Fecundo: Part II

What is incredible about the last half of Fecundo is the admiration and absolution Sarmiento finds for him in the midst of an expected indictment. Fecundo is a Caeser, a genius of sorts, in the eyes of author and for all his brutality he is not cruel. He is simply a barbarian, a gaucho who cannot control his rage. When he is not “seeing red” he is capable of great respect for people like Paz and kindness towards common citizens, such as the merchant turned beggar that bestows with ounces of gold; he is not immune to “noble inspiration” or a “spark of virtue”. Fecundo uses terror as a system of governance, because fear is the only way he knows how to govern. How is a perpetrator of such violence not a perpetrator of cruelty? Sarmiento does not see a choice for his protagonist, he is a product of the countryside, something to be admired, but ultimately vanquished in the name of civilization and progress. In Sarmiento’s often positive description of a bloody tyrant we see his admiration for the gaucho character, and perhaps a nostalgia as he perceives no room for such a character in the future of a modern Argentina.


Ultimately, Fecundo is a book about power, about a caudillo with no limits to his boldness and savagery. While Sarmiento is certainly not an advocate of absolute power – ostensibly the book is a call to action against it – he acknowledges and even celebrates the attraction of power. The author himself seems to feel this pull. Why did he not simply write a political pamphlet or a call to arms? As the incomprehensible power of the vast Argentinean countryside inspires its poets, perhaps Fecundo and Rosas inspire Sarmiento through their terrible power. The author is so acutely aware of the pull of terrible power that he comments “if the reader is bored by these thoughts I will tell him about some more frightful crimes” after spending a page or so on political rhetoric. Thus, we see the ultimate contradiction of Fecundo. It is simultaneously an indictment and a celebration of boldly inflicted terror. Only the stupid rule through terror and violence Sarmiento comments, but only the bold can rule with these implements.