In the 1840s, Chile was ruled by a conservative elite that enjoyed the support of the Catholic Church, the military, and foreign investors. It was a government that did not brook dissent. Thus, when university student Francisco Bilbao (1823–1865) published “Chilean Sociability,” an unsparing attack on the church and a strident call for revolution, the government response was swift and severe. Bilbao was expelled from the Instituto Nacional and forced into exile. Exile, however, did not silence Bilbao, and he spent much of the rest of his short life clashing with church and government authorities. The excerpt from “Chilean Sociability” included here captures the essence of Bilbao’s critique of the Chilean social and political order. As you read it, focus on the way Bilbao used history to support his argument. If, as Bilbao declared, Spain was Chile’s past, what, in his view, was Chile’s future?

Our past is Spain.

Spain is the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were made up, in soul and body, of Catholicism and feudalism. Let us examine them separately. That society called feudal, made up of the remnants of Roman civilization, idealized by the Catholic religion, and renewed by the barbarian’s distinctive practices, forms the nucleus, the knot that ties the ancient world to the modern world. Rome leaves her legislation, industry, and mythology; Catholicism — Scholasticism, the oriental myths with the coloring of revelation but with a notable perfection; the barbarians — the spontaneity of their beliefs and their glorification of individuality. Reflection, faith, spontaneity; Rome, Orient, the barbarians — there we have the elements. They clash, blood runs, but the barbarian-become-Catholic triumphed. Time unfolds, the system settles in, Catholicism rules, the barbarian does not completely abdicate his distinctiveness, and the Middle Ages rise from the ruins of the invasion, from the blood of so many years of combat.

There we have that society that civilization secured in its castles, its cloisters, to resist the torrent of the world that collapses around it. True society, because it was one society, because it had a creed that nourished and gave it that distinctiveness so very distinctive; society of soul and body from this point of view. That is to say, Catholicism and feudalism, spirit and land, religion and politics — let us analyze the two phases separately. . . .

We have examined the two elements that made up the Middle Ages. Spain, we said, is the Middle Ages, and we came from the Middle Ages of Spain. Let us look at the unique character that it had in Spain in order to see the character it had among us.

The Middle Ages fulfilled itself in Spain, that is to say, it developed most fully there. The isolation of Spain because of racial differences, tradition, climate, national pride heightened by traditions and differences from other peoples; the exclusivism that this produces as to the importance of all things foreign, the strengthening of its Catholic-feudal beliefs because of the opposition to African civilization; the union of all classes to support Spain’s individuality, accosted in land and spirit; conquistadors and Mohammedans — here we have the causes of the complete development and embodiment of Spanish beliefs. Those beliefs were Catholic-feudal. They gained strength for reasons that we have stated, the importance, the strength, the absolutism, that characterized the Catholic domination of Spain.

America belonged to Spain and Spain imposed its seal on America; here we have our Spanish past on American soil. Here we come to Chile.

The Middle Ages was a true society because it had unity of beliefs. The idea dominates over form. The ideas of a people branch out because the idea is first in all forms that give rise to life. Thus we see the unity of faith, tradition, authority dominate and form the true character of our society.

Let us start with the family.

Indissoluble marriage.

Adultery was frightening. Marriage ties were established by family relations, requiring families of the same class. The state of lovers, that is to say, the state of spontaneity and liberty of the heart, was persecuted. Communication between the sexes arouses inclinations, uncovers qualities, and produces new distinctive relations or circumstances that cannot exist from the point of view of authority — so they must be prohibited. Authority and tradition weaken with innovations; hence, the aversion to the new, to fashion, and the hatred of whatever promotes it, and that is why one must live withdrawn and alone. Misanthropic isolation. The door to the street closes early and at the dinner hour. In the evening the rosary is prayed. Social visits, communication, must be declined except with persons one knows very well; sociability does not exist — neither new people nor strangers are admitted. The young woman’s passion must be quieted. Heightened passion is the instrument of instinctive revolution. She is brought to the church, she is dressed in black, in the street her face is covered, she is prevented from greeting, from glancing to the side. She is made to kneel, she must mortify her flesh, and, what is more, the confessor examines her conscience and imposes his unappealable authority on her. The chorus of old women intones the litany of the danger of fashion, of contact, of the social call, of clothes, of looks, and of words. The monastic life, the stupid mysticism of physical suffering, is regarded as agreeable to the Divinity. This is the young woman. The man, although too proud to submit to such slavery, must nevertheless bear its weight. Woe to the young man if he goes home late, if amorous words are heard from him; poor him, if he is caught reading some book that they designate as prohibited, finally, if he strolls, dances, falls in love. The father’s whip or eternal damnation are the curses! There is no reasoning between father and son. After his daily work, he will go to pray the rosary, to the stations of the cross, to the school of Christ, or to hear told the stories of witches, of spirits and purgatories. Imagine the young man of robust constitution, well-fed, impetuous imagination, with some impressions and under the weight of that mountain of worries! Imagine the drama of what he would feel stirring inside him; but we are cold chroniclers.

