Question

Did enlightenment ideas about human rights apply to most people around the world in the eighteenth century

Answer 1

The answer is yes.  John Locke considered the father of modern liberalism, considered that citizens have rights to which they can not renounce, his ideas exerted influence in the writing of the great statements of human rights of the eighteenth century. Another influence was that of Rousseau's Enlightenment. The first declarations were made in the English colonies of North America. In Europe the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was proclaimed in Paris. The American and French declarations are very important in the history of human rights.