Civilization vs. Barbarism in Echeverría and Sarmiento

Introduction: Two Authors, One Dictatorship

How does one behave like a civilized human being when confronted with a brutal dictator, and what causes a dictator to rise to power in a land such as Argentina? These are the central questions posed by both the poet Esteban Echeverría (1805–1851) in his work El Matadero (The Slaughterhouse) and the educator and writer Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. Sarmiento served as President of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, while Echeverría was an early proponent of romanticism in Latin America. Echeverría's text suggests that Argentina's reversion to dictatorship was simply the result of a brutal man's tyranny imposed upon a pure and uncomplicated land, while Sarmiento proposes a more complicated cause rooted in the complexities of the region's vast expanse. For Echeverría, barbarism lies in dictatorship's attempts to impose a false construct of civilization; for Sarmiento, however, a lack of education and civilization among the gaucho people of Argentina is also partly to blame and must be remedied.

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's Facundo functions as a study of the Argentine character, a prescription for the modernization of Latin America, and a protest against the tyranny of Juan Manuel de Rosas (1835–1852). In contrast, Echeverría, although he also opposed tyrannical governance, called for a return to old ways rather than advancement into what he saw as a false form of progress. Reflecting his contrasting assumptions, Sarmiento (1811–1888) subtitled his work Civilization and Barbarism to contrast not only the barbarism of the nineteenth-century caudillo Juan Facundo Quiroga with the fundamentally pure spirit of his people, but also the existing displays of barbarism and purity within the Argentine topography of the pampas, and the variety of cultures and national characters found within Argentine borders.

As the caudillo is a dictator and the matador is a killer, both authors employ figures of blood and terror — the matador or brutal commander — to describe a particular contemporary moment in the Argentine world and to critique ruling authority. Neither author approved of the tyranny of de Rosas. Yet Echeverría extols the purity of the pampas, while Sarmiento saw the land's lack of governance and education as giving rise, not to purity, but to the very conditions that allowed Echeverría's slaughterhouse metaphor to become reality.

Sarmiento's Portrait of Argentine Culture and Character

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's work presented an Argentina rich and cultured in its heritage, yet wild and ungoverned in a dangerous rather than romantic fashion. In Chapters II and III of Facundo, respectively entitled "Argentine Originality" and "Characters and Association," the author painted a picture of a Latin American land that was both charming and refined — a world destroyed by the Revolution of 1810 and the subsequent dictatorship, but one that had fundamentally barbaric elements that could not be fully extricated, thus giving rise to de Rosas' leadership.

This cultured spirit was not entirely destroyed, suggests Sarmiento, although it was indeed injured by the actions of the dictatorial protagonist of Facundo. Once upon a time, Sarmiento wrote, "music too was found among our people," as a "national taste recognized by all our neighbors. When an Argentine was first introduced to a Chilean family, the Chilean family at once invited him to the piano, or handed him a guitar, and if he excused himself on the ground that he did not know how to play, they expressed wonder and incredulity, saying, 'An Argentine who is not a musician?' This general supposition bears witness to our natural habits and culture." This romantic view of the pastoral beauty and musical quality at the hearts of the aristocracy, the aboriginal, and the rural populace — extolled by both Sarmiento and Echeverría — astonished even other Latin American peoples on an already music-dominated continent. (Sarmiento, Chapter II)

In Argentina, because of its intense civility and culture, stated Sarmiento, "it is a fact that the young city people of the better classes play the piano, flute, violin or guitar. And even the wild half-breed children of the streets devote themselves almost wholly to music, and many skillful composers have come from their midst." Esteban Echeverría, who spent many years in Europe, praised the musicianship of his own people even after hearing some of the finest singing and playing in Europe. ("Echeverria," 2005, Encyclopedia.com)

Sarmiento, in contrast to Echeverría, also suggested that the nature of the Argentine landscape possessed a brutality that was not present in Europe, and called for harsher forms of unifying governance. "Moral progress, the culture of intelligence neglected in the Arab or Tartar tribe, is thus here not only neglected, but impossible. Where could a school be placed so that children disseminated over ten leagues in every direction could attend classes? Civilization, then, can never be attained, barbarism is the norm, and we can be thankful if domestic customs preserve a small measure of morality." (Sarmiento, Chapter I)

Barbarism, the Gaucho, and the Failure of Civilization

Even before the dictators came to power, the country people were not civilized but existed more or less in a state of nature, isolated in a way that meant their manners and songs were peculiar to themselves and resistant to centralized and modern civil authority. "The triste prevalent among the people of the northern districts is a fugue melody expressive of lamentation such as Rousseau considers natural to man in his primitive state of barbarism." (Sarmiento, Chapter II) Civilization, music, and culture were equated by the author with the finer things in life, yet such barbarism impeded democratic governance and encouraged more tyrannical forms of authority, as are often imposed upon states of nature where individuals are resistant to education. Echeverría's pure but ultimately ruined state of nature becomes fertile ground for oppression in Sarmiento's estimation, precisely because of nature's ungoverned roughness.

