Thomas Paine in Latin-America

Author(s): Alfred Owen Aldridge

Source: Early American Literature, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Winter, 1968/1969), pp. 139-147
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25070376
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139

THOMAS PAINE IN LATIN-AMERICA

Historians in Latin America have devoted considerable

attention to the influence of Thomas Paine on the independ

ence movement against Spain, but have limited themselves
largely to commenting on a single work of major scholarship.
This work is one of the most important in print on early
intellectual relations between North and South America,
the discussion by Pedro Grases and Albert Harkness of a trans
lation in 1811 by Manuel Garcia de Sena of a selection of
Paine's works under the title of La Independencia de la ,
Costa Firme justificada por Tomas Paine treinta anos ha.
One leading historian, Enrique de Gandia, has nevertheless

made the flat declaration that "the influence of Thomas

Paine in the conditions which led to hispanoamerican indep

endence was^absolutely zero. It existed at no time nor at

any place." According to his interpretation of the in

tellectual scene, Paine's political ideas were exactly the

same as those of Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Vitoria, Francisco

Suarez, Juan de Mariana, and above all, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The close resemblance and coincidence between the ideas of

Paine and those of the liberators of Hispanoam?rica, according

to Enrique de Gandia, derived from a common ideological sub
stratum. Paine and the liberators "both had their foundations

in Locke, in Rousseau and without realizing it, in Saint

Thomas." The wide circulation of the de Sena translation,
however, it would seem to be in itself sufficient evidence

to refute the contention of this historian and to show that -

Paine exerted a direct influence upon South American thought.

Until very recently it was generally considered that the

translation of de Sena was the first to be published in

Spanish. A few months ago, however, Colonel Richard Gimbel

of Yale University acquired a copy of a translation of Common
Sense with the title Reflecciones pol?ticas escritas baxo el
titulo de instinto com?n, bearing the imprint Londres 1811.
According to the titlepage, the author is a Peruvian Indian,

Anselmo Nateiu. Before Colonel Gimbel's purchase, a later

edition of this translations with the imprint Lima, Peru, 1821,
was thought to be the first and only edition. This 1821 version
is identical with that of 1811 with the significant exception
that the errata noted at the end of the 1811 edition are
corrected in that of 1821. There seems then no reason to

to doubt the genuineness of the dating of the early edition.

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140

It should be added, on the other hand, that no evidence has

been uncovered to indicate that either edition exerted any
influence in South America.* Although both the de Sena tran

slation and that of Nateiu bear the date 1811 on the title

page, de Sena included in his book a dedication with the date

18 December 1810, uihich may be enough evidence to give his
work priority over that of Nateiu.
Paine1s ideas were disseminated throughout Chile uiithout

the aid of any translation as early as 1812 thanks to the

indefatigable and enthusiastic labor of Camilo Henriquez, who
seems to have known Paine's writings in the original English.

The de Sena translation does not seem to have been known in

Chile until 1816. Among all the literary figures at all

concerned with the independence of Spanish America, Henriquez

is the only one to present a close parallel to Paine. Not

only was he the first to call for an independent Chile, but
he embraced with Paine the ideals of tolerance, free inquiry

and universal education associated with the Enlightenment.

"Voltaire, Rousseau, l?lontesquieu are the apostles of

reason," Henriquez remarked in the paragraph from his

extensive writings which best summarizes his liberal thought.
"They are," he continued, "the ones who have broken the arms
of despotism, those who have elevated indestructible barriers
against the enemy, those who, destroying charters which
had been dictated to weakness by strength in the midst of
the horrors of war, have erased the names of master and slave;

those who have restored to the tiara its regrettably lost

humanity, and those who have thrown into hell intolerance and
fanaticism." Although a Roman Catholic clergyman, familiarly

called "el fraile de la Buena Muerte," Henriquez held religious

ideas bordering on the deism of Paine.

Before discussing in detail the impact which Paine made

upon Henriquez and as a consequence upon the people of Chile,
it is necessary to make a few preliminary observations upon

the various types and degrees of literary influence. Ordinarily

one considers the translator of the works of another writer

as a disciple or a follower of the original writer if the

translation has been performed as a labor of love and is not

mercenary hackwork. A writer may also be considered a disciple

if he directly acknowledges an indebtedness or does so in

directly by frequently quoting or imitating his author. A
writer may be influenced by a preceding author, however, with
out his becoming in either of these senses a disciple: the
influence may either be only moderate in itself or combined
with the influences of so many other authors that its single
force is greatly outweighed by the others. Although major
writers are sometimes so greatly influenced by a single author

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141

that they may properly be classified as his disciples, they

are more likely to come under the influence of so many and

diverse predecessors that no real discipleship exists to any

single one of them. In literary history, this kind of moderate
influence upon a major author is sometimes more significant

than the discipleship of a minor one.

