The Capitalist Payador: Hilario Ascasubi's Aniceto el Gallo

This article examines Hilario Ascasubi's gazette Aniceto el Gallo (1853-1859), a significant work of gauchesca literature published during Argentina's post-Rosas period. The author analyzes how Ascasubi, writing from Montevideo exile, used the gaucho dialect and popular verse forms to advance a political and economic agenda supporting Justo José de Urquiza and the Argentine Confederation against Buenos Aires.The study reveals Ascasubi as more than a literary figure, positioning him as an active participant in Buenos Aires' modernization and capitalist development. Through close reading of Ascasubi's correspondence and the fourteen issues of Aniceto el Gallo, the article demonstrates how the work shifted from the militant anti-Rosas rhetoric of Paulino Lucero to focus on financial matters, commercial development, and the material conditions affecting soldiers and the general populace. The analysis shows Ascasubi's involvement in business ventures, financial speculation, and urban development, arguing that his writing reflected emerging capitalist concerns in mid-nineteenth-century Buenos Aires society and represented a form of self-promotion within elite social circles.