Neighborly Lessons: From Afro-Brazil to Afro-Paraguay

25 Pages·2009·0.13 MB·English

Neighborly Lessons: From Afro-Brazil to Afro-Paraguay
By
Lawrence Crockett

1/22/09
Introduction
In 2003, three Afro-Paraguayans—Claudelino, Victor, and Patricio—and I met in front of
a church located just outside of Embosada’s city limits to form a youth group, eventually
named La Misión de Descendientes Afros. We mutually agreed that Paraguayans, more
specifically Emboscadeños, lacked adequate knowledge of the historical and current
presence of Afro-descendants in Emboscada, Paraguay. Thus, our mission was to
investigate the history of the freed blacks that had arrived to Emboscada during the early
1720s1 and their involvement in the founding of Pueblo de Los Pardos Libres de San
Agustin de la Emboscada under Don Rafael de la Moneda from 1741 to 1740.2
Moreover, we hoped that our investigation would spur a sense of pride in Emboscada’s
African heritage among Emboscadeños and especially among those of African descent.
Although our intentions were noble, our investigation revealed that we lacked an
in-depth understanding of the ideology behind Paraguay’s racial formation, and how that
ideology subsequently eliminated the African identity from Paraguayan society. From
daily interactions with other Paraguayans and presentations before non-governmental
organizations and government officials, it was apparent that communities of Afro-
descendants were invisible to the rest of Paraguay. NGOs and government officials,
particularly, were baffled to hear that Afro-Paraguayan communities existed.
Additionally, we realized that history alone was insufficient in revealing those
linkages of African roots from the past to present-day Paraguay. Thus, we desired to
establish a coalition of Afro-Paraguayan groups to affirm the presence of an African
heritage in Paraguayan society. Even that was problematic because we were not aware of
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all the communities that embraced an Afro-Paraguayan identity, prompting the question:
how do we effectively organize Afro-Paraguayans to create public awareness, and
subsequently fair treatment of an African identity in Paraguay?
In hindsight, a crucial component absent from our mobilization was a paradigm:
a black social movement that resisted and challenged a country’s ideology and social
exclusion of Afro-descendants. To find this paradigm, Afro-Paraguayans need to look no
further than their neighbors: Afro-Brazilians. The organization and mobilization of
Afro-Brazilians has fostered a political identity that has influenced Brazilian legislators to
consider and implement, to some degree, public policies geared towards the
socioeconomic inclusion of blacks. An extensive examination of the Afro-Brazilian
movement would provide vital information—lessons learned—to Afro-Paraguayans as
far as influencing the Paraguayan institution to acknowledge its treatment of blacks and
make policies that address the socioeconomic disparities experienced by Afro-
Paraguayans.
Accordingly, this paper examines those lessons that Afro-Paraguayans could draw
from Afro-Brazilians. Before discussing those lessons, I will compare and contrast the
historical differences between Afro-Paraguayans and Afro-Brazilians. Politically, both
Paraguay and Brazil experienced dictatorships. For the purpose of this paper, I will focus
more on the Paraguayan dictatorships of Dr. José Gaspar Francia (El Supremo), and the
Brazilian dictatorships of Getúlio Dornelles Vargas and the military regime. These
dictatorships illuminate the ideology utilized to racially form their respective nation-
states.
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After discussing political histories, the paper will examine the social impacts that
the dictatorships had on black existence in Paraguay and Brazil. Beyond the 1800s, Afro-
Paraguayans have been extinguished from Paraguayan historical records; as a result, their
current existence in Paraguayan society is invisible. In contrast to Afro-Paraguayans,
Afro-Brazilians remain visible throughout Brazilian history to the present, but they are
simultaneously socially included and excluded from Brazilian society. Both countries,
however, cling to ironic notions that racial discrimination is nonexistent and that
everyone is a citizen on the nation-state, forming one cultural identity: Brazilian and
Paraguayan.
The discussion will then shift from the social aspects to a discourse on the Afro-
Brazilian Movement. I emphasize some of the main achievements of the movement:
particularly, championing a dialogue on race in Brazil’s political arena. Not only the
achievements but also the failures of the Afro-Brazilian movement provide examples that
Afro-Paraguayans could draw from and apply to their own eventual social movement.
Ultimately, I conclude with a discussion on recent Afro-Paraguayan movements
to become more visible, and highlight Paraguay’s current political transition. Paraguay’s
recent presidential election ended sixty-one years of the Colorado Party’s rule. A sense
of hope has been restored among Paraguayans, hence, giving Afro-Paraguayans a
potential avenue to have their issues part of the new national political forum.

