In 1755, tensions were beginning to rise in the American Colonies following the outbreak of the French and Indian War. Yet one of that year’s most consequential developments for American independence happened on a Mediterranean island more than 4,000 miles away: After more than two decades of struggle, the Corsican people declared independence from their Genoese overlords, who had laid claim to the island for 500 years. Would-be revolutionaries in America soon followed the situation in Corsica with interest.
Colonial rabble-rousers were especially fired up by the exploits of Pasquale Paoli, chosen as the leader of independent Corsica. Particularly in the 1760s, Paoli became a media sensation in America, and inspired by this Paoli-fever, patriots went on to name towns, and even children, after the great Corsican. In 1767, the New-York Journal dubbed him “the greatest man on earth.”
Paoli’s name thus became a byword in the Colonies, and with good reason. By any measure, he was a courageous innovator: With his return to Corsica, the island became independent for the first time since the early Middle Ages, and he even helped push through a constitution, likely the first ever written down. In ground-breaking fashion, Paoli’s constitution separated powers into executive and legislative branches and allowed (male) citizens above the age of 25 to elect representatives, regardless of race and whether they owned property. A woman could even vote—as long as she was over 25 and single or a widow. As Paoli declared in the preamble, Corsica’s new government, now “legitimately master of itself ... having reconquered its liberty,” would “ensure the happiness of the nation.” Before independence, says Marcandria Peraut, a historian at the University of Corsica, eager American patriots “latched onto Paoli. He was a symbol, a small fish fighting an entire empire.”
Outside the island itself, little remains in public memory of the Corsican Revolution today, but Corsica’s drive toward freedom proved a potent inspiration for independence efforts in the American Colonies, stirring up revolutionary spirit among rebels. This small island had shown that a humble vassal state could throw off an empire and write its own rules, building its independence on a foundation of inherent, universal ideals of equality.