José Hernández

José Hernández (1834-1886), Argentine poet and federalist. His folk epic poem El gaucho Martín Fierro (1872; The Departure of Martin Fierro, 1935) is considered an Argentine national classic; the work celebrates the independence, stoicism, and courage of the gaucho, cowboy of the Pampas, or plains, of South America. Hernández was born in Chacra de Pueyrredón, Buenos Aires. Not much is known about his childhood and upbringing, although it seems that in his early teens he was sent away to live on the Pampas due to an illness. It was then that he first experienced the gaucho way of life, language, and codes of honor.

Hernández was self-educated, widely read, and had strong, clear political ideals. Between 1852 and 1872, during a time of considerable political unrest in Argentina, he took the stand that the provinces should remain free of the central authorities’ efforts to colonize them and bring them under the control of the government in Buenos Aires. In 1870 he joined the last gaucho rebellion of Ricardo López Jordán against the government of President Domingo Sarmiento, which ended in defeat for the gauchos and Hernández’s exile in 1871. Returning to Argentina in 1874, he founded the newspaper Revista del Río de la Plata (Plata River Review), which upheld his political position.

It was through his poetry, however, that Hernández achieved the greatest prominence and made the most valuable contribution to the gaucho cause. In El gaucho Martín Fierro, Martín Fierro is the narrator of his life story, first establishing and describing the early happiness of a family life of rural simplicity, independence, and peace on the plains. The poem then narrates Martín’s forced conscription into the army, his hatred of army life, and his rebellion and eventual desertion. On his return to the Pampas he finds that his family is gone and his home destroyed. In despair, he becomes an outlaw. In the sequel, La vuelta de Martín Fierro (1879; The Return of Martín Fierro, 1935), he is reunited with his children and returns to society, having sacrificed much of his independence.