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Anti-Democratic Thought in Early Republican Peru: Bartolomé Herrera and the Liberal-Conservative Ideological Struggle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Daniel Gleason*
Affiliation:
St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Extract

During its first half-century of independence, Peru fought in five international conflicts, had thirty-one different governments, and operated under thirteen various constitutions or provisional charters. The international wars, uncertain terms of office, and a frequency of change in constitutions were all symptoms of an unsettled political environment. Additional symptoms included forceful overthrows of government, political exile, conspiracies, and foreign intervention. By mid-century, Peruvian writers complained of political corruption, graft, lack of public spirit, disrespect for the law, militarism, elitism, mobocracy, a mania for public office (empleomanía), and in general of the social and political disintegration.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1981

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References

1 Basadre, Jorge, Historia de la República del Perú (10 vol.: Lima, 1961–1964), 6. 2644Google Scholar; Paz-Soldán, José Pareja, Las constituciones del Perú (exposición critíca y textos) (Madrid, 1954), pp. 8385:Google Scholar Ugarteche, Pedro and Cristóval, Evaristo San (eds.) Mensajes de los presidentes. Recopilación y notas (2 vols.; Lima, 1943), 1, 1–6.Google Scholar

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6 Masías, , Examen comparativo, p. 89.Google Scholar

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9 Basadre, Jorge, “Los hombres de traje negro,” Letras (Lima), 1 (1929), 2959.Google Scholar

10 For biographical sketches of Herrera (all favorable) see González, Edmundo Ames, Ideas pedagógicas de Bartolomé Herrera (Lima, 1958)Google Scholar: Gonzalo, and Herrera, Rodrigo, “Biografía de don Bartolomé Herrera,” in Escritos y discursos Google Scholar: Ugarte, Rubén Vargas, “Bartolomé Herrera y la lucha contra el liberalismo regalista,” Biblioteca de cultura peruana contemporánea (12 vols.; Lima, 1963), VIL 531538.Google Scholar

11 “Oración que en las exequias celebradas el dia 4 de enero de 1842 en la Iglesia Catedral de Lima por el alma de S. E. el Jeneralisimo Presidente de las República D. Agustín Gamarra, muerto gloriosamente en el campo de Incahue, pronuncio el Dr. D. Bartolomé Herrera, Cura y Vicario de Lurín,” in Escritos y discursos, I. 17.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., I. 21.

14 Ibid., I. 30.

15 Ibid., I, 32.

16 “Sermón pronunciado por el Dr. Bartolomé Herrera, Rector del Convictorio de San Carlos en el Te Deum celebrado en la Iglesia Catedral de Lima, el 28 de julio de 1846,” in Escritos y discursos, I, 66–85.

17 Ibid., I, 67–68.

18 Ibid., I, 81.

19 “Notas el Sermón,” Ibid., I, 96.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., I, 83.

22 Ibid, I, 84.

23 “Polémica entre el Dr. Benito Laso, Vocal de la Crote Suprema, y el Dr. Herrera, en torno al Sermón de este,” in Escritos y discursos, I, 104.

24 Ibid., I 111.

25 “Remitidos de El Comercio de Lima contra Herrera,” in Escritos y discursos, I. 119. Jorge Guillermo Leguía suggests that Laso may have written the articles which appeared in El Correo Peruano. See Estudios históricos, p. 22.

26 Ibid, I. 129.

27 Ibid., I, 125.

28 Ibid., I, 127–129.

29 Ibid, I, 131.

30 Ibid. José Arnaldo Marqués, a nineteenth-century Peruvian statesman, poet, translator, and inventor, was a student at the Colegio de San Carlos during Herrera’s tenure as rector. In “El Dr. Bartolomé Herrera, Extracto de las memorias inéditas de uno de sus discípulos,” in Escritos y discursos, Marquez recalled a rather perverse diversion of the school’s rector:

Dr. Herrera amused himself with the intellectual and physical wretchedness of other men. He found relaxation from his literary labors at the Colegio de San Carlos by gathering about his writing table a half-dozen unfortunates, more worthy of compassion because of their ignorance, incompetence, and physical deformities than to be used to provide third-rate entertainment. These individuals belonged to the poorest class of our society… [Herrera] took delight in surrounding himself with these wretches and discussing the most intricate metaphysical problems and the most mysterious phenomena of nature, finding pleasure in hearing the nonsense and absurdities of these feebles minds full of darkness. Such scenes stirred within measense of painful indignation; but this was the favorite pastime of Herrera and continued to be so for about two years. (II, lxiii)

31 “Artículo editorial de El Comercio de Lima sobre los examenes, de San Carlos en que se discutieron las doctrinas de Herrera,” in Escritos y discursos, I, 140–143.

32 “Artículos de El Republicano de Arequipa acerca del mismo asunto,” and “Artículos del Diario de Trujillo resumiendo la discusión realizada en San Carlos de Lima,” in Escritos y discursos, 1, 143–150.

33 “Polémica entre El Correo Peruano y el Colegio de San Carlos, alrededor de la soberanía de la inteligencia in Escritos y discursos, I, 150–224.

34 For biographical sketches of Castilla see Pike, , The Modem History of Peru (1967),Google Scholar Chapter IV and the prologue by Tauro, Alberto in Castilla, Ramon, Ideologia (Lima, 1948)Google Scholar Wiesse, Carlos, Biografía en anecdotes del Gran Mariscal Ramón Castilla (Lima, 1924),Google Scholar includes anecdotes and syntheses of other writings on Castilla.

35 “Sermón pronunciado… el 28 de julio de 1846,” in Escritos y discursos, I, 72.

36 Valdivia, Juan Gualberto, Las revoluciones de Arequipa (2 vols.; Arequipa, 1958), II, 109.Google Scholar

37 Casós, , Para la historia del Perú, pp. 111 Google Scholar; Pike, , The Modern History of Peru, pp. 98103.Google Scholar Besides Torrico and Herrera, Echenique appointed Manuel de Mendiburu and José Joaquín de Osma to his cabinet.

38 Para la historia del Perú, p. 15.

39 Ibid., p. 5.

40 Leguía, , Estudios históricos, pp. 141143.Google Scholar

41 Valdivia, , Las revoluciones de Arequipa, 2, 149158.Google Scholar

42 See Paz-Soldán, Pareja, Las constituciones del Preú, pp. 845880.Google Scholar

43 Quoted in Pareja Paz-Soldán, 375.

44 Ibid., 377.

45 See Gonzalo, and Herrera, Rodrigo, “Biografía de don Bartolomé Herrera,” in Escritos y discursos.Google Scholar

46 Diccionario para el pueblo, p. 563.

47 Ibid, p. 183.

48 Leguía, , Estudios históricos, p. 112 Google Scholar; Paz-Soldán, Pareja, Las constituciones del Perú, p. 368.Google Scholar

49 Two welcome exceptions are Pike, Fredrick B., “Heresy, Real and Alleged, in Peru: An Aspect of the Conservative-Liberal Struggle, 1830–1875,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 45 (February, 1967)Google Scholar and Tibesar, Antonine, “The Peruvian Church at the Time of Independence in the Light of Vatican 11.” The Americas, A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, 26 (April, 1970).Google Scholar