Interestingly, Sarmiento was more forgiving of indigenous peoples than of the rural gaucho populace. "The vidalita is a popular song with a chorus accompanied by the guitar and tabor, in the refrain of which the bystanders join, and the number and volume of the voices increase. I suppose this melody originated with the aborigines, for I once heard it at an Indian festival at Copiapo, held to celebrate Candlemas. As a religious song it must be very old, and the Indians of Chile can hardly have adopted it from the Spaniards of the Argentine Republic." (Sarmiento, Chapter II) Thus, merely because a people are aboriginal does not mean they are uncivilized or primitive, the author suggests, provided they have a vibrant and structured culture. "Even the savage tribes of the Pampas are better organized for moral development than is our countryside." (Sarmiento, Chapter I)

What made gaucho life so dangerous, in Sarmiento's view — as opposed to indigenous life — was that, unlike the aboriginal peoples, the gaucho's civilization was neither fully ancient in the manner of indigenous structures, nor subject to the influence of modernity present in urban life. Sarmiento's text also suggested that the distinction between the "civilized" city and the "barbaric" countryside was not always easy to define, as quite often urban types could hint at the rural, while even indigenous and African populations could seem comparatively cultured. "The majo or troubadour, the type of a large class of Spaniards, is still found there and in Buenos Aires especially. He may be recognized in the gaucho of the country or in the swaggerer of the town... All the movements of the city swaggerer disclose the majo; the action of his shoulders, his gestures, all his ways from that in which he puts on his hat, to his style of spitting through his teeth, all are of the purest Andalusian type," wrote Sarmiento — that is, of the urban type who spurned country culture yet possessed a questionable cultural identity of his own. Echeverría similarly mocked such figures in his romantic extolling of anything that did not smack of modernism.

Sarmiento desired modernity, in contrast to Echeverría. The author equated Argentine barbarism not so much with wildness or indigenous qualities but with a failure to work and participate in the modern work ethic, much as Echeverría equated barbarism with a dictator's suppression of humanity's purer impulses. For Sarmiento, as exemplified by the gaucho and his dependence upon female domestic partners to work, barbarism lay not in modernity but in the current state of country life, which had "developed the gaucho's physical faculties, but none of his intelligence. His moral character is affected by his custom of triumphing over obstacles and the power of nature." Although like Echeverría, Sarmiento did describe the gaucho as strong, haughty, vigorous, and admirable, he could not condone the gaucho's lack of instruction. Worse yet, the gaucho saw himself as without need of higher education and modernization; rather than embodying the pure and romantic power of nature, Sarmiento saw the gaucho as "one who has never known greater pleasures or set his desires any higher" — the ultimate condemnation from this advocate of progress. (Sarmiento, Chapter I)

Sarmiento, who was an admirer of Echeverría's poetry if not of the poet's political and educational philosophy, conceded that, in the gaucho, "the dissolution of society deeply implants barbarism because of the impossibility and uselessness of moral and intellectual education," yet "in another way it is not without its attractions. The gaucho does not work; he finds food and clothing at hand in his home. His livestock provides both of these, if he is a proprietor, or the house of his employer or relatives, if he owns nothing. The attention the livestock requires simply boils down to excursions and pleasurable games." (Sarmiento, Chapter I)

Conclusion: Civilization as Imposition or Inheritance

The quest for civilization defined Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's life as well as his literature. He lived far longer than Echeverría, and unlike the poetic advocate of romanticism in Latin America, Sarmiento saw the United States as a potential model of civility rather than of modernizing cruelty. Sarmiento in fact paid two visits to the United States — the first in 1847 after his European tour, and then in 1865 as Ambassador to the White House. Unlike Echeverría, whose travels revolved around Europe in a quest to find old Spanish models of poetic and musical learning, Sarmiento turned to American progressive philosophy for his source of inspiration. During his first visit he met Horace Mann, the greatest figure in education in Massachusetts at the time. "The two men had much in common and they exchanged ideas for two whole days. When Sarmiento returned to the States in 1865, Mr. Mann was dead, but Mrs. Mary Mann received him in a most friendly way and did all she could to make the poet feel welcome."