Francisco Bilbao Barquín (; 19 January 1823 – 9 February 1865) was a Chilean writer, philosopher and
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
politician.
Early life
Francisco Bilbao Barquin was born in Santiago on 9 January 1823 to Rafael Bilbao Beyne and Argentina Mercedes Barquín. His father, an opponent of
Diego Portales
Diego José Pedro Víctor Portales y Palazuelos (; June 16, 1793 – June 6, 1837) was a Chilean statesman and entrepreneur. As a minister of president José Joaquín Prieto's government, he played a pivotal role in shaping the state and po ...
, was exiled to
Lima, Peru in 1829. In Peru he studied astronomy, sciences and music, and also practiced swimming and gymnastics. He returned to Santiago in 1839 and studied at the
Instituto Nacional, taking courses including public law, constitutional law, Latin and philosophy, although he did not earn a degree. His teachers included
Andrés Bello
Andrés de Jesús María y José Bello López (; November 29, 1781 – October 15, 1865) was a Venezuelan- Chilean humanist, diplomat, poet, legislator, philosopher, educator and philologist, whose political and literary works constitute an ...
and
José Victorino Lastarria
José Victorino Lastarria (; 23 March 1817 – 14 June 1888) was a Chilean writer, legislative deputy, senator, diplomat, and finance minister.
Early life
José Victorino Lastarria was the son of Francisco Lastarria y Cortés and Carmen Santander ...
.
Political career and thought
In 1844 he published his controversial article "The Chilean Sociability" ("La sociabilidad chilena"), which was condemned by Chilean authorities as "blasphemous and immoral, though not subversive." He moved to
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
in 1845, and was there during the 1848 uprising in Paris. He returned to Chile in 1850, the year he also founded the Society of Equality. In 1851 he led an unsuccessful insurrection against the government of
Manuel Montt
Manuel Francisco Antonio Julián Montt Torres (; September 4, 1809 – September 21, 1880) was a Chilean statesman and scholar. He was twice elected President of Chile between 1851 and 1861.
Biography
Montt was born in Petorca, Valparaíso R ...
, after which he again had to move to Peru. He never returned to Chile.
In Lima, he joined Peruvian political life. In May 1855 he had to leave the country after being persecuted for criticizing the clergy. He went back to Europe, settling in Paris and Belgium.
In 1857, he returned to the Americas, specifically Argentina. He died in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
in 1865, aged 42.
He was one of the first to advocate for the concept of
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
, referring to
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
, formulating the concept "as a direct echo of French anti-
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism, a movement which crystallized in the mid-19th century, is the political ideology concerned with the advancement of integrity and unity for the Slavic people. Its main impact occurred in the Balkans, where non-Slavic empires had rule ...
," in wake of the
U.S.-Mexican War (1846–48), in which Mexico lost much of its northern territory to the U.S. and U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. The idea of Latin America was to contest "'Yankee' individualism." For Bilbao, "Latin America" was not a geographical concept, since he excluded Brazil, then a monarchy with a black slave economy, and also Paraguay. He also excluded Mexico from his conception, since it had an entangled relationship with the United States, and in his view seemed united only in its opposition to the U.S. Bilbao's thinking on democracy rejected delegated representation (such as a congress or parliament), and "thus advocated a sort of direct and constant self-representation in a Catholic community." Bilbao opposed the Chilean war against the
Araucanian
The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sh ...
or
Mapuche
The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...
peoples in southern Chile, who had never been conquered during the colonial era, with Bilbao supporting their autonomy.
Bilbao conceived of the Americas as having two main cultural contours. "America, in its two-fold nature as Saxon and Latin, witnesses not the contradiction of ideas, as in Europe, but the exclusivity of ideas. America has crippled harmony. Harmony is individualism and sociability. The North embodies individualism; the South, sociability. The Saxon-Yankee is Protestant and federal; the Spanish American is Catholic and a centralizer... the Yankee is the centrifugal force; the American from the South is the centripetal force. Both are necessary for order to exist."
[quoted in Tenorio-Trillo, ''Latin America'', p. 9.]
Works
*"La sociabilidad chilena" in ''El Crepúsculo'', June 1844
*''América en peligro''. 1862
*''El evangelio americano'' 1864
*''Obras completas de Francisco Bilbao''. Vol. 1. Buenos Aires, 1866.
See also
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
References
Further reading
*Donoso, Armando. "El pensamiento vivo de Bilbao." Santiago de Chile, Nascimiento (1940).
*Lipp, Solomon. ''Three Chilean Thinkers'', chapter 1. 1975.
*Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio. ''Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2017.
*Varona, Alberto J. ''Francisco Bilbao, revolucionario de América''. 1973.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bilbao, Francisco
1823 births
1865 deaths
Liberal Party (Chile, 1849) politicians
Instituto Nacional General José Miguel Carrera alumni
People of the 1851 Chilean Revolution
Politicians from Santiago