History of Paraguay (to 1811)

Long before Spanish conquistadors discovered Paraguay for King Charles V in 1524, semi-nomadic Chaco Indian tribes populated Paraguay's rugged landscape. Although few relics or physical landmarks remain from these tribes, the fact that nearly 90 percent of Paraguayans still understand the indigenous Guarani language is testament to Paraguay's Indian lineage, even as Spanish influence was accepted and embraced, in other aspects of society. The Spanish founded Asunción in 1537. Paraguay's colonial experience differed from that of neighboring countries, because it did not have gold and other minerals that the Spanish were seeking. Because of its lack of minerals and remoteness, Paraguay remained underpopulated and economically underdeveloped. Early governor Domingo Martínez de Irala took an Indian wife, and a series of Indian concubines, and advised other settlers to do so. Intermarriage fused Indian culture with that of the Europeans, creating a mestizo class that dominates Paraguay today.

Although European fortune seekers headed elsewhere in South America, Jesuits descended on Paraguay, and over generations, transformed the lives of the Guaraní people in eastern Paraguay. By the beginning of the 18th century, about 100,000 of the once polytheistic Indians had converted to Christianity and were residents of Jesuit missions and on surrounding land. This theocratic society endured until 1767, when Spanish authorities expelled Jesuits from Paraguay, fearing that the massive wealth and land accumulated by the Jesuits had made the mission communes (reducciones) an "empire within an empire." In the vacuum left by the Jesuit ouster, the Indians experienced for the first time direct contact with Spanish officials. However, the administrative and military tactics of imperial control proved far less successful and palatable than those of the Jesuits. Tensions between the natives and the Europeans grew steadily during the last years of the 18th century.