman dan Fodio, a cleric who created a vast Islamic empire in what is now northern Nigeria. Dan Fodio’s movement was similar to the other Muslim revolts of this period. It sought inspiration in the life of Muhammad and encouraged holy war against unbelievers. A member of a Sufi brotherhood, dan Fodio experienced visions that encouraged him to challenge the ruling classes. In 1804, dan Fodio began a revolt that targeted leading Hausa leaders. Claiming that local leaders failed to respect Islamic law, dan Fodio’s revolt gained support from Fulani tribes and the Hausa peasantry.
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Fulani women made critical contributions to the success of the religious revolt.
Women expected to support community’s military and religious endeavors
Dan Fodio’s daughter, Nana Asma’u, was well known as an intellectual and as one who accompanied warriors into battle, nursing them, encouraging them, and hurling a spear toward the enemy.
“Song of the Circular Journey” celebrates the triumphs of jihad military forces.
Usman dan Fodio created an enduring and stable theocratic empire by 1809, called the Sokoto caliphate.
Usman dan Fodio and the Fulani (2 of 2)
Although women were expected to obey sharia law, they also played an important role in dan Fodio’s revolt supporting military and religious endeavors. Dan Fodio’s daughter, Nana Asma’u gained a reputation as a religious scholar. She supported the movement’s military endeavors, nursing the wounded, offering words of support, and composing poetry celebrating military accomplishments.
Usman dan Fodio’s revolt led to an enduring theocratic empire, known as the Sokoto caliphate, that transformed Nigeria’s religious landscape.
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Map 16.1 | Muslim Revitalization Movements in the Middle East and Africa and the Mfecane Movement in Southern Africa
Map 16.1 | Muslim Revitalization Movements in the Middle East and Africa and the Mfecane Movement in Southern Africa
During the nineteenth century, a series of Muslim revitalization movements took place throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
• According to this map, in how many different areas did the revitalization movements occur?
• Based on their geographic location within their larger regions, did these movements occur in central or peripheral areas?
• According to your reading, were any of the same factors that led to Islamic revitalization involved in the Mfecane developments in southern Africa?
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Non-Islamic Africa also experienced revolts, new states, and prophetic movements.
In response to the same combination of factors: long-distance trade and population increase
Also looking to religious traditions and charismatic clan leaders
In early nineteenth-century southern Africa, political revolts called Mfecane reordered the political map.
The Bantu-speaking peoples did not have the political structure to cope with competition for land in southern Africa.
Charismatic Military Men in Non-Islamic Africa (1 of 2)
Non-Islamic Africa also experienced political turmoil and state building led by prophetic movements. These events were also part of a response to the influence of long-distance trade and growing populations that strained environmental resources. Like the Islamic movements, these African movements looked to religious traditions and formed around charismatic clan leaders called ”big men.”
In the early nineteenth century, southern Africa experienced a series of political revolts called the Mfecane. These revolts changed the political map, creating a new empire. In this area, Bantu-speaking peoples had lived for centuries in small-scale political structures. Toward the beginning of the nineteenth century, such structures could no longer cope with the competition for land. This was especially true after the appearance of British and Dutch colonists.
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Shaka created a ruthless warrior state.
Drove other populations out of the region
Forced shift from small clan communities to large, centralized monarchies
Warriors lived, studied, and fought together.
Shaka’s adversaries developed similar military states, like the Ndebele in Zimbabwe and Sotho of South Africa.
Charismatic Military Men in Non-Islamic Africa (2 of 2)
Instability caused by the introduction of European goods prompted the rise of a charismatic warrior leader, Shaka Zulu. Shaka created a warrior state that drove other populations out of the region, and forced smaller populations to come together under larger monarchies. To win territory for this empire, Shaka created an army of 40,000 well-trained warriors. Forbidden to marry until they were discharged, these warriors lived, studied, and fought together. Adversaries of the Zulu drew inspiration from this form of organization and created similar states.