There we have the family. Education consists of six or eight years of Latin (Lord have mercy), some four of scholastic philosophy, and as many more of theology. If they go beyond the four fundamental principles of arithmetic, it is a lot; if they know what there is on the other side of the Andes, if they know that we move around the sun, it is a lot. The monks and clerics are teachers, and blows, crude insults, or the whip are the means of correction. Observe human dignity!

As men are in the political family called society, so they are in the family. Authority is power, and power is authority. The king is sent by God (rex gratia Dei), he is God’s arm, and the pope the divine intelligence on earth. So — slaves of the governor; the governor, of the king; and the king, of the pope. Man includes nothing beyond this circle. God willed it, “His will be done!” is the final word on questions of liberty. So there are neither citizens nor people. There are slaves and a flock of sheep.

This is the political-monarchical viewpoint. Let us examine the organization at the base of civil society, that is to say, property, and we will discover Chilean feudalism.

The lack of communication and of new needs, the lack of capital shareholdings, the lack of teaching and of the need for artistry, the lack of trade because of the oppressive and exclusionary system, the coercive system, and the exaction of tithes from the work of the poor — these things prevent the rise of a middle class that would pave the way for liberty, as did the bourgeoisie in Europe.

The rich man owns property as did the barbarian of the conquest — by force. The land owner, the hacienda owner, owns land either under protection of the monarch by his monarchical power — that is to say, to the most enslaved and to the one who rules most despotically, the greatest the reward — or by original occupation through the conquest. The rest of the people are the rabble, the unwashed, the vile, who must serve, for there were two Adams (exaltation of pride). Eternal separation — master and servant, rich and poor, proud and humble, nobles and peasants. With neither intellectual nor physical industry, no one will be able to rise except the rich, and as the rich are the land owners and the land owners are the aristocrats, it follows that the ruling class has an interest in monarchical-feudal organization. The rich man or the property owner, so that there might be logic in privilege and caste, must be noble; if he is not, the monarch will ennoble him, selling the titles of count or marquess for cash, or bestowing them as gifts on his favorite subjects. The poor man needs to eat and looks for work. Work can come only from those who have industry or capital. Industry or capital are the land — so the hacienda owners determine who works, whether wages rise or fall. Wealth or privilege can go on for some time without the work of the poor. But hunger does not allow for waiting — so the rich man determines the conditions of salary — and here we have feudal despotism. Intellectual bread — the sermon — makes the unfortunate resign themselves and justifies the established order. Theft is defined as taking away from another what that person possesses, without considering the despotism of the rich. Immediately the tax necessary for maintaining worship falls on the poor.

The priest knows not how to plow

Nor how to yoke an ox,

But by his very own law

Without having to sow he reaps.

When he goes out for a stroll,

He exerts himself little or not;

His income guaranteed,

He sits back and takes his ease.

Going through life with no cares,

No one earns more than the priest.

Here we have the expressive language of the common person, primal literature, the expressive language of despotism. The slavery we have analyzed was logical. Its origins were divine institutions. Absolute monarchy, absolute property, absolute authority of the clergy. The clergy fended off theft and sanctioned disproportionate possession, acquired and preserved without work. In all these things, we see Catholic unity, the society of the Middle Ages. Examine any relationship. See the humiliation of the common person, his servility, his lack of personality. Domestic service — it is not a contract. The servant or serf cannot defend his rights; if he defends them by force or by insult, he commits a crime, a rebellion. How could he prosecute his master before the law? The judge has no jurisdiction over such a claim. The testimony of the poor man has no value; he is not a person. If he avenges himself personally, the whip, prison, confound him. If the master insults him, he bears the insult; the poor man has no honor. Civility, that human treatment without differentiating among persons, does not exist for the common man. He is made to get out of the way on the road, he is made to take off his hat in the street to speak, and “your grace,” “my master” are the only words of his that are heard. Slavery, degradation, here we have the common man! Here we have the past.

God grant that our lines (written with focused indignation) transform themselves into the eternal epitaph of that past and lock away forever the eternal curse that dashes human dignity so long degraded. Let us leave that past, that underworld of crimes, that inferno of sorrows; let us go our into the daylight, let us bathe our faces in the light of the breaking dawn, and let us praise the Divinity, for we are going to speak of revolution.

Source: Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, eds. and trans., Nineteenth-Century Nation Building and the Latin American Intellectual Tradition (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), pp. 104–107. Copyright © 2007 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Questions to Consider