Facundo Grown Old:
Racial Diagnosis in Domingo F. Sarmiento’s
Conflicto y armonías de las razas de América
Whitman
College
Over the last two hundred
years, race has been explained through varied notions, such as species, nation
or ethnicity. Common perceptions of race generally relate to skin color and
other physical characteristics, while modern conceptions account race to social
groups based on origins and cultural elements like language and geography.
Early in the nineteen-forties, American anthropologist Ruth Benedict, in what
she called “a briefest possible definition of race,” explained the idea in
terms of “a classification based on traits that are hereditary” (6). Although
she recognized the hereditary factor as a main aspect of the question of race,
Benedict was very concerned that an important part of the misunderstanding was
due to confusing inherited traits with those that are socially acquired. From
the standpoint of the philosophy of sciences, as Naomi Zack infers, race means
“a biological taxonomy or set of physical categories that can be used
consistently and informatively to describe, explain and make predictions about
groups or human beings and individual members of those groups” (1). This
instrumental definition indicates that race has been, at different times and in
different combinations, connected to the notion of essences, biology or
geography. However, the validity of the concept of race depends upon its use as
an aid in reasoning, meaning that the “main issue is not what “race” is, but
the way it is used” (Cashmore 294). Ultimately, it must be acknowledged that race
has always been a very complex idea to establish, given the fact that is not a
neutral concept.
Considering the epistemological difficulties that stem
from defining the concept of race and its uses, this essay examines the
diagnosis of race presented by Argentine essayist and intellectual Domingo
Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) in his book Conflicto
y armonías de las razas de América, first published in 1883. As one of his later
works, the book is a significant representation of the framework of positivist
ideology and scientific racial discourse predominant amongst Spanish America
intellectual elites in the second half of the nineteenth century. In contrast
to the approach developed in his seminal work Civilización y barbarie: vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga (1845), wherein
he explained his views of the Argentine nation through issues such as culture
and geography, in Conflicto,
Sarmiento explores the question of race through sociological, historical and
ethnological studies in vogue at the time to present his analysis of the
problems and malfunctions of Latin America.
Race
and “scientific” racialism in the nineteenth century
By the end of the eighteenth
century the concept of race obtained new meaning, establishing the foundation of
an incipient racial science: “evidence from geology, zoology, anatomy, and
other fields of scientific enquiry was assembled to support a claim of racial
classification that would help explain many human differences” (Barton 13).
Later, amid the development of natural science and its connection with the
social sciences in the mid-nineteenth century, the human species was classified
as consisting of four main races, characterized by physical features like skin
color (which today still applies for legal usages). The assumption was that
these races – “white”, “black”,
“yellow” and “red” – originated in specific geographical areas (Bolaffi et al. 240). Kenan Malik suggests that
nineteenth-century sciences were established upon the hypothesis that all human
faculties had their origins in animal life. Malik points out that the “reorientation
of the scientific outlook towards the positivistic vision of the world,
transformed the way that scientists looked at the relationship between
humanity, society and nature and opened the way for racial science” (86).
Influential philosophy
of positivism garnered serious consideration with its motto of “order and
progress”, meant to be achieved under natural laws. Other important aspects of
this new “scientific” approach related human mental abilities with physical
distinctions, establishing what later became the foundation of modern racist
theory. For example, French Anatomist Georges Curvier introduced the idea that
physical nature determined cultural ways of life. His thoughts were cultivated
in Britain by Charles Hamilton Smith’s work, The Natural History of Human Species (1848), and in the work
of Hamilton Smith’s former pupil, Robert Knox, who authored Race of Men (1850). Both authors were interested
in the morals and levels of intellect associated with race. Michael Banton has suggested
that Knox’s work represents one of the first attempts to set out a systematic
doctrine of racism, arguing that Knox linked his explanations of biological
variation to cultural differences, describing his theory as “transcendental
anatomy” (25).
