The Rise and Fall of the Paraguayan Republic, 1800–1870

297 Pages·1979·82.066 MB·English

by  John Hoyt Williams

The Rise and Fall of the Paraguayan Republic,
1800-1870
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Latin American Monographs, No. 48
Institute of Latin American Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
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The Rise and Fall of the
Paraguayan Republic, 1800-1870
by John Hoyt Williams
Institute of Latin American Studies
The University of Texas at Austin

Contents
Preface ix
Chapters
1. The "Provincia Gigante" in the Eighteenth Century 3
2. José Gaspar de Francia and the Paraguayan Revolution 19
3. Perpetual Means Forever: Francia and the Remodeling of
Paraguayan Society 43
4. The Diplomacy of Isolation, 1820-1840 63
5. The Supreme Dictatorship, 1820-1840 81
6. The Old Order Changeth? 101
7. A New Paraguay is Stirring 113
8. The Economic Pulse Quickens 129
9. The Diplomacy of Frustration 139
10. Threat and Counter-Threat: The 1850s 157
11. Foreigners and the Modernization of Paraguay 177
12. "Francisco Solano's Error: The War" 195
13. The Immolation of Paraguay 211
Notes 229
Bibliography 263
Index 273
Maps
1. Northern Paraguay 45
2. Southern Paraguay 47
3. Paraguayan Offensives, 1864-1865 207
4. Allied Offensives, 1866-1870 213
Plates
1. José Gaspar de Francia 18
2. Carlos Antonio López 112
3. Elisa Alicia Lynch 176
4. Francisco Solano López 194
Preface
I have been interested in Paraguay and its history for a decade and have
been privileged to spend three years in that country and its archives. The
Paraguayan past is etched in acid, all sharp line and high relief, few rounded,
softened curves.
Paraguay, today hardly a super-power, was for a while, a century ago, a
major regional force. During the 1800-1870 era, it changed from an imperial
backwater, half forgotten by Madrid, to a dynamic, dictator-directed, semi-
industrialized, semi-militarized, financially sound nation. Unfortunately, the
last five years of that period witnessed the virtual destruction of Paraguay
and its relegation to almost colonial status vis-à-vis Argentina and Brazil.
No one to date has attempted to deal with this critical period of Paraguayan
history as a period. There are specialized monographs in Spanish and a variety
of biographies of the major dictators, but almost all of what has been written
is either polemic or comes from the pens of philosophers rather than historians.
To prepare this manuscript it was necessary to literally return to the docu-
ments in Asunción, Corrientes, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, London, Madrid,
and the United States. For the opportunity to do that, I am very deeply in
the debt of the Indiana State University Research Committee, the American
Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities for
their generous financial aid, without which this study would have been impos-
sible, and to a large number of individuals, both in the United States and in
South America, for their encouragement and other help along the way. Among
these I should like to single out Dr. Harris Gaylord Warren, "father" of Para-
guayan studies in the United States, and Dr. Lyle N. McAlister. In Paraguay,
I am indebted to Dr. Hipólito Sánchez Quell, director of the Archivo Nacional,
Dr. Miguel Angel González Erico, of the Centro Paraguayo de Estudios Socioló-
gicos, and the late Dr. Efraím Cardozo, most thoughtful of Paraguayan scholars.