Bartolomé Mitre y Vedia

Bartolomé Mitre y Vedia, often called Bartolito, was the journalist son of President Bartolomé Mitre and Delfina Vedia. Born in Montevideo in 1845 during his parents' exile, he later studied law in Buenos Aires. He entered diplomatic work as a young man in Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's American legation, a posting that also supplied material for his writing. ¹

From the United States he contributed reports and translations to the Buenos Aires weekly Correo del Domingo, including American demographic information and the novel Oakland o Las guerrillas del Shenandoah. He also took charge of the legation during Sarmiento’s absences. On 9 July 1867, acting on his government’s instructions, he rejected American mediation in the Paraguayan War and challenged the conduct of U.S. diplomats in the Río de la Plata. Sarmiento again named him chargé ad interim in a letter to William Seward on 8 July 1868, before leaving for Argentina. ^{2, 3, 4, 5}

Mitre y Vedia later became an editor of La Nación, directing the newspaper between 1882 and 1893 in alternation with his brother Emilio. His work ranged from political journalism to comic sketches and translations; he used the names Argos and Claudio Caballero and wrote the column A la pesca de noticias. He died in April 1900. A posthumous collection, Páginas serias y humorísticas, appeared the following year. ¹