In another
important work of the period, The Catechism
of Positive Religion, first
published in 1852, French philosopher and founder of sociology, Augusto
Comte, noted that all the different
human races did not have the same brain (Wieviorka 3). A subsequent influential
figure in the realm of racial determinism was the French author Joseph Arthur
de Gobineau, known for his four-volume work Essay
of the Inequalities of Human Races (1853-55). His work presented the
argument that humans were divided into three races: white, yellow and black. Gobineau’s
Essays did not attract much attention
at the time, as he was more focused at that point on the history of civilization
and less concerned with the biological aspect of race. Later, however, his
arguments regarding the superiority of the Aryan race became relevant during the
rise of German nationalism (Barton and Harwood 30). During the same period in North
America there were other theorists who contributed to the rise of this form of
racial science, based mainly on the determinism of biological elements.
Included among them were American physicians Samuel G. Morton and Josiah C.
Nott, as well as English born American Egyptologist, George R. Gliddon (Barton
and Harwood 29-30). The classifications and categorizations regarding race
presented by these authors were set through notions of “inferior”, “good” and “evil”
races.
However, in the
second half of the nineteenth century Charles Darwin brought major changes to
the discussion of race. Works such as On
the Origin of Species (1859) and Descent
of Man (1871) were not only important accounts for the development of
racial theory in the biological field, but the ideas they presented also had a
significant influence on social analysis. In On the Origin of Species
(1859), Darwin introduced the idea of natural selection, where individuals
better suited for an environment survived while others perished, while in Descent of Men (1871) he presented the concept of “geographical races, or
subspecies” (Cashmore 94). Darwin also suggested that not only was the European
“related to the African, but that all men were related to the ape” (Solomos and
Back 44).
In part, these
concepts were applied as a pseudo-scientific theory aiming to explain the development
of different societies, especially Latin America, given the multiracial
background of its composition. By the turn of the nineteenth century, theories
of social Darwinism, reworked by British sociologist and philosopher Herbert
Spencer (1820-1903), had been accepted among the ruling elites in both the
United States and in Spanish America. The political climate at the time had
been influenced by a group of philosophical and social ideas proclaiming the success
of science in the region. These core ideas, which had begun maturing in Spanish
America in the mid-eighteenth century, as Charles Hale has suggested, were
commonly recognized as “positivism”. Although there is no accepted definition
of the concept, from a philosophical perspective it was understood as a theory
of knowledge in which scientific methods represented the only means by which
men could access it (Hale 148).
In countries such
as Mexico and Argentina, modern values of scientific rationality
based on the theories of Spencer, and at an earlier stage in the philosophical
system of Comte, had an impactful reception among the intellectual and
political circles that assumed positivism as an ideology able to provide concrete
answers to big national issues. In Mexico, positivism became the official
philosophy of Dictator Porfirio Díaz. In the Southern Cone, and specifically in
Argentina, intellectuals following the generation of 1880 such as Carlos
Octavio Bunge (1875-1918) and José Ingenieros (1877-1825) spread the
individualistic theories of Spencer’s evolutionism, as well as establishing a
body of ideas following Sarmiento’s thesis regarding the opposition between
civilization and barbarism (Salomon 25-26). In Argentina, positivist ideology was promoted
through the Escuela Normal de Paraná, which had been founded by Sarmiento
during his presidency (1868-1874). Focused on the need to civilize Argentina,
Sarmiento crafted this doctrine concentrating on the education of the
individual. The interpretation of positivism in the southern country viewed
North American individualism as a model to follow by making citizens
responsible for their own greatness. La Escuela de Paraná was responsible for
encouraging individualism and eventually included American female teachers
brought to Argentina by Sarmiento himself (Zea 92).
Facundo grown old: Sarmiento
and the racial diagnosis of the continent
Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento undeniably represents one the most polemic intellectual figures to
live in nineteenth century Hispanic America. He is recognized for being a
renowned essayist of that period, an occupation that he combined with his
political activity, becoming plenipotentiary minister (ambassador) to the
United States and eventually president of his native Argentina. Amongst
Sarmiento’s body of work, Civilización y
barbarie: vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga (1845), first published in Santiago
de Chile during his exile, is considered by some critics and academics to be the
most important essay written in nineteenth-century Hispanic America (1).
