and exiling guys like Sarmiento who dared to question his authority. Now the Argentinian pampas are huge — about the size of Beyoncé’s Texas. And Sarmiento describes them lyrically: “immense the plains, immense the forests, immense the rivers: the always uncertain horizon.”
But, he also propped up a false binary of barbarism and civilization. Although the pampas were isolated and not heavily populated, they weren’t empty of people or communities. They were home to Indigenous groups like the Mapuche and Pampas Indians of Argentina, and the Guaraní Indians of Paraguay.
They were, unfortunately, just another type of authoritarian leader. And just like they dominated the Argentinian pampas , caudillos also dominated the literature of the period. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s 1845 novel, “Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie,” “Civilization and Barbarism,” is a prime example.
His parents were among tens of thousands of people who were kidnapped and disappeared by the military dictatorship of Jorge Videla, who’s been nicknamed the “Hitler of the Pampas .” All told, Videla’s regime murdered or disappeared tens of thousands of Argentinians, in an attempt to crush opposition and spread terror.
Apparently everything is bigger in Argentina, too. But Sarmiento also thinks the region is “barbaric,” because the pampas are so isolated from so-called civilization. Sarmiento hoped to convince readers that as long as Argentina existed as an untamed region, the land would continue to produce dangerous strongmen like Rosas and Facundo.
Although the pampas were isolated and not heavily populated, they weren’t empty of people or communities. They were home to Indigenous groups like the Mapuche and Pampas Indians of Argentina, and the Guaraní Indians of Paraguay. People who Sarmiento aimed to erase, both in his literature and as a president who waged a decades-long war against Indigenous peoples.
These guys were, like, the most intense gauchos ever. They were more like cowboys, and they rode their horses across the pampas , seizing political power through charisma… and sheer brute force. They were, unfortunately, just another type of authoritarian leader.
means that a decent chunk of these mountains were all drawn in the back of the conference hall in Malargue whilst listening to OJ talks. Conveniently, there are an awful lot of mountains in the high Pampas in Argentina. Conveniently, there are also an awful lot of mountains in "Game of Thrones." So I spent a huge amount of time actually using
These novels explore the relationship between Latin America’s physical landscape and its political and cultural landscapes. See, in the 19th century, large swaths of Latin America were undeveloped selva, llanos, and pampas — jungle, plains, and grassland. And even once fledgling countries like Argentina were free from colonial rule, they didn’t have the infrastructure to govern or maintain any sort of orderly, democratic control.
As the 19th and 20th centuries unfolded, many Latin American writers distanced themselves from the European Romantics’ idealism toward the wilderness. Instead, they often invoked the llanos, plains, and the pampas , grasslands, as “backwards” places. In them, nature wasn’t quaint, and the jungle wasn’t paradise.