In Latin-America, Paine produced some translators, who amy

justly be called his disciples, but Henriquez hardly belongs

to their number. He never translated more than a few lines

of Paine's works, and he derived his liberal political phil

osophy from a multitude of sources besides Paine. Yet because

of his eminent position as a man of letters and his key role
in the history of Chilean independence, his achievement in
circulating the ideas of Paine below the equator is certainly
as notable as that of Paine's Spanish-American translators.
As a journalist, Henriquez was gifted with the same powers as
Paine to prevail upon his fellow citizens through a lucid,
penetrating and persuasive style to adopt enlightened princ
iples of government. Paine's Spanish-American translators,
on the other hand, were not literary men at all, and their

translations have absolutely no pretense to stylistic ex

cellence.

We shall see that although Paine's influence upon Henriquez's

intellectual development was extensive, the latter referred to
Paine only once in La Aurora de Chile (1812), the first period
ical and first publication of any kind to be produced in Chile,
and twice in the succeeding El Monitor Araucano (1813), the
second periodical published in Chile. In the Aurora, Henriquez
included a brief translation of one paragraph from Paine's
Common Sense. In the Monitor he based one feature article
upon an English sentence from Paine's American Crisis and con
cluded his article with a translation of merely 93 words from

the same source. In a later number he made a further compli

mentary reference to the Crisis. The most remarkable link
between the patriot of North America and the patriot of Chile

is poetical. In a third periodical, Henriquez translated one

of Paine's complete poems under the strange illusion that it

was the national anthem of the United States.

Henriquez probably gained his first knowledge of Paine from

three citizens of the United States who went to Chile expressly
to operate the printing press which produced La Aurora, the

first and only printing press then in the country. It had

been imported as a commerical venture by a naturalized North

American of Swedish descent, Hoevel, who wrote his given names

in the Spanish styls, Mateo Arnaldo. The press had been accom
panied on its voyage from the United States by three printers,
Samuel Burr Johnston, William H. Burbidge, and Simon D. Garrison.
The government bought the press from Hoevel, hired the three

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142

Americans as printers, and engaged Henriquez as editor to publish

an official periodical "para unificar la opinion publica a los

principios del Gobierno." Probably Hoevel or one of the three

printers had a copy of Paine among his possessions, which he

showed to Henriquez.

He learned English thanks in great measure to Hoevel. This

genial man of the world received a number of periodicals from
the United States from which he made translations for Henriquez,

and later he gave English lessons to the dedicated editor. If

we are to believe Henriquez's statement in La Aurora, 9 abril 1812,

two months after the founding of the journal, he learned this
difficult language in record-breaking time: The editor, he
wrote, animated by a fervent desire to please the public and to
earn the confidence of his country, took upon himself the study
of the English language, and in the space of less than a month
qualified himself to translate English newspapers without help.

He added that only the people who know this language would be

able to appreciate the greatness of his labor or the extent of

the fatigue involved. According to Henriquezfs biographer, this
is not vain-glory, but merely a means of giving readers con

fidence in the editor's veracity. It also seems to indicate

that methods of modern language teaching have not actually made

much progress since the early nineteenth century.
An American official, Henry Marie Brackenridge, who met Hen
riquez in Buenos Aires five years later, had the following comment

on his literary and linguistic attainments:

...Henriques, [sic] is a Chilean of considerabel lit

erary acquirements, of a philanthropic turn of mind,

and an enthusiastic admirer of our institutions, which

he has endeavoured to explain to his fellow citizens.

He understands the English language extremely well,

and translates from our newspapers such articles as

are likely to be useful.

Brackenridge's testimony concerning the journaliem of this

period is invaluable in giving us some idea of circulation fig

ures. Information of this kind is extremely difficult to obtain,
and for most early periodicals in both North and South America

is virtually inexistent. Brackenridge tells us that the journals

thousand weekly. Also in reference to the de Sena translation
of Paine's works, he remarked: "I believe these have been

of Buenos Aires in 1817 circulated to the rate of about two

read by nearly all who can read, and have produced a most ex
travagant admiration of the United States, at the same time
accompanied with something like despair."