This document narrated the life of the caudillo
Juan Facundo Quiroga and simultaneously functioned as a political pamphlet in
opposition to Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas (2). Facundo has been the focus of a great
deal of research for being, in part, a biographical study, a sociological
document and a political note, where Sarmiento’s characteristically sincere prose
and belligerent tone stood out, providing him not only with recognition but
also with enemies and contesters.
At age
seventy-two, and after a lifetime of celebrated intellectual publications,
Sarmiento published a book he considered to be a “Facundo llegado a la vejez”, (3) a continuation of his
fundamental text almost forty years later. Entitled Conflicto y armonías de las razas en América (1883), the book depicted
a different vision of what was argued in Facundo
while embracing some of his previous viewpoints. The first image of Conflicto is one of an unconcluded and
fragmentary book where Sarmiento unsuccessfully attempts a more scientific
approach to race, causing this text –in contrast with Facundo– to be one of the most criticized and least celebrated of
his works. While Sarmiento considered this work to be a continuation of what is
arguably considered his most influential manuscript, critics such as
Argentinian essayist Ezequiel Martínez Estrada viewed Conflicto as a body of affirmations that could have been
incorporated in Facundo without adding
anything substantial (374). Along the same lines, Nicolas Shumway suggests that
“Like Facundo, Conflicto is an explanation of failure; unlike the Facundo, however, it offers no plan for
redemption” (Shumway 588). In El profeta de la pampa, a book written
by Ricardo Rojas in 1945 to commemorate the centennial year of Facundo, Rojas openly
expresses that Conflicto “es una obra
desordenada, confusa, trunca, sin base, sin lógica, sin conclusiones, y parece
un aborto de la senectud más que de la vanidad” (Rojas 648). This
is a harsh opinion, especially considering that it was included in Rojas’
homage to the author.
At the time of Conflicto’s publication, Sarmiento was
already a major figure in Argentina and on the continent as a whole. However,
his notoriety did not prevent him from becoming the subject of merciless critique
in the Buenos Aires press (Levine and Novoa 126). There are two editions of the
book, one published while Sarmiento was still alive and the second, a
version compiled by his grandson, Augusto Belín Sarmiento in 1900. Both
versions are considered chaotic dissertations. (4) Despite Conflicto not being his most highly
regarded manuscript, it can be seen as a summarization of many of the pondered
ideas delivered by Sarmiento throughout his life. Sarmiento continued to employ
a historical approach, but in this case, mixed analysis with positivistic theories
such as social Darwinism.
The sociological perspective expressed by Sarmiento in Coflicto reveals how the trend of positivistic ideas was being established and would influence important segments of Latin American thought. According to Leopoldo Zea, during the generation of Domingo F. Sarmiento, as well as other important intellectuals, such as Juan Bautista Alberdi and José Victorino Lastarria, Latin American thinkers easily assimilated positivism. Zea pointed out that at an early stage, “la reconocen como la filosofía cuyos principios habían sostenido sin tener noticias de la misma directamente” (181). As Allison Williams Bunkley describes, the period when Sarmiento wrote this book was a popular time for the use of “a pseudo-science of hereditary influences” (503). Due to the surge of interest Darwinism generated in the biological sciences during this period, attempts were commonly made to explain individual traits through hereditary factors.
