Aline Helg
University of Geneva, Switzerland

Aline Helg is a professor of contemporary history at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She has written a most important book, the subject of 3 awards: Our Rightful Share : The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912, University of North Carolina Press, 1995  

It is fair to say that this book rescued a crucial episode for understanding Cuban history right out from oblivion, for the memory of the 1912 Massacre, "El Doce," and the events leading up to it had been repressed from both the neocolonial republic and the one created after 1959. Other Cuban authors had studied this period - Portuondo Linares, whose father was a member of the Independent Party of Color and wrote about in 1950, was the first, but he was criticized by the Communist Party of that period for focusing on race and not class warfare, and his book was ignored. Tomas Fernandez Robaina devoted some chapters to it in his 1990 book, El Negro en Cuba: Apuntes para la historia de la lucha contra la discriminacion racial, but this was published in Cuba and not appreciated at first. It was Aline Helg who documented many aspects of this period and fully brought to light such shameful episodes as the 1912 celebratory banquet in Havana's Central Park, presided over by Jose Marti's son right under the large statue of Marti. This book received prizes from the American Historical Association, the Association of Caribbean Historians, and the Caribbean Studies Association.

  Aline Helg has had a broad experience in a number of Latin American countries rescuing similarly forgotten yet significant episodes having to do with the history of Afro-Latins as they shaped the continent.

Aline Helg obtained her Ph.D. degree from the University of Geneva (1983), where she is Professor of History since 2003. She also taught at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá) and the University of Texas at Austin (1989-2003). She has been awarded research grants in Switzerland by the National Fund and the Foreign Affairs Ministry, and in the USA by the National Humanities Center, the University of Texas, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the Ford, Mellon and Rockefeller foundations. Her fields of studies are the Americas and the Atlantic world since the wars of independence, the African Diaspora, ethnicity, racism, and compared civil rights. She published Civiliser le peuple et former les élites. L'éducation en Colombie, 1918-1957 (Paris, 1984), also in Spanish as La educación en Colombia, 1918-1957 (Bogotá, 1987 and 2001). Her second book, Our Rightful Share. The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912 (Chapel Hill, 1995), also in Spanish translation as Lo que nos corresponde: La lucha de los negros y mulatos en Cuba, 1886-1912 (La Habana, 2000), has received prizes from the American Historical Association, the Association of Caribbean Historians, and the Caribbean Studies Association. Dr Helg's Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770-1835 (Chapel Hill, 2004, soon to be published in Spanish) has also been the recipient of a prize from the American Historical Association. She has published chapters in edited volumes and articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Colonial Latin American Historical Review, Ethnohistory, Journal of Latin American Studies, Revista de Indias, Slavery & Abolition, América Negra, Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, and Revista Iberoamericana. She is now working on a new book, Après l'esclavage : unité et diversité des Amériques noires de l'abolition à la mondialisation, to be published by André Versaille in Brussels. -- http://www.irlandeses.org/09grants2.htm

"Simón Bolívar's Republic: A Bulwark against the 'Tyranny' of the Majority" In Revista de Sociologia e Política, vol. 20, No. 4, June 2012. issn 0104-4478. PDF, 300kb

Cien años de casi silencio: El Partido Independiente de Color y la masacre de 1912 en la memoria cubana. Reflexiones alrededor de la filmación del documental de Gloria Rolando: 1912, Voces para un Silencio, en Memorias de un simposio, Ginebra, Suiza, 2012

La masacre de los Independientes de Color en Cuba en la historiografía cubana (1912-2012), en Memorias de un simposio, Ginebra, Suiza, 2012

Histoire en lutte Aline Helg 2011 11 25, video YouTube, Penser L'émancipation.

José Prudencio Padilla: El gigante sacrificado 11/20/2011 El Universal, Colombia: "Hemos escuchado hipnotizados por tanta maravilla informativa y reveladora a la historiadora Aline Helg, de la Universidad de Ginebra (sin duda la que más conoce de manera abrumadora sobre la vida de Padilla), las hazañas y las pequeñeces humanas que perturbaron a este gigante y lo llevaron de manera atroz al sacrificio. Cartagena que puso el mayor número de muertos en la Independencia (los mártires fueron cerca o más de 6 mil cartageneros), no se pronunció sobre la ejecución de Padilla… ¿Por qué los cartageneros no levantaron su voz para defender a Padilla? ¿Por qué el Caribe colombiano se quedó enmudecido ante semejante injusticia que se estaba cometiendo con él? Allí está la gran pregunta que se formula y responde la historiadora Aline Helg, quien afirma que desde los inicios de la guerra contra España, Bolívar estaba obsesionado y prevenido de la repercusión que tendría el poder de los pardos y su impacto en las sociedades de Venezuela y en la Costa, hasta el punto de una repetición de Haití."

Entrevista con Aline Helg: "Hay una nueva conciencia de lo afro entre la gente del Caribe y del Pacífico" 9/25/2011 Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango: "La historiadora suiza Aline Helg está de visita en el país. Antes de emprender un viaje por el Caribe Colombiano con la Expedición Padilla, la autora pasó por la Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango para el lanzamiento de su libro "Libertad e igualdad en el Caribe colombiano 1770-1835", editado en español por el Banco de la República y la Universidad Eafit. En su libro, Helg examina cómo durante los primeros años de la República, cuando se configuró la identidad nacional, se ‘invisibilizó’ a las comunidades afrocaribeñas."

Jorge Conde Calderón, Aline Helg, Padilla Libertador del Caribe Grancolombiano. Cartagena de Indias: Ediciones Unitecnológica, 2011. p. 60 (Cuadernos de la Expedición Padilla)

Aline Helg (Parte 1) - Mesa Redonda "Raza e Independencia" 10/19/2009 Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Colombia: Video YouTube

Aline Helg (Parte 2) - Mesa Redonda "Raza e Independencia" 10/19/2009 Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Colombia: Video YouTube

Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770-1835, published 2004. Reviewed  by Helen Delpar in Colombianistas

"La Mejorana y la independencia cubana: Un choque de ideas y liderazgo entre José Martí y Antonio Maceo". Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, 1999, vol. 21, pp. 227-257. PDF, 2MB, Universidad Complutense Madrid

Struggle and Repression: Afro-Cubans after Independence 11/21/1989 LASA: by Aline Helg