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143

Less than two months after Henriquez made his statement in

La Aurora concerning his mastery of English, he introduced

Paine's Common Sense to the Chilean public in a lead article

(4 Junio 1812) bearing the title "Exemplo Memorable." Here
he sketched the plight of Boston in the early days of the
Revolution, while it was suffering the hardships of the blockade
and other British efforts to bring it to submission. The great
need of the English coloniee at this time, Henriquez explained,
was that of forming a constitution -- to prove that the con
flict was not brought on by private individuals seeking to
gratify personal ambition, but that it was a struggle between
the Parliament of England and the Congress of America, that
is, a war between two nations. At this point Henriquez turned

to his printed authority:

Common Sense, a work published in those days, helped

them to make up their minds to undertake the revolution.

Among other things, it said: Let our first step be a

constitution which will unite us. This is the moment

to form it. At a later time the project would be ex

posed to an uncertain future and to the caprices of
chance. The task will be more difficult after our

population grows and we become richer. How would it

be possible then to reconcile so many interests and

so many provinces? Men unite themselves through

great tragedies and great fears. It is then that those

great and profound friendships are born which bring

people and their interests together. The genius of

the state is formed by the wandering spirit of the
people, and the extended forces form one whole and
formidable body. Few nations have taken advantage

of the opportune moment to form a government for

themselves. This moment may not return for many

centuries, and failure to act is punished by anarchy

or slavery. Let us take advantage of our unique
moment. We are able to create the most perfect
constitution that the world has ever known. You

have all read in the Holy Books the history of the

human species engulfed by the general inuodation
of the globe, allowing only one family to escape.
It was sent by the Supreme Being to restore the
earth. We are this family, despotism has flooded
everything, and we are able to renovate the world.

Let us in this moment decide the future of a race

of men more numerous perhaps than that of all the

peoples of Europe together. Are we waiting to be

victims of a conqueror? Is the hope of a Union to
be destroyed? Upon us are fixed the eyes of all
future generations, asking us for freedom It is
up to us to decide their destiny. If we disappoint

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144

their hopes, if we commit treason against them, they

will some day drag their chains over our tombs and
curse us.

Immediately after these words, Henriquez added his own equally h

stirring appeal: "Comenzemos declarando muestra independencia,

There is a great mystery involved in the preceding long

quotation -- and this is that it is not, as represented, a

translation of Paine's Common Sense at all -- nor have I been
able to find the passage elsewhere in Paine's works. Did

Henriquez find it in some other American pamphlet and confuse

it with Common Sense? Or did he write it himself and attri

bute it to Paine in order to give it authority? These are

absorbing questions, which perhaps some day will be answered.

But if Paine's exact words do not appear in the alleged

quotation, his concepts do. Indeed virtually every idea in

Henriquez's entire essay may be found somewhere or other in

Common Sense. This circumstance leads to other questions which

can never be answered: did Henriquez acquire his zeal for

independence through reading Paine? or did he merely use

Paine to convince others of a doctrine he had already arrived
at by himself?

A similar mystery exists in regard to Henriquez's use of

The Crisis. Henriquez began the sixty-third number of his
Monitor Araucano with the following epigraph in English:

There [sic] are the times that try men's souls.

Paine. American crisis n. 2.

Apart from the substitution of There for These, which is pro

bably a typographical error, the great puzzle in the epigraph
is why the quotation should be attributed to Crisis No. 2,
when it is universally recognized by all who have read Paine
at all as the opening sentence of the Crisis No. 1. The only
explanation I can offer is that Henriquez assumed that Common
Sense was the first part of The American Crisis, but this is
not very plausible.

In a sense, Henriquez'entire essay is an elaboration of

Paine, for he begins with the opening sentence of Crisis

No. 1 and concludes with its final sentences. Paine is used

as a means of introducing the theme of revolutionary struggle:

The famous Paine, amid the vicissitudes of the

North American Revolution, said "these are the

times that try men's souls." Truly in a Revol

ution everything is revealed to our sight:

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145

talents, virtues, the incapacity of vices, noble

and sublime characters, and the small and rid
iculous beings who sigh because of depression

and the infamy of servitude.

Henriquez's last paragraph, as we have already indicated, con

sists of his translation of the conclusion of the first Crisis.

This translation is rslatively close to its original except

for the softening beyond all recognition one of Paine's

forthright and original thrusts -- the dire prediction that
unless the Americans wejre victorious in battle they would

have their "homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for

Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we

shall doubt of." Henriquez's "una posteridad infame" hardly

conveys the same idea. Probably the traditional Spanish
reticence toward treating sexual matters in print rather than
failure to understand Paine's English explains the discrepancy.