With Conflicto, Sarmiento did not provide a solid
definition of race; instead he assumed race to be a condition that could define
social, cultural and economic circumstances. One of the initial arguments in
the book is made through an enquiry where Sarmiento attempts to establish a
relation between race and the limited development of post-independent Hispanic
American republics. His historical and sociological stance is blended with the
notion of a hereditary condition. The author assumed that economic advancement based
on private property, marketplace and commerce depends on cultural heritage and that
some races have fared better than others because of transmitted attitudes. For
example, in a letter written by Sarmiento to Horace Mann, which also serves as
a prologue and dedication in Conflicto,
the relation between race, cultural heritage and modern society is addressed:
La ignorancia, el fanatismo del
sacerdocio, la tenacidad con que la raza que habla el idioma español adhiere a
todos los vicios y olvida las virtudes de sus antepasados, el mantenimiento
demasiado general en la práctica, de la viciosa legislación comercial y fiscal
de la antigua España, la absoluta disminución, en unas partes, o el poco sensible
aumento de la población en otras, la falta de espíritu de empresa, la
prevalente indolencia, la agricultura rutinera, la falta de hábitos
comerciales, son más que suficientes causas para explicar la impotente y nula
condición de las repúblicas hispano americanas.(52)
Here can be seen Sarmiento’s
first attempt to relate the problems of Hispanic America directly to Spanish heritage
and what he calls la raza española. A
lack of “commercial habits”, vicious commercial legislation established by the Spaniards,
and the absence of an enterprising spirit among the indigenous and blacks were
all vital to Sarmiento’s explanation for the material stagnation present in
many Hispanic American republics at the time. Decades before in Facundo, Sarmiento attributed the
problems of the region to caudillismo and the dichotomy that existed between
rural areas where barbarism was the norm and life in the cities, where a civilized
existence could be found. Yet for Sarmiento, as Williams Bunkley has demonstrated,
obtaining an intellectual solution for an old problem came in his later years:
“his many reforms and changes had not “transformed the gaucho,” not because
there was anything wrong with them as theories and as reforms, but because of
the inherent characteristic of the gaucho himself” (502).
In a letter penned
to Mary Tyler Peabody Mann,
Sarmiento appeared to justify his authorship of Conflicto and could not have stated his position more clearly when claiming
that the root of the problems existing in Argentina and Hispanic America went beyond
land or geography, with the core of these malfunctions resting instead on racial
composition:
En Civilización y Barbarie
limitaba mis observaciones a mi propio país; pero la persistencia con que
reaparecen los males que creímos conjurados al adoptar la Constitución Federal,
y la generalidad y semejanza de los hechos que ocurren en toda la América
española, me hizo sospechar que la raíz del mal estaba a mayor profundidad que
lo que accidentes exteriores del suelo dejaban creer (17).
Given this judgment,
Sarmiento could not avoid writing a book with scientific pretention, such as Conflicto, providing him the opportunity
to address evolutionary theories that were being debated in the intellectual
circles of Argentina at the time. In 1882, the year of Charles Darwin’s death and
a year before the publication of Conflicto,
Sarmiento was asked to give a lecture about the ideas of the British naturalist
in a public tribute organized by El Círculo Médico Argentino. Alex Levine and Adriana Novoa argue that
similar to his lecture on Darwin, in Conflicto,
“Sarmiento weaves Darwinism into a grand totalizing theory, something Darwin
himself would never have attempted” (128). However, in a letter written to
Francisco P. Moreno dated April 9, 1883, Sarmiento acknowledged that he
identified more closely with the evolutionist positivistic thought of Hebert
Spencer. Answering Moreno’s analysis
of Conflicto, Sarmiento commented on
his own book, “Bien rastrea usted las ideas evolucionistas de Spencer, que he
proclamado abiertamente en materia social, dejando a usted y a Ameghino las
darwinistas, si de ello los convence el andar tras de su ilustre huella”. Sarmiento
shared that he was on the same path as the English philosopher and biologist. As
stated in his own words: “con Spencer me entiendo, porque andamos el mismo
camino” (407).
Alongside Conflicto’s truncated views of Darwin
and Spencer, biological hypotheses borrowed from the social psychologist Gustave
Le Bon and biologist Louis Agassiz are offered to support Sarmiento’s descriptions
of natives, blacks and mestizos. The biological views expressed are juxtaposed
with a series of interpretations from the perspective of historians, such as historians
Williams H. Prescott and Robert Anderson Wilson, and travel observations by Francois Raymond Joseph de Pons and Juan de Ulloa. The
mixed inventory of notes, discussions and conceptions are a continuous trend in
Conflicto. In the prologue there is
an acknowledgement of the use of many other authors’ descriptions to support
his stance. Sarmiento also clearly stated his intention to continue applying
the same methodology in a second volume that he never managed to finish:
Cuando emito pues un pensamiento
sobre apreciaciones abstractas, me pongo detrás de algún nombre de autor
acatado que da autoridad a la idea, revestida con sus propias palabras, y si de
hechos se trata, copio la narración original que le da el carácter de verdad.
