in Paris in 1867
Overview Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was put forward as a candidate for the
presidency of the nation by a group of Argentine politicians at the initiative of Colonel
Lucio V. Mansilla. He won the presidency despite the maneuverings of his predecessor
Bartolomé Mitre. Two days after his inauguration, Congress met for a brief extraordinary session, during which it approved the budget for the following year, a loan of four million pesos, and an increase in customs duties in order to finance the continuation of the
Paraguayan War. Sarmiento served as President of Argentina from 1868 to 1874. According to biographer Allison Bunkley, his presidency "marks the advent of the middle, or land-owning classes as the pivot power of the nation. The age of the gaucho had ended, and the age of the merchant and cattleman had begun." Sarmiento sought to create basic freedoms, and wanted to ensure civil safety and progress for everyone, not just the few. Sarmiento's tour of the United States had given him many new ideas about politics, democracy, and the structure of society, especially when he was the Argentine ambassador to the country from 1865 to 1868. He found
New England, specifically the
Boston-
Cambridge area to be the source of much of his influence, writing in an Argentine newspaper that New England was "the cradle of the modern republic, the school for all of America." He described Boston as
"The pioneer city of the modern world, the Zion of the ancient Puritans ... Europe contemplates in New England the power which in the future will supplant her." Not only did Sarmiento evolve political ideas, but also structural ones by transitioning Argentina from a primarily agricultural economy to one focused on cities and industry. Historian
David Rock notes that, beyond putting an end to caudillismo, Sarmiento's main achievements in government concerned his promotion of education. Sarmiento's focus on education became a divisive tool of his nation-building strategy. With this focus, he was able to build the foundation to promote the intellect of future generations and securing their prosperity. There was an emphasis on constructing educational buildings, and training prospective teachers. His emphasis on constructing these schools and promoting education served as an example for future administrations to build upon. As stated by Garrard, Henderson, and McCann, this foundation would eventually make "the Argentine people among the most literate in the hemisphere." As Rock reports, "between 1868 and 1874 educational subsidies from the central government to the provinces quadrupled." Indeed, Rock judges that "by and large his administration was a disappointment". In addition, the arrival of a large influx of European immigrants was blamed for the outbreak of
Yellow Fever in Buenos Aires and the risk of civil war.
Education and culture It is generally accepted that Domingo Faustino Sarmiento devoted most of his efforts in government to the promotion of education, although some historians maintain that he gave at least equal importance to expanding communications throughout the country. In any case, the impetus given to education under the ministry of
Nicolás Avellaneda was notable. Through the Subsidies Law of 1871—which assigned to public education inheritances without direct heirs and one eighth of the proceeds from sales of public land—the government guaranteed funding for the creation of new schools and the purchase of materials and books. During his presidency, and with national support, the provinces founded about 800 primary schools, bringing the total to 1,816 schools, of which 27% were private; the school population rose from 30,000 to 110,000 pupils. To secure primary education, during the presidencies of Sarmiento, Avellaneda, and Roca, just over 75 teachers (71 women and 4 men) were brought from the United States to teach in primary teacher-training colleges (
escuelas normales); he established the first normal schools, taking as a model the
Paraná Normal School, founded in 1870. He also subsidized the first school for deaf students, which was privately run. Continuing the policy of his predecessor, he founded National Colleges in
La Rioja,
Santa Fe,
San Luis,
San Salvador de Jujuy,
Santiago del Estero,
Corrientes,
San Nicolás de los Arroyos, and
Rosario. That same year he promoted the creation and development of the
Comisión Nacional de Bibliotecas Populares (CONABIP), which to this day supports and strengthens popular libraries as civil-society organizations and encourages their public recognition as physical and social spaces important to community development and the construction of citizenship. One of his first decisions was to hold an Exposition of Arts and National Products, which was ultimately staged in 1871 in the city of
Córdoba. The project was initially regarded as folly, but it ended up being a major success. It showcased textiles,
tanneries, foundries,
dyeworks, and agricultural products from different regions of the country. During his visit to the exposition, Sarmiento wore a
vicuña suit made from national fabrics and also received a medal for having introduced
wicker into the country. A large amount of agricultural and industrial machinery available for import was also promoted there. The exposition marked the beginning of a concern with the basic sciences, and from this impulse emerged the Academy of Sciences of Córdoba—directed by the German botanist
Germán Burmeister—and the National Observatory of Córdoba, directed by the American astronomer
Benjamin Gould.