In bringing together formerly separate communities into a larger overarching political community, Shaka Zulu built a community that asserted its traditions against the encroaching outside forces.
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By mid-nineteenth century, China was no longer isolated
Rising population put increased pressure on land and resources
Rising opium consumption brought social instability and financial crisis
Amid declining authority of Qing dynasty, thousands of peasants joined the Taiping Rebellion
The rebellion drew on China’s tradition of millenarian peasant revolts and Christian beliefs.
Women played important role
Inspired by Daoists or by Buddhist sources
New global context
Prophecy and Rebellion in China
By the mid-nineteenth century, China was becoming increasingly integrated into world trade systems. At the same time, a population increase that began in the early Qing was placing pressures on land and resources. Forced to trade in opium by the British, the Qing government struggled to deal with social and financial instability brought by rising opium consumption.
As the authority of the Qing gradually weakened, banditry and unrest gripped the countryside. In this environment, the Taiping Rebellion emerged. Thousands of peasants sought refuge from economic crisis within their ranks. The rebellion mixed Christian beliefs with China’s long tradition of egalitarian, millenarian peasant revolts. Such revolts were often inspired by Buddhist sources or Daoist images of a past golden age prior to human corruption.
In contrast to orthodox institutions, women played an important role in the Taiping community.
While the rebellion shared many elements with those of China’s past, its mixture of Christian influences and the fact that a foreign power—the British—was instrumental in its suppression highlight the new global context in which it took place.
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Founding prophet Hong Xiuquan (1813–1864), native of Guangdong, southern China
First encountered Christian missionaries while preparing for the civil service examination in the 1830s
On failing the exam for the third time, he began to have visions.
On failing the fourth time, he reportedly understood the significance of his earlier visions through a Christian tract.
The “Old Father” was Lord Ye-huo-hua (Jehovah); Jesus was Hong’s older brother
Like Jesus, Hong believed he had been sent to save the world from evil.
The Dream of Hong Xiuquan
The rebellion began with the dream of Hong Xiuquan. A native of Guangdong, in the southernmost part of the country, Hong was preparing for the civil service examinations when he encountered Christian missionaries in 1830. On failing the exam for the third time, he began to have visions. In these visions, divine beings revealed to him that the Manchus were demons who had led humanity astray. After the fourth failure, he began to interpret his visions through a Christian tract given to him by missionaries. He recognized the Old Father, one of the divine figures in his dreams as Ye-huo-hua (or Jehovah), and another as Jesus. Jesus, Hong determined, was his older brother. As a result of these visions, Hong began to believe that he had been sent to save the world from evil.
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Map 16.2 | The Taiping Rebellion in China, 1850–1864
Map 16.2 | The Taiping Rebellion in China, 1850–1864
The Taiping Rebellion started in the southwestern part of the country. The rebels, however, went on to control much of the lower Yangzi region and part of the coastal area.
• What cities did the rebels’ march start and end in?
• Why do you think the Taiping rebels were so successful in southern China and not in northern regions?
• How did western powers react to the Taiping Rebellion? Would they have been as concerned if the rebellion took place farther to the north or west?
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Unlike other sectarian leaders, Hong began preaching and baptizing converts publicly, destroying Confucian idols and shrines.
Hong’s message of the revitalization of a troubled world and restoration of the heavenly kingdom appealed to subordinate classes.
Taiping Rebellion claimed to herald new era of economic and social justice
The Rebellion (1 of 4)
Once he felt secure in his interpretation of his visions, Hong began promoting his message publicly. Convinced that he was doing God’s will, he destroyed Confucian idols and shrines.
Hong’s message of revitalization appealed to people on the margins of Qing society. People who had suffered from the turmoil of the Opium Wars directed their anger principally at the ruling Manchus for failing to fend off the foreign invaders. The Taiping (or Great Peace) promised them a new, egalitarian, and just order.
