I've always considered the American Revolution a textbook example of a bougie revolution, in that a fuedal aristocrat's rule was overthrown by landowning capitalists not of the old fuedal nobility. IIRC Marx said something similar about it.

But last night a friend challenged that idea by pointing out that the fuedal base of society was de facto maintained via slavery, even if de jure there was no longer a king. In their interpretation, the war for independence wasn't actually a revolution, as the old divisions of nobility/serfs were maintained and simply rebranded along racial lines of white/Black, with indigenous peoples being considered almost completely outside the polity, similar to how many Jewish and Roma communities were regarded in Europe.

Thoughts?

Also wasn't sure if this went in history or askchapo

  • jabrd [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I think it's completely fair to call the american revolution a bourgeois revolution, but I also think it would be fair to call it a partial revolution. The american civil war would be, imo, the finishing of this transformative process where the industrialized, capitalist north destroyed the land bound aristocratic class of the south. Also as others have already said slavery in the americas, though similar in economic niche to serfs and roman slavery, was uniquely distinct in its cruelty and level of exploitation