Mía es sólo la idea que campea en este primer volumen, y cuyas consecuencias
serán la materia del segundo (58-59).
In part, what
Sarmiento demonstrated in the edition published in 1883 is a compendium of
notes and ideas, which in most cases do not include conclusive analysis. Enrique
Anderson Imbert assumes that when Sarmiento attempted to organize a draft of
this positivistic book he made important scientific errors, some of which were
normal for the period, but others of which can be seen as a consequence of his
characteristic mode of hasty opinion (150). Thus, in Conflicto, one can observe some of the reading done by Sarmiento
during his later years. Many of the statements in the text are generalized interpretations,
such as those presented by Ulloa and de Pons, both of which attempt to present
an overall image using presupposed notions about the indigenous people of the
continent, “La propensión al ocio y a la desidia es la misma en los indios de
la Luisiana y del Canadá, que en los del Perú y partes meridionales de la
América, ya sean civilizados o gentiles” (84). According to both observers, all
indios were characterized by common
conduct, aided by the misuse of a positivistic empirical scheme of observation
where everything fits the same mold. Paraphrasing some of the arguments of de
Pons, an agent of the Government of France stationed in Caracas between 1801
and 1802, Sarmiento presents more of these types of assumptions:
El indio se distingue, dice, de
la manera más singular por una naturaleza apática e indiferente que no se
encuentra en ningún otro. Su corazón no late ni ante el placer ni ante la
esperanza, sólo es accesible al miedo (84).
Observations made
by de Ulloa and de Pons were employed by Sarmiento to deliver suppositions, not
about a particular group, but instead about indigenous peoples as a whole. The
ideas are oriented through a form of determinism to support his “ethnology” of
the indigenous of the continent. Thus, the text is a confused merging of
observations. For example, while referring to la raza cobriza, or a group of indigenous peoples found in Argentina, Sarmiento
jumps into accounts presented by historians, such as Prescott and Wilson, discussing
the pre-Columbian history of Peru and Mexico. Through a lineal and descriptive
writing style, the purpose for studying the races of America is divided between
the biological and the naturalistic. Sarmiento’s socio-cultural explications argue
that the heritage of some attitudes –laziness and cowardice, for example– can be handed down through
generations, just like skin color or brain size.
The book’s content
and structure is broad and disorganized; for example, there are accounts of the
founding of the civil organization of the Argentinian city of Córdoba and of the
viceroyalty Río de la Plata. Conflicto
also contains details of the Spanish inquisition, discusses migration and
religious groups in North America, and considers the role those groups played in
the formation of the political system in the United States. In a certain way,
every chapter could be read as a series of unconnected essays, while at the
same time, fragmented essays can be seen within every chapter. Given this format,
it is not surprising that the contradictions present are various. In the passages
dedicated to the examination of the indigenous peoples, for example, the grandiloquent title of the
first chapter, Etnologías americanas,
falls short as his deliberation is based only on what he calls razas cobrizas, or a group of indigenous
communities found in Argentina. He
continues presenting a description of different indigenous groups in what he
called “races”: quechua, guaraní, arauco-pampeana,
followed by a brief study of amalgamas de
razas de color diverso and concluding with an account of the raza negra.
The comparison
made between the Jesuits and the Mormons while examining the raza guaraní serves to illustrate the
eclectic nature of Conflicto.
Sarmiento distinguishes between the social and economic development of North
America, conditioned by the white Saxon race, in contrast to the mixture of
races found in the southern part of the continent. On the one hand, he tends to
focus on the social organization of the guaraní
promoted by the Jesuits. With this in mind, Sarmiento seemed to show admiration
for the Jesuits, especially for their formative manner and dedication to making
alterations within the indigenous communities of Paraguay. On the other hand, he
critiques the Jesuits and their utopia-like forms of communal association,
which for him, did no more than limit the development of a social order where
competition could be established to stimulate a modern civilization. Initially,
Sarmiento seems to oppose the mix of religion with the organization of a society
in what he believes are civilizations not based on utopias.