End of the Paraguayan War The
War of the Triple Alliance against
Paraguay had broken out during Mitre's presidency, and he had commanded the allied forces against that country until shortly before leaving office. Barely had Sarmiento assumed the presidency when the final Brazilian advance on
Asunción took place, and the city was
sacked by Brazilian troops. Paraguayan president
Francisco Solano López, despite the occupation of the capital, organized a new army some distance away. In response, a provisional government was formed in Asunción under Argentine and Brazilian protection. An army formed and led mainly by Brazilians—in which the Argentines at first had some participation—set out in pursuit of Solano López in the so-called
Campaign of the Hills. After two
bloody victories over the Paraguayans, Solano López managed to escape toward the northern edge of the country, where two Brazilian divisions eventually caught up with him, defeated him, and killed him at the
Battle of Cerro Corá on 1 March 1870. The war was over. Paraguay was left devastated: depending on the source, between 50 and 90% of its total population is estimated to have died during the conflict, and it lost all the territories in dispute with its neighbors except the
Chaco Boreal. The war also imposed an enormous cost on Argentina: first in human lives, with more than 18,000 men killed in the conflict, to which may be added the many thousands who died of cholera, including 15,000 in Buenos Aires Province alone. It also had a huge economic cost, as Argentina was forced to borrow until its debt reached 9,000,000
pounds sterling. During the last year of the war, the
Colegio Militar de la Nación was founded, with the
Hungarian Juan F. Czetz as its first director. The possibility of conflict with Brazil arising from the postwar disputes led Sarmiento to modernize the navy: he founded the
Naval School and incorporated several ships, thereby creating the first
Argentine squadron capable of operating at a level comparable to the war fleets of Brazil and Chile.
The last federalist caudillos in the Litoral After the defeat of
Felipe Varela, three Argentine provinces were still in federalist hands: in Córdoba, military pressure forced Governor
Luque to resign, and in Corrientes a liberal revolution overthrew the
federalist governor in May 1868. A belated federalist response was crushed by troops of the national army transferred from the Paraguayan front in defense of a government that had emerged from a coup d'état. Only Entre Ríos remained, where Urquiza coexisted peacefully with the national government against the wishes of many federalists: at the beginning of 1870 he had received the president at his residence in the
Palacio San José and ordered that the corresponding honors be paid. Shortly after the end of the Paraguayan War, on 11 April 1870, General
Ricardo López Jordán launched a revolution in which Urquiza was killed by the Cordoban Simón Luengo. López Jordán was elected governor by the legislature. President Sarmiento sent to Entre Ríos an army made up of divisions veteran from the Paraguayan War. The governor forbade those troops from entering his province, but the president ridiculed the notion that the entry of national troops into a province could be prohibited. When the landing took place, López Jordán ordered the general mobilization of the province. Sarmiento declared war on Entre Ríos, although Congress did not authorize the
federal intervention in that province until August. Four armies advanced simultaneously into the province; the national troops—superior in arms and discipline—occupied the cities, forcing López Jordán to withdraw into the interior, where the men of Entre Ríos, mounted on better horses, held out to advantage. Seeking to open a new front, López Jordán invaded
Corrientes Province, but on 26 January 1871 he was completely defeated in the
Battle of Ñaembé; shortly afterward he fled to Brazil. The Entre Ríos Federal Party was destroyed, and the federalists were removed from all public offices, including priests and schoolteachers. In May 1873 López Jordán again rose in rebellion in his province, eventually commanding 16,000 men, well supplied with artillery and infantry. Sarmiento responded by placing a price on López Jordán's head—a measure rejected by Congress—and by decreeing the federal intervention of Entre Ríos. Three armies occupied the province under the overall command of the Minister of War,
Martín de Gainza. Once again fighting spread throughout the province, and several Jordanist officers were shot; after a bloody defeat, López Jordán departed for Uruguay in December.
Population and public health One of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's first measures as president of Argentina was to organize the first national census, which was carried out in 1869; it produced a result of 1,836,490 inhabitants for the country. Of the total, 8% were European immigrants, 70% lived in rural areas, and 71% were illiterate. During his presidency, immigration rose sharply with the arrival of 280,000 immigrants, who settled mainly in the city of Buenos Aires and, to a lesser extent, in agricultural colonies in the Litoral provinces. The rapid growth of the population in the capital created large-scale problems of housing and hygiene: in 1871 a
yellow fever epidemic—probably a consequence of the war—caused the deaths of around 14,000 people in Buenos Aires. The entire national government fled the city, so the fight against the plague had to be carried out by a commission. This body ordered the creation of the
La Chacarita Cemetery and in the following years the city's first water-supply and sewerage networks were established. Since it was planned to extend the railway from Córdoba northward, he hired the German engineer
José Enrique Rauch to design the route from Salta to the Pacific coast, which decades later would become the so-called
Train to the Clouds. A number of ports were built, including those of
Zárate and
San Pedro (Buenos Aires). A modern port for Buenos Aires was planned, and the country went into debt for 30 million pesos to carry out the works, but that money was squandered on minor projects. In 1873 the National Bank was created, which lent money at low interest or to insolvent debtors. The public debt—driven by the debt generated by the Paraguayan War—reached unsustainable levels, although the resulting economic crisis would not break out until the administration of his successor.
Foreign relations During the first part of his administration, Foreign Minister
Mariano Varela sought to pursue an almost idealistic policy regarding Paraguay's future: his well-known phrase "Victory does not confer rights" formed part of an attempt to limit the expansionist ambitions of
Brazil. Brazil's response was to take advantage of that same policy by having the Paraguayan government protest against the Argentine occupation of
Villa Occidental, opposite Asunción. When the Brazilian ambassador in Paraguay forced changes in the Paraguayan government, the president replaced Varela with
Carlos Tejedor. In 1872 Brazil signed a boundary treaty with Paraguay by which it awarded itself all the disputed territory, and then supported Paraguay in defending itself against Argentine claims. Relations with Chile centered on the dispute over the rights of the two countries in Patagonia. In 1874 it was decided that arbitration by the King of England would settle the disputes between them. ==Final years==