Bergaño y Villegas, Simón (1784–1828)

Simón Bergaño y Villegas (b. 1784; d. 1828), Guatemalan journalist. Bergaño y Villegas was born in Escuintla, Guatemala. Biographers think that, due to his limited economic resources, he was self-educated. Owing to an accident in his youth, he had to use crutches throughout his life and had to spend much time in a wheelchair.

Bergaño y Villegas was both an excellent journalist and a poet. From 1804 to 1807 he edited the Gazeta de Guatemala, which, at the time, was a sixteen-page weekly containing the writings of various intellectuals. Bergaño y Villegas's encyclopedic knowledge made his writings a threat to the conservative ideas of the time. Some of his writings in the Gazeta de Guatemala appeared under the pseudonym Bergoñer de Segiliú. Nevertheless he was tried for his writings by the Inquisition in 1808 and sentenced to exile in Spain. He was taken to Havana, where he fell ill and spent several months in a hospital, thus evading transport to Spain. In Cuba he founded the periodical Correo de las Damas (1811), which was shut down by the bishop of Havana. In 1812 he founded the Diario Cívico. He died in Havana.

See alsoJournalismxml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Salomón Carrillo Ramírez, El poeta Villegas, precursor de la independencia de Centro América, 2d ed. (1960).

Carlos C. Haeussler Yela, Diccionario general de Guatemala (1983), vol. 1, pp. 235-236.

José A. Mobil, 100 personajes históricos de Guatemala (1991), pp. 142-144.

                          Oscar G. PelÁez Almengor