Paraguay (country)

F

Local Government

Paraguay is divided into 17 departments (provinces), plus the capital district of Asunción. Fourteen of the departments are in Paraguay proper: Alto Paraná, Amambay, Caaguazú, Caazapá, Canendiyú, Central, Concepción, Cordillera, Guairá, Itapúa, Misiones, Ñeembucú, Paraguarí, and San Pedro. Three of the departments are in the Gran Chaco: Alto Paraguay, Boquerón, and Presidente Hayes. The departments are divided into districts, which are subdivided into municipalities and rural districts. 

VI

History

The aborigines of Paraguay were Native Americans of various tribes collectively known as Guaraní because of their common language. They were numerous when the country was visited, probably about 1525, by the Portuguese explorer Alejo García. During the next few years Italian navigator Sebastian Cabot, then in the service of Spain, partly explored the rivers of the country.

A

Spanish Settlement

On August 15, 1537, Spanish adventurers seeking gold established a fort on the Paraguay River, calling it Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (Our Lady of the Assumption), because that day was the feast day honoring the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Colonial Paraguay and the territory of present-day Argentina were ruled jointly until 1620, when they became separate dependencies of the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Beginning about 1609, the Jesuits, working under great hardship, established many missions called reducciones, which were settlements of Native American converts, whom the missionaries educated. The communal life on these settlements was similar to the original life of the Native Americans. Granted almost complete freedom from civil and ecclesiastical local authorities, the Jesuits, through the missions, became the strongest power in the colony. In 1750 King Ferdinand VI of Spain, by the Treaty of Madrid, ceded Paraguayan territory including seven reducciones to Portugal, and the Jesuits incited a Guaraní revolt against the transfer. In 1767 the missionaries were expelled from Spanish America, including Paraguay; soon thereafter, the missions were deserted.

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In 1776 Spain created the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, which comprised present-day Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia. Paraguay became an unimportant border dependency of Buenos Aires, the capital of the Viceroyalty, and sank gradually into relative insignificance until the early 19th century.

B

Independence

Paraguay proclaimed its independence on May 14, 1811. Three years later José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia made himself dictator and ruled absolutely until his death in 1840. Fearing that Paraguay might fall prey to stronger Argentina, Francia dictated a policy of national isolation. In the administrative reorganization following the dictator’s death, his nephew Carlos Antonio López became the leading political figure. In 1844 López became president and dictator. He reversed the isolationist policy, encouraged commerce, instituted many reforms, and began building a railroad. Under his rule the population of Paraguay rose to more than 1 million.

C

Ruinous War

At his death in 1862 López was succeeded by his son, Francisco Solano López. Solano López, who had been educated in France and mimicked Napoleon I, began training the largest fighting force in South America. In 1865, looking to build an empire, he led the nation into a war against an alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The war devastated Paraguay, and when the death of López in 1870 ended the conflict, more than half of the population had been killed, including two-thirds of the adult males. The economy had been destroyed, and agricultural activity was at a standstill. Territorial losses exceeded 142,500 sq km (55,000 sq mi). The country was occupied by a Brazilian army until 1876, and the peace treaties imposed heavy indemnities on the country. In 1878 President Rutherford B. Hayes of the United States was arbiter in the settlement of boundaries between Argentina and Paraguay. The boundary dispute was settled in Paraguay’s favor. Most of the land that Paraguay gained as a result of the settlement is in the Gran Chaco, and Paraguay named a province in the Chaco Presidente Hayes after the arbiter of the dispute.

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