1st half of Facundo

After reading these first chapters, I realized I don't know much about this subject. i did find the first chapters a bit dry for my liking. (sorry my computer had to restart, so now I'm continuing!) however, the first four chapters helped me understand chapter 5 explaining the life of Facundo. i am eager to continue reading to learn more about the life of Facundo.
when talking about poetry in chapter 2, i found it interesting how it talks about how, no matter what the race, origin, or location of a certain people, their natural instincts seem to be the same, as proven in the examples of the different writings, and the assumption of the reader as to what was going to happen next. (this was on page 60). in anthropology i have learned that common sense can, and usually is unique to different cultures and races, so it really stuck out to mean that in this case, it proves that some basic ideas are universal to most cultures. it seems as though these examples are cases in which the character is in great danger, and perhaps that is when human instincts are universal.
i did like how clearly barbarism and civilization where described, although i did not like how they were defined. it just makes me cringe when the indigenous people are negatively labeled, the the "white Europeans" are labeled as superior and "civilized", but i know this is important in what Sarmiento was trying show in his writing.