Industrial Revolution, First

Developments, discoveries, and inventions in the High Modern age include gas lighting, the planet Uranus, the pigment Prussian blue, the four-color printing process, mercury thermometers in Fahrenheit, automatons, electrical machines, modern eyeglasses, bifocals, steam power, longitude, the element hydrogen, ballooning, photography, rubber products, torpedoes, submarines, and mechanical guns.

Muscovy is transformed in the eighteenth century, from a static, somewhat isolated, traditional state into the more dynamic, partially Westernized, and secularized Russian Empire.

This transformation is in no small measure a result of the vision, energy, and determination of Peter the Great.

Historians disagree about the extent to which Peter himself transformed Russia, but they generally concur that he laid the foundations for empire building over the next two centuries.

The era that Peter initiates signals the advent of Russia as a major European power but, although the Russian Empire will play a leading political role in the next century, its retention of serfdom precludes economic progress of any significant degree.

As West European economic growth accelerates during the Industrial Revolution, which begins in the second half of the eighteenth century, Russia begins to lag ever farther behind, creating new problems for the empire as a great power.

The Kandyans' search for foreign assistance against the Dutch is a mistake because they simply replace a relatively weak master with a powerful one.

Britain is emerging as the unchallenged leader in the new age of the Industrial Revolution, a time of technological invention, economic innovations, and imperialist expansion.

The nations that had launched the first phase of European imperialism in Asia—the Portuguese and the Dutch—have already exhausted themselves.

The British, through conquest or purchase, have become masters of most of the forts along the Gold Coast by the early nineteenth century.

Two major factors lay the foundations of British rule and the eventual establishment of a colony on the Gold Coast: British reaction to the Ashanti wars and the resulting instability and disruption of trade, and Britain's increasing preoccupation with the suppression and elimination of the slave trade.

Some historians doubt that the abolitionist movement was inspired by the humanitarian impulse, because it took decades to end the trade in slaves.

According to historian Walter Rodney, for example, Europe abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade only because its profitability was undermined by the Industrial Revolution.

Rodney argues that mass unemployment caused by the new industrial machinery, the need for new raw materials, and European competition for markets for finished goods are the real factors that brought an end to the trade in human cargo and the beginning of competition for colonial territories in Africa.

Other scholars, however, disagree with Rodney, arguing that humanitarian concerns as well as social and economic factors were instrumental in ending the African slave trade.

An increase in Ireland's industrial production and a surge in trade brings a succession of construction booms in the aftermath of the Irish famine of 1740.

The population soars in the latter part of this century and the architectural legacy of Georgian Ireland is built.

In 1782, Poynings' Law is repealed, giving Ireland legislative independence from Great Britain for the first time since 1495.

The British government, however, still retains the right to nominate the government of Ireland without the consent of the Irish parliament.

Ireland is largely passed over by the industrial revolution, aside from the development of the linen industry, partly because it lacks coal and iron resources and partly because of the impact of the sudden union with the structurally superior economy of England, which sees Ireland as a source of agricultural produce and capital.

The transition to industrialization is not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom see their livelihoods threatened by the process.

Of these, some frequently sabotage or attempt to sabotage factories.

These saboteurs are known as "Luddites".

The Industrial Revolution transforms a largely agrarian society by technological advances and increasing mechanization, casing considerable social upheaval during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century.

Much of the agricultural workforce is uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centers of production, as the steam-based production factories can undercut the traditional cottage industries, because of economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies.

The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure sees dramatic increases in the rate of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre-working age children (five or six years old) have funeral clubs to pay for each other's funeral arrangements), crime, and social deprivation.

A guiding motive and justification for Spain's conquests in America is cited at this time as the conversion of the indigenous population to Christianity; it is cited still today by traditionalists who reject the pervasive Black Legend of Spanish cruelty to the native inhabitants.

Proselytism in New Granads had at least superficially been a great success, with most of the native population quickly adopting the new religion.

As elsewhere in America, the native converts had not necessarily abandoned all previous beliefs or ascribe the same meaning to Roman Catholic rituals as did Hispanic Christians, but they had conformed outwardly to those rituals, helped build churches and chapels, and showed the Roman Catholic clergy due respect.

Spanish colonizers are sometimes annoyed when a priest or friar protests against mistreatment of the native population or of enslaved blacks, but they are eager to see the church established on a solid footing in the new lands and give generously of their often ill-gotten gains to that effect.

Likewise, the Spanish state, both from sincere conviction and from a realization of the church's value as an instrument of social control, helps endow the church with property, support its missionary activity, and, to the extent possible, suppress religious dissent.

Extirpation of heresy and heretics, by burning as a last resort, is the special responsibility of the Spanish Inquisition, which has one of its three American headquarters (the least active of the three) at Cartagena.

In the late colonial period, both state support and the missionary enthusiasm of the clergy tend to diminish, but by this time the Roman Catholic Church is firmly entrenched as an institution, with roughly one priest or friar per seven hundred and fifty inhabitants, extensive property holdings, and additional wealth from investments, fees, and the compulsory payment of tithes by the faithful.

This strong position will inevitably influence the course of Colombian history after independence.

Saints' portraits and other religious themes dominate colonial painting, including much popular art of the period, and religious festivals are regular occasions for public entertainment (commonly marked by drunkenness and rowdy behavior that the clergy disapproved).

Formal education is largely in the hands of the clergy, who control the only university-level institutions and are active at other levels too.

The great majority of the population remains illiterate.

For most of the colonial period, the literate are dependent on imported reading matter because the first press is set up in Santa Fe only in 1738, and the first real newspaper does not appear until 1791.

However, the latter development coincides with a wider intellectual awakening to new currents in science and philosophy emanating from the European Enlightenment.

A leader in this movement is José Celestino Mutis, a Spanish-born priest who settled in Santa Fe and won acclaim from European scientists for his work in studying botanical species of the viceroyalty.

Several criollo disciples of Mutis will be active participants in the early nineteenth-century movement for independence.