Argentina in the 19th Century: Gauchos and Cultured City Folk Essay

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Independence

What did Domingo Sarmiento think of Latin America in the 1800s?

As president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, Sarmiento had a very close-up vantage point from which to draw conclusions about Latin America, and he reported on what he had observed through the book Facundo. It is not rare that a country's president becomes a published author following his term in office -- although modern day presidents and prime ministers use ghost writers and editors -- but Sarmiento's work is unique, personal, and very descriptive albeit his biases are sharply noted.

Sarmiento believed that most of the "barbarism" occurred in the countryside, where the gauchos lived and worked, and he believed that the civilized people tended to live in the cities, not the countryside. "Everything that characterizes cultured peoples" can be found in the city, he wrote. He mentions "European" often as he is describing the "elegant manners" and the "conveniences of luxury" -- and clearly he is partial to the big cities like Buenos Aires and Cordoba because men in those cities wear "European dress" and live "civilized" lives.

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Sarmiento witnessed two separate and "distinct" societies in Argentina, one civilized and European-themed (the cities) and the other, uncivilized, rough-hewed, and resentful of the politeness and luxuries found in the cities.

The specific answer to the question is this: Sarmiento viewed a paradox in his society; one a civilized European style environment in the city, and the other a barbaric, unsophisticated separate subculture living in the country. That having been said, Sarmiento spent a great deal of his narrative on those living and working in the countryside. His narrative is very well written but his bias against the gauchos and the living styles in the country stands out as a direct assault on the way many if not most of the people in Argentina lived. "Two distinct societies," he said, caused people to be "strange to one another." He scoffs at the lack of education in the….....

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