June 5 - 9, 2024
Willemstad, Curaçao 

Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (ADHILAC) & Archivo Nashonal Kòrsou (ANK) / Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians (ADHILAC) & National Archives of Curaçao (ANK) 

50th Anniversary of the Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians (1974-2024)
525 Years of Resistance since the European Invasion of Curaçao (1499-2024)

In June 1974, Mexican historians or those residing in Mexico, such as Andrea Sánchez Quintanar, Susy Castor, and Juan Brom, under the auspices of the Faculty of Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), organized the First Meeting of Latin American historians. At the time, the main concern was for fellow historians and social scientists threatened by the right-wing dictatorships in Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay, as well as by longer existing tyrannies established in Brazil, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and Haiti.

On June 16, 1974, a permanent organization of Latin American and Caribbean historians was founded, a union association of historians of nuestra América, in order to ensure a continuity of support of historians, improve their working conditions, and establish a network for the field of history in the region. The Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians (ADHILAC) was thus formally established.

Among the approximately forty participants gathered at UNAM were the following: from Mexico: Enrique Semo, Alonso Aguilar Monteverde, Pablo González Casanova and Margarita Moreno Bonett; from Bolivia: Juan Albarracín; from Brazil: José Roberto do Amaral Lapa, Caio Prado Junior and Carlos Guilherme Mota; from Ecuador: Agustin Cueva; from Guatemala: Roberto Díaz Castillo and Severo Martínez Peláez; from Hon- duras: Victor Meza; from Costa Rica: Mario Flores Macall; from Puerto Rico: Loida Fi- gueroa; from Colombia: Jaime Jaramillo Uribe; from the Dominican Republic: Frank Moya Pons; from Argentina: Antonio Jorge Pérez Amuchastegui and Héctor Pérez Brignoli; from Peru: Franklin Pease; from Nicaragua: Germán Romero Vargas; from Panama: Ricaurte Soler; and from Uruguay: Lucia Salas, 

Content 

The history of the region that came to be known as the Americas can be told as a story of resistance from the beginning of the European invasion at the end of the 15th century. Both Christopher Columbus on Hispaniola in 1493 and Amerigo Vespucci on Curaçao in 1499, fled from the natives after trying to occupy territory on the islands. Indigenous resistance was directed against the forced appropriation of their lands, the brutal enslavement of laborers forced to work in mines, pearl banks, and plantations, as well as the rape of Native women. To this day, the struggles of Indigenous women and men in resistance against colonial systems, not only the Spanish and Portuguese, but also the Dutch, English, French, and other European powers, have been deeply rooted in the popular history of Latin America and the Caribbean. Before the end of the 19th century, the newly established nation- states managed to conquer most of the territories where Indigenous peoples had lived for centuries. They continue to fight for their land rights against exploitation, violation of their rights, dispossession, and destruction of the environment. 

The staunch resistance of Indigenous Americans defending their territories (the unfinished conquest), led to the import of enslaved Africans by European (and Euro-African) slave traders. From the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade, however, enslaved Africans resisted the brutal system. While it continued for centuries, there were numerous uprisings and rebellions against the oppressors, and palenques, quilombos, mocambos, and other examples of maroonage were established in the mountains. tropical forests and marginal spaces, where those who managed to flee lived autonomously, at times with the Indigenous people. Indisputably, the slave rebellions in the French colony of Saint Domingue in 1791, marked the beginning of the abolition of slavery that ended with the Dutch colonies (1863), Cuba (1886), and Brazil (1888). Afro-Americans from various countries continue to confront racism and other forms of discrimination, but they are advancing their strugglest for social, cultural, and political equality. 

The fight against the ruling classes was not limited to the resistance of Indigenous Americans and enslaved Africans. Already during the early period of the colonial era, self- determined men and women born in the Ibero-American colonies fought against oppression by the so-called “motherland.” At the beginning of the 19th century, this resistance led to bloody wars of independence, which were victorious in all the Iberian colonies, except in Cuba and Puerto Rico. But the new ruling classes, mostly members of the Creole upper class, who brazenly exploited the support of the impoverished masses against colonial power, continued to exploit the common people. The ruling system was sustained by international and national capital, and it continued to depend on Europe and on the new great power the United States. The confrontation with capital the methods of exploitation and oppression that it cultivated in in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as imperialism, military dictatorships, and neoliberalism, would give rise to new forms of resistance. Starting with the Mexican Revolution of 1910, several revolutions in the 20th century targeted the power structure in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the British, French, and Dutch colonies, this resistance, mostly led by workers, after 1960, resulted in independence or autonomy. In some Latin American countries, it led to freedom from US political and economic control, a process solidified by the Cuban Revolution in 1959. 

Topics 

The XIV International Meeting of ADHILAC, which will take place on the island of Curaçao, which will be held in cooperation with the National Archive of Curaçao. Its organizers cordially invite you to submit paper presentations (or proposals for complete panels) on one of the following topics or closely related subjects: 

(1) Indigenous resistance against colonial power in Spanish America (1493-1898) (2) Indigenous resistance against colonial power in Luso America (1500-1822) 

(3) The role of Indigenous people in the history of independence in the Americas (1775- 1981) 

(4) Autochthonous and Afro-Caribbean resistance in the Dutch islands (1499-2023) 

(5) Afro-American struggles against slavery in Spanish America (1508-1886) 

(6) Afro-American struggles against the slavery in Portuguese America (1503-1888) 

(7) Rebellions and marronage in the British, Dutch, Danish or U.S. territories (16th - 19th centuries) 

(8) The Haitian Revolution (1791-1811) and its impact elsewhere (including the American continents) 

(9) The era of abolition in Latin America and beyond in the 19th century 

(10) Social and cultural forms of Afro-American resistance after abolition in the Americas 

(11) Struggles of independence in Latin America during the 19th century 

(12) Revolutionary and anti-imperialist resistance in the first half of the 20th century (labor struggles, guerrillas) 

(13) Revolutionary and anti-imperialist resistance in the second half of the 20th century 

(14) Tribal cultures facing biopolitical challenges 

(15) The role of women in the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles 

(16) From “Black Power” to “Black Lives Matter”: The transformation of African American resistance 

(17) The history of the ADHILAC 

(18) The history of Latin America in education: history in school curricula and textbooks, history and historiography of education in Latin American 

(19) Intersectional representations of Latin American and Caribbean history in literature, in relation to violence, the violation of human rights, and trauma 

(20) Resistance to the new exploitation of natural resources in the Americas by Indigenous groups and others 

Please send an abstract not longer than 350 words, together with a brief CV (150 words), to the following address: secejecutivo@adhilac.org 

Deadline for submissions: November 30, 2023 

Congress President: Mrs. Nolda Cira Römer-Kenepa (former Acting Governor of Curacao)

The conference website can be found at www.adhilac.org