Mary Peabody Mann and the Translation of South American Politics

Abstract

Standing on the Central Wharf of Boston harbor in early December, 1833, Mary Tyler Peabody contemplated the vast ocean that was about to take her and her sickly sister Sophia to a faraway island. It was a cool day, and the spirits of the accompanying family were dampened by the realization that they might never see Mary or—more likely—Sophia again. Their destination was Cuba, increasingly the haven for New Englanders suffering from the North American maladies of both climate and century. The sisters had been preparing for this trip, reading about Cuba and learning Spanish, but their main objective was to find a cure for Sophia’s ailments. Mary would assist her and also teach the children of their hosts. Little did Mary know that this trip, and the eighteen months that she spent on the island with her sister, would establish the foundations of one of the most remarkable cultural bridges ever built between the United States and Spanish America.

The vast plains of Buenos Aires are populated solely by Christian savages, known by the name of guachos [sic] whose principal furnishings are horses’ skulls, whose food is raw meat and water, and whose favorite pastime is racing horses until they burst. Unfortunately, they preferred national independence over our cottons and muslins.

—Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1827)

The name of Mary Mann has resonated more than once in sympathetic Argentine ears, because the prestige of her husband, the apostle of primary education, and her translation of Civilización y Barbarie under the title Life in the Argentine Republic, make her a patroness of our educational institutions and our literature.

—Domingo Faustino Sarmiento to Samuel Alberú, 1887¹