Popular Royalism in the Revolutionary Atlantic World
October 28-29, 2016
The historiography on the Age of Revolution has been revitalized in the last two decades with the expansion of the geographic and chronological frontiers of the original palmerian paradigm, which focused on the north Atlantic revolutions in the US and France. Particularly in the American context, the inclusion of the Haitian Revolution and the Latin American independence processes has provided new perspectives on the transformation of politics in the wake of anticolonial and liberal thought and institutions. Moving into the nineteenth century has also brought to the fore the long-term consequences of revolution on the institution of slavery and the implications of antislavery for the rise of republican politics.
An exciting frontier in the study of this period is the subject of loyalty and royalism, often ignored or downplayed in the narratives that define the period through the lens of modernization and liberal revolution. Even the studies that focus on popular engagement with the military and ideological processes of the revolutionary age tend to identify popular political consciousness with anticolonial and revolutionary politics. The royalism of the popular classes is generally not understood as an autonomous political choice but as a derivative one, influenced by loyalist elites from the clergy or the nobility, or by religion.
This conference will bring together scholars whose work exemplifies the range of political options and choices available to popular sectors in the revolutionary Atlantic, such as native and Afro-descendant peoples, peasants and artisans. From a truly Atlantic perspective we will put in dialogue case studies from the US, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe that illustrate the logic and dynamism of popular royalism. We aim to probe the ways in which concepts such as freedom and citizenship were central to popular engagement with monarchical institutions and politics.
The conference will establish regional comparisons structuring the discussion around five themes: revolution/counterrevolution; alliances; politics and religion; legality and monarchical legitimacy; military organization and violence.
With the goal of drawing conclusions about “popular royalism in the revolutionary Atlantic,” conference participants will think about the following issues collectively:
-Relationships between popular liberalism and popular royalism
-Links between popular royalism and the royalism of elites (vertical alliances)
-The understanding of popular royalism as conservative
-Connections of popular royalism with processes of politicization and violence
-Can popular royalism be understood as a form of hegemony?
-Parallels and interconnections between the different Atlantic experiences
Sponsored by the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund, STARACO, ‘Status, race and colors in the Atlantic World’ program, Centre de Recherches en Histoire Internationale et Atlantique, Université de Nantes, Région des Pays de la Loire, Yale Department of History