Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888), Argentine thinker, served as a teacher, militia second lieutenant, writer, journalist, senator, minister, general director of schools, sociologist, diplomat and governor, until becoming president of Argentina. Together with Juan Bautista Alberdi, he is considered the father of the Argentine Constitution of 1853, the first to govern most of the territory that comprises the current Argentine Republic. His active political militancy led him to go into exile in Chile on several occasions, mainly due to his opposition to the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. He maintained a close relationship with the Chileans José Victorino Lastarria and Francisco Bilbao, affiliated like him to liberalism. In his most famous book, "Facundo or Civilization and barbarism in the Argentine pampas", in addition to an extensive exposition on Argentine history and culture, he develops a dichotomy that distinguishes between barbarism, which for the author is the antithesis of education and civil stability that predominate in Latin America, and civilization, which represents European culture and education.