Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a country schoolteacher exiled…
1845 CE
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a country schoolteacher exiled to Chile in 1840 for his vocal opposition to dictator Rosas, here writes and edits for various newspapers, agitates against Rosas, and studies public education.
In 1845, he writes “Life in the Argentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants,” an eloquent anti-Rosas tract (destined to become a classic of Spanish-American literature).
Sarmiento attacks “caudillismo” (military dictatorship) in his study of the charismatic Argentine leader Juan Facundo Quiroga, Facundo, Civilization and Barbarism, in which he defines the influence of caudillo leaders as "barbarism" in the Argentine political and social life, but writes also as a protest to Rosas' regime, and a call for European education and life style.