Week 5: Caudillos Versus the Nation State

Comparing the excerpts from Alex Dawson's Latin America Since Independence from last week to this week's Esteban Echeverría's The Slaughterhouse (1838/1871) we move from speeches where the main power comes from rhetoric and recycling authors to a highly religiously powered text. The main purpose of Echeverría's The Slaughterhouse is to belay a perception of historical events through his lenses which he chooses to present the events as a sort of God influenced cosmic retribution for mans' sins. The creation of this story, whether true or not, is one of few examples or stories told from a traditionalist perspective during this time period in Latin American history.