Amber Dudley
Tu/Th 12:30-1:45
Sarmiento
Sarmiento was a very important writer, and a very intelligent man. He was even president from 1868 to 1874. Sarmiento was a unitarist meaning that he was against self-rule, he was for abolition, and he wanted to form a republic. He was exiled and went to live in Chile where he wrote his famous book Facundo or, Civilization and Barbarism. In this book Sarmiento talks about the gauchos and how barbaric, unintelligent, and ruthless they are, and about how Rosas is a gaucho himself. Sarmiento is originally from the city but is exiled to the countryside. Sarmiento is very intelligent and he associates the city with intelligent and hard working people. Sarmiento claims that people in the cities of Buenos…show more content… Sarmiento cannot stand Rosas in the least bit. He basically sees Rosas as a gaucho. He goes on to talk about all the horrible things that Rosas does that makes him seem like a gaucho. Sarmiento says that Rosas made his staff wear these red ribbons, and then after awhile everyone was wearing the ribbons. The ribbons said “death to the unitarists” showing how anyone who wasn’t on his side could get killed. Soon some of the common people started wearing the ribbon, and then everyone started wearing the ribbons in fear that if they didn’t they would get killed (Sarmiento, 209). Sarmiento also talks about how wearing the ribbon was like a brand. Farmers will brand their cattle and he relates that to people wearing the ribbon. The ribbon represented that you belong to, and were on the side of Rosas (Sarmiento, 215). Sarmiento also talks about how Rosas says he who is not with me is my enemy. Sarmiento is trying to show how evil he believes Rosas was. Rosas would kill anyone who was not on his side, and he always had people watching for those who were disobeying him. People had to be extremely careful because everyone started watching each other and turning people in to get on Rosas’ good side. Sarmiento also goes on to talk about how a parish would celebrate Rosas for a week and then another parish would celebrate him, making the celebrations last for over a year! He says that Rosas…show more content… Sarmiento says that because of Rosas family life he had a hard time learning. Rosas’ family was very strict and Sarmiento says that is where he gets a lot of his awful traits (Sarmiento, 213). Finally Sarmiento talks about how Rosas turned Quiroga’s death around and blamed the unitarists. Facundo Quiroga was a federalist who was killed under the rule of Rosas and Rosas blamed it on the unitarists. This helped to turn people against unitarists and to help more people be on the side of Rosas (Sarmiento,