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Hong’s first followers came from the margins of society, where anger was directed at the Qing Manchus instead of the Europeans, after the social and economic problems caused by the Opium Wars.
Manchu rulers were considered “demons” who were obstacles to realizing God’s kingdom on earth.
Converts could not consume alcohol or opium, or indulge in sensual pleasure.
Men and women were segregated for administrative and residential purposes.
Women (mostly Hakka) served in the army in segregated units.
Women could serve in bureaucracy
All land was divided equally.
The Rebellion (2 of 4)
Hong’s message was tinged with ethnic tensions. He labeled the Manchu rulers “demons” who were obstacles to realizing God’s kingdom on earth. The social order he instilled in the ranks of his followers was strict and emphasized purity. Converts were forbidden alcohol, opium, and sensual pleasures. Strict gender segregation was also enforced. Men and women lived and fought in separate groups. Female military units were composed mostly of women from the Hakka ethnic group to which Hong Xiuquan belonged.
Many Taiping institutions challenged established social and cultural norms. Despite segregation, some women saw their status rise. For example, they could serve in the Taiping bureaucracy. The Taipings also promoted an egalitarian agrarian policy, declaring that all land was to be divided equally, and that agricultural surpluses were to be shared.
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In 1850, Hong had 20,000 followers.
Qing rulers sent troops to arrest Hong and other rebel leaders but the Taiping forces repelled them and began to capture major cities.
In 1851, Hong declared himself the Heavenly King of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
In 1853, Taiping rebels captured Nanjing and systematically killed Manchu men, women, and children.
The Rebellion (3 of 4)
By 1850, the Taiping movement had grown to 20,000 followers. This alarmed the Qing court, who sent troops to crush the rebellion. But the government troops were repelled. The Taiping forces then went on the march, capturing major cities. In 1851, Hong declared himself Heavenly King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In 1853, the Taiping captured the first Ming capital of Nanjing, a major cultural and economic center. Once the city fell, the Taipings set about systematically killing all of the city’s Manchu residents.
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Rebellion initially enjoyed support of some Europeans
Hong Rengan seen as potential westernizer and Christianizer
Rebellion collapsed in the end
Struggles within the leadership
Excessively rigid codes of conduct
Han and Manchu elites rallied to the Qing dynasty’s side.
Western governments also supported the Qing and provided a mercenary army led by foreign officers to help suppress the rebellion.
Qing forces crushed the rebellion and killed Hong in 1864; 20 million died in the rebellion.
The Rebellion (4 of 4)
Initially, the Taipings enjoyed support from some European missionaries. While wary of Hong Xiuquan, many approved of the pro-Christian and pro-western attitudes of his brother Hong Rengan.
But in the end, the Taiping rebels were unable to sustain their assault or maintain their own captured areas. Factional struggles within the leadership whittled away at their authority. Extremely rigid codes of conduct created tensions within the rank and file. Han and Manchu elites also supported the Qing, in some cases sending local militias to help fight the rebels. Western governments also became involved. Claiming that the Taipings were a perversion of Christianity, these governments sent a mercenary army led by European officers to help suppress the rebellion.
In 1864, the Qing forces defeated the Taipings at Nanjing. During the decade and a half of the Taiping Rebellion, over 20 million people died.
Similar to other violent responses to the approach of the capitalist world order, the Taiping Rebellion used prophetic revitalization to channel people’s discontent into active movements.
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Europe and North America: core areas of economic growth
Challenges to main currents of thought and activities: radicals, liberals, utopian socialists, nationalists, abolitionists, and religious mavericks
Reformers faced newly restored conservative monarchies.
Restoration and resistance
Social and political unrest during Restoration period (1815–1848) stemmed from ambiguous legacies of French Revolution and Napoleonic wars
Emergence of ”radicalism,” the notion that real change must start at the root
Jacobins, nationalists, utopian socialists