Francisco Bilbao

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In this
Spanish name, the first or paternal surname
is Bilbao and the second or maternal family name is Barquín.
Francisco Bilbao Barquín
Chilean
Notable workThe Chilean Sociability

Francisco Bilbao Barquín (Spanish pronunciation: [fɾanˈsisko βilˈβao]; 19 January 1823 – 9 February 1865) was a Chilean writer, philosopher and liberal politician.[1]

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

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,[2] taking courses including public law, constitutional law, Latin and philosophy, although he did not earn a degree. His teachers included Andrés Bello and José Victorino Lastarria
.

Political career and thought

Statue of Francisco Bilbao Barquín in Valparaíso

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."[3] He moved to Paris in 1845, and was there during the 1848 uprising in Paris.[4] 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, 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 in 1865, aged 42.

He was one of the first to advocate for the concept of

Araucanian or Mapuche peoples in southern Chile, who had never been conquered during the colonial era, with Bilbao supporting their autonomy.[8]

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."[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

References

  1. ^ Simon Collier, "Francisco Bilbao Barquín" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 1, p. 345. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1996.
  2. ^ Collier, "Bilbao Barquín", p. 345.
  3. ^ Collier, "Bilbao Barquín" p. 345.
  4. ^ Collier, "Bilbao Barquín" p. 345.
  5. ^ Maurio Tenorio-Trillo, Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2017, p. 5.
  6. ^ Tenorio-Trillo, Latin America, pp. 5-6.
  7. ^ Tenorio-Trillo, Latin America, p. 12.
  8. ^ Tenorio-Trillo, Latin America, p. 29.
  9. ^ quoted in Tenorio-Trillo, Latin America, p. 9.

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.
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