Domingo Faustino Sarmientoa pivotal figure in Latin American history- educator, writer, and president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874- brought education, commerce, and agriculture to Argentina. his book, Facundo, and others are classics in Latin American literature More was born February 14, 1811, and died September 11, 1888. He has a great legacylong-lasting impact of events that took place in the past or of a person's life; or amount of money or property left to someone in a will More in Latin America, especially Argentina. He was an educator, statesman, and prolific writer. He rose from being a rural school master to become the president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874.
As president, he laid the foundation for national progress by fostering public education, stimulating commerce and agriculturecultivation of soil to grow food plants using technologies such as plowing, irrigation, terracing, fertilizers and harnessing power of domesticated animals, and encouraging the development of public transportation and communication. He made pleas for industrialization and urbanizationthe process by which towns and cities are formed and become larger as more and more people begin living and working in the central areas in his most famous book, Civilizationa highly developed and advanced human society, associated with population density, writing and record-keeping, education, art, science, and complex political and social institutions y barbarie: vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga. In 1845, he wrote Life in the Argentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants. His books are classics in Latin American literature.
Sarmiento began his career as a rural schoolteacher at age 15, and soon after, he entered public life as a provincial legislator. In 1840, his political activities and his outspokenness provoked the military dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas. Sarmiento was exiled to Chile in 1840. He was still active in politics and gained fame as a journalist through his articles in the Valparaiso newspaper, El Mercurio. In 1842, Sarmiento was appointed founding director of the first teacher’s college in South America. He believed the primary means for development was through a system of public education.
While exiled in Chile, Sarmiento wrote Facundo, an impassioned denunciation of Rosas’s (the man who exiled him) dictatorship. The book has its critics, both then and now, but “it has been called the single most important book produced in Spanish America.” In 1845, the Chilean government sent Sarmiento abroad to Europe and the United States to study the educational methods of those countries. He was abroad for three years and became convinced that the United States was a model for Latin America to follow in its development.
Upon his return to Argentina, Sarmiento helped to overthrow the Rosas dictatorship in 1852. He continued his writing and educational activities and reentered Argentine politics. He was elected president of Argentina in 1868 and immediately began to promote his liberal education ideals, his belief in democratic principles, and civil liberties. He was against dictatorial regimes in any form and helped to build the new Argentina. He ended the warWar: A state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state. with Paraguay, which he inherited from the previous administration, and he began to concentrate on domestic achievements. Argentina was a largely illiterate country at the time.
Sarmiento brought to Argentina primary and secondary schools, teachers’ colleges, schools for professional and technical training, and libraries and museums. His term as president ended in 1874, but he continued to be active in public life, writing 52 volumes of published works, all devoted to educational themes. In 1943, the Inter-American Conference on Education in Panama established September 11 as Pan-American Teacher’s Day in Sarmiento’s honor, solidifying his legacy as a champion of education throughout Latin America.