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From One Dictatorship to Another
On the surface, the differences between Paraguay and Brazil are unique in a variety of
ways: 1) Paraguay’s landlocked nature has traditionally isolated it from the rest of the
world, making it a little-known country; whereas, Brazil’s location has always exposed it
to foreign interests; 2) Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking country in Latin America,
while Paraguay is the only country in Latin America that officially maintains its bilingual
heritage—Spanish and the indigenous language Guaraní, are the nations spoken
languages; and, 3) Scholars such as George Reid Andrews speculate that Paraguay’s
percentage of black population ranges from zero to four percent, which contrasts to
Brazil’s percentage of black population somewhere around fifty-four percent. Granted,
these distinctions allow the countries to differ from one another and the rest of Latin
America; nonetheless, the history of dictators and the pervasive ideology enacted during
their dictatorships make Paraguay and Brazil vastly singular.
Paraguay’s first dictator Dr. José Gaspar Francia ruled from 1814 until his death
in 1840. Francia, a Paraguayan criollo, was the son of José Engracia Rodriguez, a
Portuguese-Brazilian immigrant, and Maria Fabiana Velasco y Yergos, a descendant of a
prominent criollo family.3 The origins of Francia’s heritage would prove detrimental to
his matrimonial aspirations. Prior to assuming power, his Brazilian ancestry led to
rumors that he was a mulatto, which prevented him from marrying the love of his life.4
As a result, an embittered Francia became reclusive, developing a disdain for Spaniards.
I submit that this event was seminal to Francia’s ideology of Paraguay’s racial formation
once he became president of Paraguay.
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During the 16th century, the few Spaniards that had settled in Paraguay mixed
with “comely Guaraní,” almost eradicating the presence of pure European blood in
Paraguayan society by the 1800s.5 Although the Spanish crown permitted the interracial
mixture of Indian-Spanish, the crown did not promote mestizaje.6 Nevertheless, the
mixture created a unique culturally homogeneous mestizo populace that linguistically
preferred Guaraní instead of Spanish7, setting the stage for Francia’s nationalistic ideals.
When Francia assumed power, his disdain for the Spaniards (generally, any
foreign influence) and fervor for nationalism served as the foundation for his directives
that aimed to eliminate European roots. Francia promulgated a law that Spaniards could
only marry Indians, “known mulattoes,” or blacks.8 In 1816, Dr. Francia decreed that
priests officiating illegal ceremonies, marrying Europeans to Europeans, would be
arrested along with the principal offenders.9 Historian John Hoyt Williams states, “This
very unusual law, enforced throughout the generation of his 26 year dictatorship, helped
decrease the proportion of visible whites (and blacks) in Paraguay; a genetical revolution
with obvious social implications which helped homogenize his nation.”10
In addition to his attempt to further wipe out European blood, Dr. Francia was
determined to quell the resistance of the elite and refashion Paraguay as an autonomous
nation by sealing off its borders.11 As for the Paraguayan elite, Francia felt that an
education was precarious in the hands of the elite12; thus, he reduced their authority and
privileges. Also, Francia’s order to seal Paraguay’s borders meant the exile of foreigners.
Supposedly, Dr. Francia proclaimed, “[I] would rather be branded an international
criminal than allow foreign government to grant permission for other foreigners to
trespass on Paraguayan soil.”13 For those seeking asylum such as blacks fleeing
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Brazilian slavery, however, Dr. Francia had an open arms policy.14 In 1820, José
Gervasio Artigas and his 200 black lancers15, for example, were the main beneficiaries of
this policy when they escaped from Uruguay.
At this juncture, it is important to note that during the rule of El Supremo, several
colonies were established for and settled by freed blacks. In these colonies, blacks
performed dual roles as ranchers and as military soldiers. Dr. Francia gave permission to
blacks to leave Tabapí for another settlement, Tevegó. The blacks were expected to be
self-sufficient and to safeguard the advances of white and mestizo society from Indian
invasions and Portuguese expansion.16 The black settlers were not self-sufficient due to
persistent Indian forays and they constantly needed the state to provide supplies, thus
proving costly to the state. A disappointed Francia consequently secularized all religious
orders and land, returning it to the state.17 Thus, blacks once deemed “Freemen” became
property of the state, meaning that they were now slaves of the government.18
The subsequent dictatorships would reexamine slavery in Paraguay and nearly
extinguish all afrodescedents. In 1842, President Carlos Antonio Lopez enacted the Law
of Free Womb that declared all children born of slaves after December 31, 1843, as
libertos de la Republica, granting automatic freedoms once women and men respectively
reached the ages of 24 and 25.19 Yet, the law did not abolish slavery for everyone—
those individuals born before that date remained enslaved.
