Aline Helg

The Idea of race in Latin America, 1870-1940

Preface 1. Introduction (Richard Graham) 2. Racial Ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870-1940 (Thomas E. Skidmore) 3. Race in Argentina and Cuba, 1880-1930: Theory, Policies, and Popular Reaction (Aline Helg) 4. Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940 (Alan Knight) Bibliography Index

Simón Bolívar's Republic: a bulwark against the "Tyranny" of the Majority

Based on Bolivar’s speeches, decrees, and correspondence as well as on Gran Colombia’s constitutions and laws, this essay examines the tensions within Bolivar’s vision of Venezuela’s and New Granada’s society produced by his republican, yet authoritarian and hierarchical ideas, his concern for keeping the lower classes of African descent in check, and his denial of Indian agency. It shows that even in Peru, Bolivar’s main concern was to prevent the racial war and social disintegration that allegedly slaves and free Afrodescended people would bring to the newly independent nations. To prevent such an outcome, he advocated all along legal equality through the abolition of the colonial privileges and, since mid-1816, the abolition of slavery, but simultaneously the preservation of the monopole of power by the white creole elite. He secured the perpetuation of the socioracial hierarchy inherited from Spain by a two-edged citizenship: an active citizenship restricted to a tiny literate and skilled minority and an inactive citizenship for the immense majority of (mostly nonwhite) men.

Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba

of war is significant since they landed already militarised. They required little training in tactics, weaponry or discipline. Coming from the same area of Africa also meant that they had few communication and planning constraints. The revolts that occurred in Bahia and Cuba where these new arrivals congregated show all the signs of being a continuation of African warfare. Indeed, many rebels talked about revolts as ‘wars’ not insurrections or rebellions. This is in notable contrast to some slave revolts in the eighteenth century, where there seems to have been little in way of military strategy or planning. Of the two volumes, Barcia’s is the more impressively researched and argued. It is also far better presented for an academic readership. Horne’s book has a number of annoying issues that are perhaps the fault of the press but should not have passed the proof stage. The book is excessively footnoted, and while proper referencing is always to be welcomed, this book breaks what I consider a cardinal rule of academic writing – one footnote per sentence. This rule is violated so often, and so egregiously that it becomes a major flaw in the book. Not only are there multiple footnotes per sentence, but sometimes three consecutive individual words are also given a footnote. The use of ‘Negro’ throughout the text also jarred, since it has not been common in academic writing for 40 years. Horne is also sometimes guilty overstating and exaggerating. The section on the burning of Washington, DC by British troops in 1814 is one example. Horne describes Washington as a ‘ruin’ afterwards, when in reality British destruction was limited to the Capitol, the White House (or President’s Mansion as it was known), the Library of Congress and a couple of other buildings. Even Washington residents remarked on the restraint shown by British forces with private property deliberately excluded from the destruction. Horne also describes the local black population’s view of the White House as a ‘hated achromatic symbol of their oppression’, which is perhaps a little excessive considering that the building had only been completed in 1800, and most enslaved people in Virginia and Maryland would never have seen it. Horne also occasionally misreads evidence: for instance, he suggests that the West India Regiments were serving in Canada in 1795 when the source in the footnote actually refers to local militias being formed in Canada in the same year the West India Regiments were founded. So far as I am aware, the West India Regiments never served in Canada. Both of these volumes are to be welcomed as making new contributions to the field. They show that slaves were active in assessing their own situation and were probably far more aware of what was going on internationally than anyone ever gave them credit for.