Domingo Faustino Sarmiento - Definition and Overview

Sarmiento's portrait appears on the 50 Argentine Peso bill

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Albarracín (15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was an Argentine statesman, educator, and author. He was president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874.

Sarmiento was born in San Juan.

During the 1830s and 1840s, he lived in exile in Chile, where he wrote his best known work Facundo (1845), an in-depth study of caudillismo and personalism in politics. He became very interested in the Chilean public school system, and traveled to places such as the United States and Europe to improve his teaching ability.

In 1868, Sarmiento was elected to become the new president in place of the Argentine liberal Bartolome Mitre. During Sarmiento's presidency, the amount of students enrolled in school doubled and about a hundred public libraries were built. Sarmiento was also able to increase the amount of immigration from Europe.

He died in Asunción (Paraguay) and was interred in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

Latin American's Teacher's Day was established after Sarmiento's date of death in 1943's Interamerican Conference on Education, held in Panama.

Selected works

• Mi defensa
• Civilización y Barbarie - Vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga
• Viajes, Argirópolis
• Recuerdos de Provincia
• Campaña del Ejército Grande
• Conflictos y armonías de las razas de América
• De la educación popular