Background
Barros Arana was of Basque descent. He was born in Santiago, on August 16, 1830.
Diplomat legislator minister professor
Barros Arana was of Basque descent. He was born in Santiago, on August 16, 1830.
Barros Arana originally studied for a legal career but gave up the law to pursue his interests in history and literature.
His first historical work in 1850 was followed by numerous writings treating the history of Chile and America in general. After a trip to Europe, he proposed a plan for the complete reorganization of Chilean education and wrote many textbooks.
In 1859 the Chilean government exiled him for writing articles critical of the government. While in exile he visited Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro, where he collected historical data, and he later did the same in France, England, and Spain. He was one of the first Latin-American historians to explore the rich Spanish archives, in which he discovered an important 16th-century poem about the Spaniards’ wars against the Araucanian Indians. In 1863 Barros Arana was allowed to return to Chile, and he subsequently served as a dean of the humanities faculty at the University of Santiago and as Chilean ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.
In 1892, he became rector of the University of Chile. His principal historical works are Historia general de la independencia de Chile (1854 - 1858), Compendio de historia de America (1865), and Historia general de Chile (1884 - 1902). He died Nov. 4, 1907, in Santiago.