Four years later, Lopez commissioned the Paraguayan census of 1846 to survey
the number of pardos20 in Paraguay. Instead of assigning varying degrees of blackness,
the census contained three categories of pardos were in the census: slave, liberto, and
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free.21 The census revealed that 7.19 percent of the population was black, totaling
17,212.22 That number, conversely, drastically changed after the Triple Alliance War.
Francisco Solano Lopez’s dictatorship succeeded his father’s, Carlos Antonio.
Francisco Solano is known, historically, for his egregious strategy that led Paraguay into
a war against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay: the Triple Alliance War. Undoubtedly, a
one-sided war would later leave historians to question the validity of population data
thereafter; regardless, scholars overwhelming agreed on the following: the war
decimated Paraguay’s population.23
According to Williams, Lopez’s war inadvertently completed Dr. Francia’s
unfulfilled plan for mestizaje: a handful of blacks survived, making black history in
Paraguay “almost meaningless from 1870 on.”24 Similar to Francia, Lopez relied heavily
on black military men during the war. He used blacks and mulattoes as “shock troops”
against invading allies, persistently sending the troops to their imminent devastation.25
Although the Triple Alliance War severely decreased the number of blacks and
mulattoes in Paraguay, I surmise that Afro-Argentine and Afro-Brazilian soldiers that
settled in Paraguay after the war replenished those numbers somewhat. Further research
is needed to determine to what extent those former soldiers increased the black populace.
Nonetheless, the footprints left by Paraguayan dictators are indelible and remain part of
present-day Paraguayan society.
Similar to the Spanish crown, the Portuguese crown in 1755 encouraged
Portuguese-Indian interracial marriages in Brazil; however, the crown did not promote
the interracial unions of white colonists with blacks and mulattoes.26 The Portuguese
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crown’s wishes in addition to the Catholic Church’s condemnation of miscegenation did
not deter mostly white settlers from violently imposing racial mixing upon indigenous,
African, and mixed-race women.27 Beyond this reference, the history of dictatorships in
Brazil diverges from that of Paraguay.
The major difference between Paraguay and Brazil is that Brazilian dictators
adhered to an ideology that Brazil was inherently a racially harmonious society: a racial
democracy. During the 1930s, Gilberto Freyre’s manifesto, Casa Grande e Senzala,
promoted an idea that miscegenation was the national identity of Brazil; and, due to the
smooth mixing of blacks, Indians, and whites, racial discrimination was absent.28
Implicitly stated in Freyre’s racial democracy is the idea of consent: black and
indigenous people willingly miscegenated.
With racial democracy as the cornerstone of Brazilian culture, Getúlio Vargas
“would effectively add the consolidation of the racial-democracy ideology to his list of
national unification and modernizing feats.”29 Hence, under Vargas, blacks would
experience some social mobility. Vargas ruled as a provisional president from 1930 to
1937 and as a dictator from 1937 to 1945.30 During his rule, Vargas instituted several
reforms such as “the legalization of collective bargaining, a minimum wage, paid
vacations, the eight-hour workday, social security, state-provided healthcare, and federal
involvement in public education.”31 Consequently, Afro-Brazilians entered the labor
force in large numbers and were fortunate enough to take advantage of trade unionism.32
To advance further his national unification, Vargas legitimized several Afro-
Brazilian religions and cultural traditions such as candomblé, samba, and capoeira.33 The
nationalizing of certain black traditions signified the browning of Brazilian culture—
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rooting African-ness as part of the national identity. The browning of Brazil’s national
identity proved problematic to the policy of whitening. Whitening, which coincides with
the ideology of racial democracy, was an effort to completely remove African blood from
Brazilian culture through repeated generations of interracial mixing and increased
numbers of European immigrants. At the root of whitening was the theory of Eugenics,
promoting the misconception that African genes were inferior to that of white;
furthermore, the dominant white genes would eventually eliminate black genes through
racial mixing.34
Ultimately, the policy of whitening would not abate. Brazil’s transition from the
Vargas dictatorship to a military regime continued to promote the ideology of a racial
democracy. Edward E. Telles notes that under the military dictatorship, “the mere
mention of race or racism was met with social sanctions, which would often result in one
being labeled a racist for bringing up the issue.”35 Moreover, the military was fully
aware of the mounting evidence that Brazil’s racial democracy was a myth and that
racism and racial discrimination existed; nonetheless, the evidence was readily ignored
because military leaders feared a racial conflict similar to that of the United States.36
As stated earlier, Brazil’s ideology differed from Paraguay’s. Dr. Francia did not
want to whiten Paraguay’s population; instead, he focused on mestizaje in to root out any
European genes. Those Europeans that resisted mestizaje were exiled and not permitted
to return to Paraguayan soil. In contrast, the Brazilian dictatorships promoted racial
democracy that had the ideal of whitening at its foundation and invited European
immigrants to assist in the whitening of the populace. To achieve racial harmony meant
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