Governor Ribera and the War of Oranges on Paraguay's Frontiers

Abstract

The great economic and political changes in the Río de la Plata of the late 1700s penetrated not only Buenos Aires and the interior of present-day Argentina, but upriver the hitherto neglected province of Paraguay shared the reforms of the Intendant system and economic liberalization. Those changes, along with the expulsion of the Jesuits, produced a shift in the economy of this region from the Paraná-Tebicuary area to the northern frontier of that province. The impelling economic motive for that shift was the north's greater ability to meet the demand for Paraguay's primary export, yerba mate. By the 1780s, northern Paraguay experienced a greater exploitation of yerbales, both to the benefit of independent entrepreneurs and government revenues.