Unit 5 World History DBQ

It is suggested that you spend 10 minutes reading the documents and 40 minutes writing your
response.

Note: You may begin writing your response before the reading period is over.

Directions: ​The Question is based on the accompanying documents. The documents have been edited for
the purpose of this exercise.

In your response you should do the following:

●​ ​Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of
reasoning.

●​ ​Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.

●​ ​Support an argument in response to the prompt using at least ​six​ documents.

●​ ​Use at ​least one ​piece of specific historical evidence (beyond that found in the documents)
relevant to an argument about the prompt.

●​ ​For at least ​three ​documents, explain how or why the document’s point of view, purpose,
historical situation, and/or audience is relevant to an argument

●​ ​Use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument that addresses the prompt

Prompt: What were the effects of the Enlightenment?

Document 1

Louis Capet (Louis XVI) ’s greatest crime, it must be conceded, was to be born a king at a time
when philosophy was silently laying the foundations of the republic. We have abolished royalty. People,
throne: he has lost everything. Let us be generous enough to leave him his life. If he had been the victor
we might all be royalists; men as so subjugated by circumstances! By dethroning him we have shattered
all the sceptres of the world: the sovereignty of the people has taken back its rights; we should not punish
him for the ignorance of our ancestors or the crimes of his. If, as king, he sought, through the perfidy of
his peers, to safeguard his prerogatives which have been, successively, the source of civil war and the
caprices of men, he was fulfilling his role. Let us be republicans in exiling Louis Capet, and let all the
potentates tremble! After this show of heroism what nation will dare arm itself, in the defence of tyrants,
against a magnanimous people who can conquer and forgive?
 Source​-​Olympe de Gouges, Unofficial Advocate of Louis Capet (Louis XVI), ​Written as a letter to the
Convention on 16 December 1792 and then produced as a placard posted around Paris.

Document 2

Preamble:​ Mothers, daughters, sisters [and] representatives of the nation demand to be constituted into a
national assembly. Believing that ignorance, omission, or scorn for the rights of woman are the only
causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments, [the women] have resolved to set forth
in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman…

Article 1.​ Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only
on the common utility.

Article 2.​ The purpose of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible
rights of woman and man; these rights are liberty, property, security, and especially resistance to
oppression.

Article 6.​ The law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens must contribute
either personally or through their representatives to its formation; it must be the same for all: male and
female citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally admitted to all honors, positions, and
public employment according to their capacity and without other distinctions besides those of their virtues
and talents.

Article 7.​ No woman is an exception; she is accused, arrested, and detained in cases determined by law.
Women, like men, obey this rigorous law.

-​Source: ​Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen,​ Olympe de Gouges, 1791

Document 3

It was August 23, 1791 that the plot broke out that, in the blink of an eye, covered in ruin and
blood the most brilliant, the richest county of the universe. The entire horizon suddenly seemed covered
by a thick smoke, and one could distinctly see the flames occupy the environs of Limonade and Morin in
the north, La Petite Anse and Limbé, and finally the entire extent of the area known under the name of
Plaine du Cap that surrounds that city. A crowd of men, women and children, escaped from the fire and
iron of the assassins, ran there from everywhere, seeking refuge. It was learned from them that the slaves
were in a state of insurrection, and that almost everywhere they'd killed their masters and representatives,
and that they'd set fire to the buildings and the sugarcane in order to promote their projects.

-​Source: ​Michel Etienne Descourtilz, ​History of the Disasters in Saint-Domingue​, 1795. Descourtilz was
a French physician and botanist who lived in Saint-Domingue during much of the revolt that led to the
independence of Haiti.
 Document 4

Execution of Louis XVI, 21 January 1793. This engraving portrays Louis XVI about to ascend the
scaffold that was set up in the Place of the Revolution (now Place de Concorde), in front of the Tuillerie
Palace in Paris. The engraving was made after the fall of the Convention in 1794.

Document 5

Did he [General Leclerc]* not try to instigate the laborers to rise, by persuading them that I
treated them like slaves, and that he had come to break their chains? Ought he to have employed such
means in a country where peace and tranquility reigned? – in a country which was in the power of the
Republic?
If I did oblige my fellow-countrymen to work; it was to teach them the value of true liberty
without license; it was to prevent corruption of morals; it was for the general happiness of the island, for
the interest of the Republic. And I had effectually succeeded in my undertaking, since there could not be
found in all the colony a single man unemployed, and the number of beggars had diminished to such a
degree that, apart from a few in the towns, not a single one was to be found in the country.

*General Leclerc helped bring Napoleon to power, and was sent by Napoleon to put down the rebellion in Saint-Domingue.

Source:​ From the Autobiography ​A Memoir of General Toussaint L’Ouverture, Written by Himself​.
Written while imprisoned in France. L’Ouverture died in 1803. His memoir was published by the Haitian
historian, Joseph Saint-Remy, in Paris in 1853.

Document 6

We implore you, Sire, to set up free schools where we might learn our language on the basis of
principles, religion and ethics. May one and the other be offered to us in all their grandeur, entirely
stripped of the petty applications which attenuate their majesty; may our hearts be formed there; may we
be taught above all to practice the virtues of our sex: gentleness, modesty, patience, charity. As for the
arts that please, women learn them without teachers. Sciences? . . . [in text] they serve only to inspire us
with a stupid pride, lead us to pedantry, go against the wishes of nature, make of us mixed beings who are
rarely faithful wives and still more rarely good mothers of families. We ask to take leave of ignorance, to
give our children a sound and reasonable education so as to make of them subjects worthy of serving you.
We will teach them to cherish the beautiful name of Frenchmen; we will transmit to them the love we
have for Your Majesty.

-​Source:​ Petition of the Women of the Third Estate to the King, January1, 1789

Document 7
 Women's March on Versailles, 5 October 1789

It can be shocking to hear that Enlightenment theories that emerged decades ago are
still prevalent in contemporary culture due to the accelerated speed at which the world
evolves. Given their generation, in different ways, such as the United States
administration, enlightenment ideals of how the government can work are still in use. As
their presence promoted and helped spark revolutions in areas such as France and the
American colonies, the historical implications of these theories are still also evident in
the current.​ ​At the time of their creation, these ideals indicated a different form of
government than prevailed in most nations, and some found it too liberal, while others
supported it. In their favour, because of the different ways they show more material. Up
to this point of time, violation of these liberties in favour of their own gratification was not
unprecedented for monarchs and rulers; monarchs imposed taxation on their subjects in
order to support their own schemes and lives, and others were considered to exploit
their citizens in an effort to retain power for an infinite period of time.​ The government
was charged with stopping these events from taking place under this Enlightenment
idea, thus protecting these human rights and, by implication, the standard of life of the
people. One Enlightenment theory that is apparent in more nations than others has
actually been due.​ ​A focus on rationality and empiricism were marked by the
Enlightenment of the late 17th and 18th centuries. It had a historical influence on the
religious, educational, intellectual, and social structures of Europe in the 18th century as
a significant shaping ideology of Western civilization. The author discusses the
continuing influence of Enlightenment thought on contemporary Western cultures and
other democracies in this persuasive book. ​During the 18th Century it was told to be the
Century of Reason aka Enlightenment and this period of enlightenment helped the
society in that period make works of art in the form of essays, books, scientific
discoveries, laws, and many inventions. Most of these things happened at the peak of
the century but as soon as all of it came to be it was dismantled and the period of
enlightenment was on the decline. ​During the decline of said enlightenment era people
were still make advancement but they were not very known until later in the century.