AP World History: Modern · Exam guide

AP World History Mini-DBQ: Ideas of Rights and Equality, 1750 to 1900

This is a shortened DBQ with five real documents instead of seven, so you can practice the full routine in less time. The documents are public domain, and translations vary slightly. Plan an argument before you read the notes.

The prompt

Evaluate the extent to which new ideas about rights and equality changed political life around the world, 1750 to 1900.

The documents

Document 1. Declaration of Independence, United States, 1776

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal

Issued by the Continental Congress to justify separation from Britain.

Document 2. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, France, 1789, Articles 1 and 3

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. ... The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation.

Adopted by the National Assembly at the start of the French Revolution.

Document 3. Olympe de Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, France, 1791, Article 1

Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights.

A reply to the 1789 declaration. The author was executed in 1793 (translations vary).

Document 4. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Written for workers' organizations as industrial capitalism spread across Europe.

Document 5. Charter Oath, Japan, 1868

Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters decided by public discussion.

Issued in the name of the Emperor after the Meiji Restoration (translations vary slightly).

What the five documents show together

GroupDocumentsClaim they support
Rights as universal claims1 and 2Revolutionary governments announced that rights belong to all people and that rulers answer to the nation.
Challenges to who counts3 and 4Women and workers used the language of rights to argue they had been left out.
Adoption elsewhere5Leaders outside the Atlantic world borrowed political forms to strengthen the state.

A model thesis

Earns the pointNew ideas of rights and equality changed political life most in how governments justified their authority, and gave new groups a vocabulary for protest, but they changed daily life far less, because the new governments often excluded women, enslaved people, and the poor, and elites elsewhere adopted these ideas selectively to hold power.

It claims a large change in justification, a smaller change in practice, and names who was excluded.

An annotated body paragraph

Paragraph with the points markedThe French Declaration of 1789 stated that "men are born and remain free and equal in rights" (Document 2), but the National Assembly did not extend those rights to women. Two years later, Olympe de Gouges answered with a declaration that "woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights" (Document 3). That she was executed in 1793 shows that the revolutionary government was unwilling to grant what its own language seemed to promise, and her text is a sign that the new vocabulary of rights could be turned against the people who wrote it. In the same decade, the colony of Saint-Domingue erupted in the Haitian Revolution, in which enslaved people claimed the same principles and won their independence in 1804.

Two documents used and compared, sourcing of Document 3 (the author's fate and the audience), and evidence beyond the documents (the Haitian Revolution) used to extend the argument.

Evidence beyond the documents

  • The Haitian Revolution, 1791 to 1804, led in its later years by Toussaint Louverture and then by Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
  • The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 in the United States.
  • The end of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.
  • Independence movements in Latin America led by Simon Bolivar.
  • The Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire, beginning in 1839.

Self-check before you write

  • Did your thesis make a claim about the extent of change?
  • Did you use at least four documents and say what each says?
  • Did you source at least two documents?
  • Did you add evidence that is not in the documents?
  • Did you qualify the argument somewhere to earn the complexity point?

Frequently asked questions

Why only five documents?

To practice the routine in a shorter session. The real DBQ has seven documents, and you need four to earn the second evidence point.

Are these real documents?

Yes, the documents are public domain and quoted briefly. The prompt and the notes are our own.

Which documents should I source?

Choose two where the author or situation matters most to your argument, such as Documents 3 and 5.

Why do translations matter?

Wording differs between editions, so use the key idea instead of memorizing a phrase.

Where can I find the official scoring rules?

Exam formats change a little from year to year, so check the current course and exam description on the College Board site before test day.

Keep practicing

The AP World History course has practice prompts for the DBQ, LEQ and short-answer questions, with a writing space that scores your response against the 7-point and 6-point rubrics. These free lessons also build the skills the free-response section tests:

See the AP World History: Modern course Free lessons and lesson list

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