When he compares
the Jesuits of Paraguay with the Mormons of North America, the author recognizes
the enthusiasm of followers of the prophet Joseph Smith, mainly for their work
ethic and their promotion of private property. This made Mormons very
prosperous, even though they were practitioners of certain primitive customs, such
as polygamy (99). As such, Sarmiento condemns the paternalistic practices of
the Jesuits, which he perceives as being connected with the “Spanish race”, while
demonstrating an admiration for Mormon business practices, which he views as
being related to the “white Saxon” race. Diana Sorensen Goodrich has suggested
that Sarmiento’s ideas in Conflicto are
subordinate to a North/South dichotomy. Sorensen Goodrich observes that “Sarmiento
attempts to employ the events of world history so as to show that the North
fared so well because it was colonized by a superior race which avoided
miscegenation” (113). Certainly, Sarmiento saw in North America a society
composed generally of a pure white race, far from what can be seen in the south
of the continent. This served as an explanation for the harsh reality of Hispanic
America at the time the book was written, as well as the political system and
the solid economy of North America. Decades before, when he wrote Facundo, the central binary opposition
consisted of civilization versus barbarism, while in Conflicto it is based on the political success of the North juxtaposed
with the failure of the South.
Conflicting
stereotypes
Sarmiento tended
to demonstrate suspiciousness regarding certain indigenous groups. For example,
while he admired the araucanos indians
for their bravery, he did not trust the Spanish military’s chronicles that attempted
to justify their own failure in defeating them, ridiculing the manner in which the Spaniards portrayed the araucanos of Chile:
Los araucanos eran más indómitos,
lo que quiere decir, animales más reacios, menos aptos para la civilización, y
resistieron ferozmente, porque feroces eran, la conquista y la asimilación
europeas. Desgraciadamente, los literatos de entonces, y aun los generales,
eran más poéticos que los de ahora, y a trueque dé hacer un poema épico,
Ercilla hizo del cacique Caupolicán un Agamenón, de Lautaro un Áyax, de Rengo
un Aquiles. ¡Qué oradores tan elocuentes los de parlamentos, que dejaban a
Cicerón pequeño, y topo a Aníbal, los generales en sus estratagemas! (103).
While acknowledging their bravery, he does not hesitate to also satirize:
No es que dudemos del valor y
obstinación de los araucanos, pero a ser ciertas estas pinturas, completamente
europeas, del arte de la guerra, resultaría que los poderosos imperios de
Méjico y el Perú, eran los salvajes en América y los araucanos el pueblo más
adelantado (106).
This curious
analogy of famous caciques araucaunos
with ancient Greek mythological heroes and gods is characterized by irony and demonstrates
more of a creative writer than a social scientist. However, passages like this in
Conflicto are not common as Sarmiento
tried to maintain a more scientific position throughout the book. To continue
his description of the indios araucano-pampeano,
Sarmiento followed patterns reminiscent of Facundo,
invoking geography to explain their
way of life in the Argentinian pampas:
Acaso en la Pampa se ha
barbarizado más que en su tierra natal el araucano, pues allá, por necesidad,
son agricultores, no habiendo mulitas, ni guanacos, ni liebres que cazar, y
teniendo, por no ser nómadas, ranchos fijos las familias (108-109).
It is noteworthy
that for Sarmiento, the araucano-pampeano
of Argentina were more barbarous than the auraucano
living in Chile. He explained this through geography, stating that the
unstructured style of life on the pampas allowed the auraucano-pampeano to cultivate all types of vices. Sarmiento
continued his analysis of what he called “the amalgamation of race”, describing
it as something that had extended into South America, where mixed races were
widespread. Thus, mestizos, cholos, criollos were presented through a taxonomy of their function in
society and were divided by social classes. Here, the author again enters a form
of biological analysis, using affirmations by Swiss paleontologist and
geologist Louis Agassiz:
Si alguno duda del mal de esta
mezcla de razas, que venga al Brasil, donde el deterioro consecuente a la
amalgamación, más esparcida aquí que en ninguna otra parte del mundo, va
borrando las mejores cualidades del hombre blanco, dejando un tipo bastardo sin
fisonomía, deficiente de energía física y elemental (116).