One month later in an article on the need for joint action

of all the American peoples against the European powere, Hen
riquez again paraphrased Paine in calling for the organization
of constitutional government in all the American dountries.

These sovereign and legislative bodies are the

only ones able to commission plenipotentiaries,
and in order for them to do this it is indispensable
that everyone realize that they are free and

legitimately constituted. The following sec

tion of the precious work of Thomas Paine en

titled The American Crisis gives great support
to what has already been said. The continent
runs the risk of being ruined if it does not
soon organize and declare its independence.

The importance of this article is not in a particular quotation

or translation, but. in the implication that Paine's ideas had
stimulated Henriquez's own thinking.

Henriquez published his translation of Paine's poem, already

mentioned, in a new periodical El Semanario, 10 November 1813.

Entitled "HAIL GREAT REPUBLIC OF THE WORLD," it is not very

distinguished verss, but labored, conventional and amateurish.

It was originally published in a miscellaneous collection en

titled Tom Paine's Jests (Philadelphia, 1796) and never re
printed until the twentieth century. Henriquez probably ob

tained a hand-written copy from some traveler from the United

States -- otherwise he would have given the author's name and
been saved from the colossal blunder of describing it as the

national anthem.

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146

Following is the first stanza of Paine's original poem:

Hail great Republic of the world,
Which rear'd her empire in the West,

Where fam'd Columbus' flag unfurl'd,

Gave tortured Europe scenes of rest;
Be thou forever great and free,
The land of Love and Liberty!

And here is Henriquez' title and first stanza:

VERSION LIBRE DEL C?NTICO NACIONAL DE ESTADOS UNIDOS
"HAIL GREAT REPUBLIC OF THE WORLD"

AL PUEBLO DE BUENOS AIRES

Salve, gloria del mundo, Rep?blica naciente

Vuela a ser el imperio mas grande de occidente,
Oh Patria de hombres libres, suelo de libertad!
So far as I know, this is the only poem by Paine ever to be
translated into any language. And, as we have seen, Henriquez
himself probably did not know that Paine was the original author.

Yet Paine's poem and Henriquez's translation faithfully

symbolize the progressive political philosophy wbich both men

represented. For both Paine and Henriquez, the spirit of the

Enlightenment charted the road to political progress in the

western hemisphere.

Alfred Owen Aldridge

University of Illinois

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147
NOTES

Manuel Garcia de Sena ? La Independencia de America.

Publicaciones^ de la Secretaria General de la Decima Conferencia

Interamericana. Colecci?n Historia (Caracas, 1953).

Following are works touching on Paine:

Ricardo Donoso, Las ideas pol?ticas en Chile (Mexico, 1946)

Ricardo Levene, "Notas sobre la independencia de Estados
Unidos y su repercusi?n en Hispano-America," Mercurio Peruano,
numero 333 (Lima, 1954), pp. 963-973.
Pedro Grases, "Nuevos datos sobre Manuel Garcia de Sena,"
Cultura Universitaria, numero 46 (Caracas, 1954), pp. 14-17.

Ricardo Levene, "Notas sobre el constitucionalismo lib

ertador y la revoluci?n hispanoamerican de 1810," Libro
jubilar de Emeterio Si. Santovenia en su cincuentenario de

escritorTHabana, 1957), pp, 317-323.

Ricardo Levene, "El constitucionalismo de Mariano Moreno

y la emancipaci?n americana," Historia, III, numero 11

(Buenos Aires, 1958), pp. 53-71.

Pedro Grases, "Traducciones de inter?s politico cultural

en la ?poca de la independencia de Venezuela," El movimiento
emancipador en Hispano-America Actos ^ ponencias. II

(Caracas, 1961), pp. 105-158.

2

"La influencia de Tomas Paine en la emancipaci?n hispano

americana," Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Publicaci?n
Bimestral, XIX (1954), p. 216. Repeated in: Historia de las

ideas pol?ticas en la Argentina. Tomo I: Las ideas pol?ticas

en la epqca hispana-("Buenos Aires, 1960), p. 407.

See also: A. 0. Aldridge, "The Influence of Thomas Paine

in the United States, England, France, Germany and South

America," Comparative Literature. Proceedings of the ICLA

Congress (Chapel Hill, 1959), II, pp. 369-383.

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