Spanish Colony, 1536-1811 1870-1918







Paraguay 1811-1870



In 1811, Spanish rule in Paraguay was terminated, to be succeeded by a chain of dictators ruling the country in the following decades, JOSE GASPAR RODRIGUEZ FRANCIA (1811-1840), CARLOS ANTONIO LOPEZ (1842-1862) and the latter's son, FRANCISCO SOLANO LOPEZ.
Francia (1811-1840), after having secured Paraguayan independence in a conflict with Argentina, pursued a policy of strict isolation; foreigners were barred from entering the country. The dominating political stream was ANTICLERICALISM; relations with the Vatican were cut.
His successor Carlos A. Lopez opened the country; under him a Europeanization took place.
Paraguay meanwhile was regarded a backward country. Francisco Solano Lopez in 1865 provoked a war in which the small, thinly populated country faced a coalition consisting of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Although the Paraguayan army held out against numerically superior and better equipped forces, the result was a disaster. Paraguay lost more than half of it's population. The war ended in 1870; only about 28,000 Paraguayan men are said to have survived it.

Domestically, Paraguay, under Dictator Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, underwent a radical social restructuring. Garcia was regarded as honest, just, modest; the changes implemented transformed Paraguay from a colonial society into a nation. The cohesion thus prepared enabled Paraguay to hold out in the war against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay 1865-1870.
In Paraguay, large estates (haziendas) were almost non-existent. The state was the largest landowner who rented land to farmers. Schools were established in every village, the Catholic Church nationalized.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		Articles from infoplease : Paraguay, Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, Carlos Antonio Lopez, Francisco Solano Lopez
Articles from Catholic Encyclopedia : Paraguay
The U.S. War With Paraguay 1858-1859, by Robert C. Kennedy
DOCUMENTS Revolution in Paraguay: pp. 444-478 in The North American Review Vol.26 No.59, 1828, posted by Cornell Digital Library
The Republic of Paraguay; Since the Death of the Dictator Francia, pp.245-260 in The American Whig Review Vol.6 No.3, 1847, posted by Cornell Digital Library
S.G. Bulfinch, Paraguay, and the Present War, from The North American Review Vol.109 No.225, pp.510-544, 1869, posted by Cornell Digital Library
General M.T. McMahon, Paraguay and her Enemies, in , Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol.40 No.37 pp.421-430, Feb. 1870; General M.T. McMahon, The War in Paraguay, from Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol.40 No.39 pp.633-647, Apr. 1870, posted by Cornell Digital Library
W. Gracie, General Gazetteer 1823 : Paraguay, has it as an extensive government of the vice royalty of Buenos Ayres - not as an independent republic
REFERENCE Paraguay's Autonomous Revolution, from : Latin America : A Concise, Interpretive History, by E. Bradford Burns, pp.76-77
John Gunther : A Semi-Affectionate Look at Paraguay, in : John Gunther, Inside South America, NY : Harper & Row 1964, pp.238-256



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on November 5th 2004

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