Here, Sarmiento’s
point of view regarding the mixing of races spans from Agassiz’s ludicrous
testimonies to a more noble manifestation regarding the black race, taking
ideas from American abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, who visualized the
future for the black races of Africa in the most promising terms:
Sí; en aquella tierra mística del
oro, de las perlas, de los diamantes, de las ardientes especias, de los
ondulosos palmeros, de flores maravillosas y de una fertilidad sin límites, el
arte producirá formas nuevas y la magnificencia se revestirá de un nuevo
brillo. La raza negra, que ya no será hollada como hasta aquí, producirá sin
duda la más soberbia manifestación de la vida humana. (123)
The Argentinian
author opposed slavery in the book and demonstrated a belief in civilization
based on the law and a modern economic system. Nonetheless, his provocative
analysis acknowledged blacks as a servile race that had fulfilled their purpose
of saving the indigenous of the continent. In fact, Sarmiento diverges and offers
several positive references about black people in Argentina. For example, he
mentions that blacks were good for war and for construction, while portraying
them as a loyal and utile race. His assessment of the way the black race was
treated in comparison to the indigenous is of great note.
Conclusion
The breadth of consideration
offered in Sarmiento’s Conflicto illustrates
the way nineteenth-century writers projected their ideas. Specialization was
not a path regularly utilized. Instead, writing styles can be characterized as
being wide in scope and touching on all sorts of subject matter without delving
into detailed discussion. The writing of Conflicto
includes very few metaphors, instead it employs a lineal and punctual prose style
more typical of scientific narrative. It is evident that many of the author’s
ideas regarding race would be considered erroneous and without scientific value
today, in part because Conflicto is
an incongruous group of essays put together in search for positivism, with race
represented as either an obstacle or an advantage in the continent’s march
toward progress. Given the scientific trends prominent at the time, it is not at
all surprising that in his final years of life, Sarmiento would assert that
malfunctions in Hispanic and Portuguese speaking American societies were rooted
in race.
If in Facundo the solution was to get rid of caudillos like Rosas and to promote a civilized
form of life in the vast geographical extensions of the pampas, in Conflicto, Sarmiento’s thesis focused on
the ethnic and racial assimilation of the continent as causes for the limited capabilities
and aptitudes of the racial mix in Latin American republics. To offer proof, he
used the political and economic successes he observed in North American
non-mixed Anglo society. According
to Sarmiento’s logic, Latin America was condemned because Spanish colonization
came about as a result of “un monopolio de su propia raza, que aún no salía de
la edad media al trasladarse a América y que absorbió en su sangre una raza
prehistórica servil” (449). Conflicto’s importance
can be established in its status as one of the first theses to use race to explain
and diagnose the social realities of Latin America. Sarmiento’s text led to what would become a common formula
of proto-scientific determinism based on race, exploited by other authors in
the years that followed, including Francisco Bulnes, Carlos Octavio Bunge,
Alcides Arguedas and José Ingenieros.
Notes
(1). See Nicholas Shumway 584, Roberto González Echevarría 1.
(2). Pedro
Henríquez Ureña has expressed that Facundo is a "sort of essay in human
geography in which he tried to ascertain the cause of the social disease of the
country, tyranny engendered by anarchy, at the end there was a study of the
political situation, proving the inevitably of the fall of Rosas and the whole
caudillo system" (Henríquez Ureña 132).
(3). In a letter written to Mary Tayler Peabody Mann in December 6 of 1882,
Sarmiento makes the following comments about Conflicto: "Para Vd., que está tan versada en nuestra
historia, le diré que tiene la pretensión este libro de ser el Facundo llegado
a la vejez". Cited
by José Ingenieros (9).
(4). In a critical
appraisal of Conflicto, Frances G.
Crowley suggests the following about the supposed second part published by
Augusto Belín Sarmiento: "Whereas the first volume bears at least the
semblance of being scientific and follows a well-drawn, if carelessly
documented plan, the volume edited by his grandson presents the reader with a
random collection of Sarmientana […] There is no connecting thought or central
theme to the volume, which should not have been called the second part of
Conflict and Harmony of Races in America, as in effect it is not a continuation
of the first, and it is doubtful whether Sarmiento meant it to be". See
Frances Crowley, Sarmiento 59.
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