Antonio Bachiller Morales

University professor, journalist, historian, legal expert, bibliographer and prominent Americanist. He dedicated many years to studies of pre-Columbian America, and was one of the most notable contributors to the study of Bibliography in Cuba and Latin America. A notable writer and bibliographer, in whose honor the Librarian's Day is celebrated on this date.

This erudite researcher is responsible for the first serious and methodical effort on the process of letters and culture in Cuba, as well as the first attempt at national bibliography when he published in three volumes "Notes for the History of Letters and Public Education on the Island of Cuba".

Antonio Bachiller y Morales suffered reprisals and abuse from the Spanish government, which forced him to go abroad. Upon his return he was a member of important national and foreign institutions, and developed intense journalistic and literary work.

His uncle Dr. Rafael Bachiller y Mena was an oidor of the Audiencia of Guadalajara in Mexico and author of an instruction published in the memoirs of the Royal Economic Society of La Habana.

Other prominent relatives were Dr. Rafael del Castillo y Sucre, orator, José del Castillo, editor of the Patriota Americano (a newspaper praised by Alejandro de Humboldt), Andrés de Arango, José de Arango and Anastasio Carrillo Arango, renowned for their writings and patriotism, as well as his grandson, Dr. Raimundo de Castro y Bachiller, who was a full professor of Legal Medicine at the University of La Habana, president of the Literature, History and Fine Arts section of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country and secretary of the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana in 1942.

Studies

He studied at the San Carlos Seminary, and starting in 1928 he studied Logic, Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy at the royal and pontifical University of La Habana, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in Laws in 1832. Two years later he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Canon Law, and in 1837 he earned his licentiate in Canon Law. The following year he achieved his law degree in Puerto Príncipe, the current city of Camagüey, before the court of that locality's audiencia.

Hardworking and erudite Cuban publicist, he stood out for his contributions to the investigation of aspects of the history of America before discovery, as reflected in his works American Antiquities and Primitive Cuba. He also provided important services to university teaching and to Philosophy.

Liberal in politics and an advocate for the moral unity of races, Bachiller y Morales had to emigrate with his family to the United States following the Events of the Teatro Villanueva and the Café del Louvre, having become suspect to Spanish authorities. From that country, where he remained between 1869 and 1878, he wrote letters to the Mexican newspaper El Siglo XIX, in which he recounted aspects of the Ten Years' War.

He died in La Habana. Upon his death, Martí described him as: "passionate American, exemplary chronicler, expert philologist, famous archaeologist, diligent philosopher, kind teacher, just lawyer, diligent man of letters and pride of Cuba"

His work: Notes for the History of Letters and Public Education on the Island of Cuba, published between 1859 and 1861, is one of the most important contributions to the study of Hispanic American bibliography and to the analysis of the progress achieved by civilization in Cuba. He also made significant contributions with his writings of socioeconomic character regarding the slave trade, free commerce and agricultural problems on the Island.

His works appeared in almost all Cuban publications of that era, as well as those of the United States, during the years he resided in that country (1869-1878); among them stands out a notable article titled Cuba, which was written for the American encyclopedia Appleton.

Main Honors Awarded

During his lifetime he received numerous scientific distinctions, among which stood out being nominated on two occasions as a merit member of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, as well as honorary member, later on. In 1845 he was appointed corresponding member of the Academy of Antiquarians of Northern Europe, and was also a merit member of the Society of Anthropology of Cuba.

Among the positions he held throughout his life are: secretary of the education section of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country in 1838, as well as president of the Anthropological Society of La Habana and director of the Chair of Political Economy of the aforementioned Economic Society in 1841.

He was a member of prestigious scientific institutions such as the Archaeological Society of Madrid, the Historical Society of New York, the Economic Society of Puerto Rico and the Matritense Archaeological Society. He taught as a professor of Religion and Natural Law at the San Carlos Seminary, starting in 1836. He was a professor of political economy at the Institute of Secondary Education of La Habana, beginning in 1863, where he became director in 1868. He was also dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of La Habana.

With these words José Martí drew a portrait of Antonio Bachiller y Morales, following the death of this Cuban intellectual. They appeared on January 24, 1889 in El Avisador Hispanoamericano, a publication with which Martí collaborated during his long exile.

For those inside and outside the island who yearned for the moment to restart the independence campaign, the judgment of the Apostle struck deep, as it highlighted the value of a man who had worked for the culture of a Homeland that moved from possibility to certainty. And with even greater depth came the following Martian consideration: "(...) more than for that amazing industriousness, key and auxiliary of all his other virtues; more than for those shelves of knowledge that made his mind capable, like an Alexandrian library (...), Bachiller was notable because when he could have abandoned his country or followed it in the crisis that his peaceful character, his generous philosophy, his complacency with dignities, his distrust of enterprise, his habits of a rich man had left it unprepared for, he left his marble house with its fountains and flowers, and his books, and with no more wealth than his wife, he came to live with honor, where glances do not greet, and the sun does not warm the old, and snow falls".

He referred in this way to the ethical attitude of a man compelled to abandon his land and take refuge in the United States shortly after the horrendous events of the Teatro Villanueva in 1869. Bachiller was far from being a man of action. His intellectual personality fit the figure of the scholar exclusively committed to the preservation and accumulation of knowledge. Born on June 7, 1812, Antonio Bachiller y Morales belonged to a family of considerable resources, established in the colonial order. In keeping with his social origin, he studied at the San Carlos Seminary, devoted himself to teaching, became involved with the Economic Society of Friends of the Country and was elected councilman of the Havana administration.

But frightened by the violence unleashed by colonial authorities against the mambisa insurgency and its sympathizers, he signed a document in which he proposed an autonomous solution to the situation. And this was not forgiven by the metropolitan government.

Bachiller is considered the father of Cuban bibliography. He registered and organized from their origins to the middle of the nineteenth century the books and printed works published on the island. He saved and organized the minutes of the Havana Cabildo. His encyclopedic interests inspired him to address the most diverse aspects of Cuban social, economic and cultural life.

It is therefore fitting that every June 7, in his honor, the Day of the Cuban Librarian is celebrated and recognition is given to all those who contribute to preserving, investigating or promoting the memory of a resistant and continuously evolving identity, essential for being and acting in favor of the conquests of the Homeland.