Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's Facundo thus functions as a study of the Argentine character, a prescription for the modernization of Latin America, and a protest against the tyranny of the

For Echeverria, thus, civilization was inherent to humanity in an untouched state of nature, while for Sarmiento civilization was something that must be created and to some extent imposed by democratic yet vigorously modernizing authorities, else the barbarism in the rural areas become common currency to all of Argentina. Despite his praise for the wild music of the aboriginal and rural peoples that give civilized authority to Argentina, Sarmiento feared the juxtaposition of such varied cultures and climates also gives rise to the potential for tyranny-one of the dangers that allowed for the central character of De Roseas to come to power and accumulate such dangerous authority. Rather than the gentle romantic visions of the poet that are destroyed by the dictator, Sarmiento opened his text up with a horrific vision of settlers wandering in a "solitary caravan" of wagons "slowly traversing the Pampas that stops to rest for a few moments, the crew, gathered around a poor fire, mechanically turn their eyes toward the south at the least murmur of wind blowing the dry grass, to bore their gaze into the profound darkness of the night, searching out the sinister bulks of savage hordes that from one moment to the next can surprise them unprepared. If their ears hear no sound, if their eyes cannot pierce the dark veil that covers this quiet solitude, to be absolutely sure they turn their gaze to the ears of some horse next to the fire, observing if these are at rest and easily folded back. Then their interrupted conversation continues, or they put the half-singed strips of dried beef that are their food into their mouths. If it is not the proximity of savages that worries the man of the countryside, it is the fear of a tiger stalking him, of a viper he might step on." (Sarmiento, Chapter 1).

The lack devotion of both the aboriginal, urban, and country dwellers to culture, civility, and modernization is shown, according to Sarmiento, to show how the dictator who came to power was preyed upon the worse parts of true nature. In the country, "This, then, is what religion is reduced to in the pastoral countryside: to natural religion. Christianity exists, like the Spanish language, as a sort of tradition that is carried on, but corrupted, embodied in coarse superstitions, with no instruction, rites, or conviction...thus, by explaining these peculiarities of Argentina, wrote Sarmiento, one can "subsequently the nature, causes and effects of its civil wars." (Sarmiento, Chapter I)

Thus Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's work presented an Argentina that was rich and cultured in its heritage, yet wild and ungoverned in a dangerous, rather than a romantic fashion as did Echeverria. In Chapters II and III of Sarmiento's text, respectively entitled "Argentine Originality" and "Characters and Association," the author painted a picture of a Latin American land that was both charming and cultured, and refined and social-a world that was destroyed by the Revolution of 1810 and the subsequent dictatorship, but which had fundamentally barbaric elements that could not be fully extricated, thus giving rise to de Rosas' leadership.

Sarmiento desired modernity, in contrast, to Echeverria. But the author Sarmiento equated Argentinean barbarism not so much wildness or indigenous qualities but a failure to work and participate in the modern work ethic, much as Echeverria equated barbarism with a dictator's governance of humanity's purer impulses. But for Sarmiento, as exemplified by the gaucho and his dependence upon his female domestic partners to work, barbarism was not in modernity but in the current state of what he called country life, which had "developed the gaucho's physical faculties, but none of his intelligence. His moral character is affected by his custom of triumphing over obstacles and the power of nature. Although like Echeverria, Sarmiento did describe the gaucho as strong, haughty, vigorous and admirable, he could not condone the gauc

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