A Scientific Explanation. The Wheigth of Theory in El Centinela Español in time of the Porfiriato

Abstract

The Newspaper El Centinela Español was an organ of the press, founded and directed by Telesforo Garcia, a notable figure of the Spanish colony in Mexico during the last quarter of the 19th century. Its central objectives were the defense and legitimation of the political order of the Porfiriato and, in turn, of the Spanish conquest and colonization of Mexico, as a way of combatting the growing Hispanophobia that Mexican society was experiencing. The arguments used were the positivist conceptions of society and an evolutionist vision that found its justifications in the historical context and in the theory of the survival of the “fittest”, marking the distinction for the Spanish case, in which the indigenous population was protected from its “inexorable destiny”: its disappearance and extermination by the “stronger races”.