gaucho, cowboy of the Argentine and Uruguayan pampas (grasslands). The typical gaucho, a familiar figure in the 18th and 19th cent., was a daring, skillful horseman and plainsman. As fighters, revolutionary soldiers, and campaigners in frequent internal struggles, they played a significant role in national life. They were an especially strong political force in the early years of the Argentine republic. Gaucho support of the federalists was instrumental in overthrowing the government of Juan Martín de Pueyrredón and in bringing to power such caudillos as Juan Facundo Quiroga and Juan Manuel de Rosas. The immigration of large numbers of European farmers to the Pampa in the late 19th cent. marked the beginning of the gaucho's gradual disappearance. The payador, a wandering minstrel of the plain, was a type of gaucho. An extensive gaucho literature was developed in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. Most notable are the epic poems Martín Fierro (1872) and La Vuelta de Martín Fierro (1879), by Argentine José Hernández, and the novel Don Segundo Sombra (1926), by Argentine Ricardo Güiraldes. Rural inhabitants of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil are also called gaúchos.

Latin American poetic genre that imitates the payadas (“ballads”) traditionally sung to guitar accompaniment by wandering gaucho minstrels of Argentina and Uruguay. By extension, the term includes the body of Latin American prose literature about the gaucho way of life and philosophy. Long a part of folk literature, gaucho lore became a subject of 19th-century Romantic verse, as well as prose that often explores themes of conflict between the old and the new.

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Any of the nomadic and colourful horsemen of the Argentine and Uruguayan Pampas, who remain folk heroes famed for hardiness and lawlessness. Gauchos flourished from the mid 18th to the mid 19th century. At first they rounded up the herds of horses and cattle that roamed freely on the vast grasslands east of the Andes. In the early 19th century they fought in the armies that defeated the Spanish colonial regime and then for the caudillos who jockeyed for power after independence. Argentine writers have celebrated the gauchos, and gaucho literature is an important part of the Latin American cultural tradition.

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