History of Paraguay
After Dr. Francia's death in 1840, Paraguay eventually came under the rule of Francisco Solano Lopez in 1862, who proceeded to embroil the nation in wars against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay which culminated in a Paraguayan defeat with massive population and territorial losses.
[1][needs update] The homeland of the Guarani people was eastward from the Paraguay River, in the Misiones Province of Argentina and southern Brazil and as far east as the Atlantic coast near Rio de Janeiro.
[9][10] Leaving a small force on the northern shore of the broad estuary, Cabot proceeded up the Río Paraná for about 160 kilometres (99 mi), where he founded a settlement he named Sancti Spiritu.
Choosing what was possibly the worst site for the first Spanish settlement in South America, in February 1536 Mendoza built a fort at a place of poor anchorage on the southern side of the Plata estuary on an inhospitable dead-level plain.
Accompanied by Domingo Martínez de Irala, Ayolas again sailed upstream until he reached a small bay on the Río Paraguay, which he named Candelaria, the present-day Fuerte Olimpo.
[19][20] In addition to recurrent epidemics, the Guaraní were threatened by the slave-raiding Bandeirantes from Brazil, who captured natives and sold them as slaves to work in sugar plantations or as concubines and household servants.
[22] "By means of religion," wrote the 18th century philosopher d'Alembert, "the Jesuits established a monarchical authority in Paraguay, founded solely on their powers of persuasion and on their lenient methods of government.
By outwitting porteño diplomats in the negotiations that produced the Treaty of 11 October 1811, in which Argentina implicitly recognized Paraguayan independence in return for vague promises of a military alliance, Francia proved that he possessed skills crucial to the future of the country.
Although some commentators have compared him to the Jacobin Maximilien de Robespierre (1758–1794),[36][37] Francia's policies and ideas perhaps were closest to those of François-Noël Babeuf, the French utopian who wanted to abolish private property and to communalize land as a prelude to founding a "republic of equals".
The government of Caraí Guazú ("Great Señor", as the poor Guaranís called Francia) was a dictatorship that destroyed the power of the colonial élite and advanced the interests of common Paraguayans.
One of Francia's special targets was the Roman Catholic Church, which had provided an essential support to Spanish rule by spreading the doctrine of the "divine right of kings" and inculcating the native masses with a resigned fatalism about their social status and economic prospects.
After a few days, a junta led by Manuel Antonio Ortiz emerged, freed some political prisoners, arrested Francia's secretary Polycarpo Patiño, and soon proved itself ineffectual at governing.
[40] "As British and other foreign technicians poured into the country, they were set to work almost entirely on the creation of a military–industrial complex, and the greatest project of the era was a huge, sprawling fortress of Humaitá, the 'Sevastopol of the Americas'.
They portrayed him as a tragic figure caught in a web of Argentine and Brazilian duplicity who mobilized the nation to repulse its enemies, holding them off heroically for five bloody, horror-filled years until Paraguay was finally overrun and prostrate.
Even after conscripting every able-bodied male, including children as young as ten, and forcing women to perform all nonmilitary labor, Solano López still could not field an army as large as those of his enemies.
This was followed by negotiations between the Allied countries who put aside some of more controversial points of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance and on 11 June an agreement was reached with Paraguayan opposition figures that a three-man provisional government would be established.
[44] In the decade following the war, the principal political conflicts within Paraguay reflected the Liberal-Colorado split, with Legionnaires battling Lopiztas (ex-followers of Solano López) for power, while Brazil and Argentina maneuvered in the background.
His accession to power is notable because he brought political stability, founded the Colorado Party in 1887 to regulate the choice of Presidents and the distribution of spoils, and began a process of economic reconstruction.
Desperate for cash because of heavy debts incurred in London in the early postwar period, the Colorados lacked a source of funds except through the sale of the state's vast holdings, which comprised more than 95% of Paraguay's total land.
Laissez-faire Liberal policies had permitted a handful of hacendados to exercise almost feudal control over the countryside, while peasants had no land and foreign interests manipulated Paraguay's economic fortunes.
As diplomats from Argentina, the United States, and the League of Nations conducted fruitless "reconciliation" talks, Colonel José Félix Estigarribia, Paraguay's deputy army commander, ordered his troops into action against Bolivian positions early in 1931.
People who suspected that the Liberals had learned nothing from their term out of office soon had proof: a peace treaty signed with Bolivia on 21 July 1938, fixed the final boundaries behind the Paraguayan battle lines.
A non-party dictator without a large body of supporters, Morínigo survived politically – despite many plots against him – because of his astute handling of an influential group of young military officers who held key positions of power.
Moríñigo's intentions about stepping down were unclear, however, and he maintained a de facto alliance with Colorado Party hardliners and their right-wing Guión Rojo (Red Banner) paramilitary group led by Juan Natalico Gonzalez, which antagonized and terrorized the opposition.
The Chaco War had sparked the February Revolution, which signaled the end of Liberal rule and ushered in a revived Paraguayan nationalism that revered the dictatorial past of the López era.
Foreign exchange earnings from electricity sales to Brazil soared, and the newly employed Paraguayan workforce stimulated domestic demand, bringing about a rapid expansion in the agricultural sector.
Some estimate that the volume of smuggling was three times the official export figure, and Stroessner used some of that money, as well as slices of major infrastructure works and the delivery of land, to buy the loyalty of his officers, many of whom amassed huge fortunes and large estates.
[citation needed] Oviedo became the Colorado candidate for president in the 1998 election, but when the Supreme Court of Paraguay upheld in April his conviction on charges related to the 1996 coup attempt, he was not allowed to run and remained in confinement.
[56] On 1 July 2005, the United States reportedly deployed troops and aircraft to the large military airfield of Mariscal Estigarribia as part of a bid to extend control of strategic interests in the Latin American sphere, particularly in Bolivia.
[60] Outgoing President Nicanor Duarte reflected on the defeat and hailed the moment as the first time in the history of his nation that a government handed power to opposition forces in an orderly and peaceful fashion.
