The Grandchildren of Solano López: Frontier and Nation in Paraguay, 1904–1936

Abstract

Bridget Chesterton's study of how rural soldier-agriculturalists helped shape twentieth-century Paraguayan nationalism is a welcome addition to the historical literature on this understudied country. Chesterton posits that the desire to defend Paraguayan territory and to honor the nation led rural agriculturalists to fight in the Chaco War (1932–1935) and that, due to this shared experience, the rural classes transformed the memory of Francisco Solano López from the liberal elite's interpretation of a selfish tyrant who led the country into the unwinnable War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870) to a vision of a hero who saved the nation from oblivion from foreigners seeking to destroy it. Chesterton builds her argument by creatively using an assortment of sources, including visual images, songs, poetry, theater, literature, letters, articles, and reports. Particularly noteworthy are the exceptional images from the time period (a postcard, postage stamps, historical maps, cartoons, and photographs) that illustrate her argument and make for enjoyable reading.After an introductory background chapter, Chesterton dedicates the following four chapters to explaining the Paraguayan elite's idea of nationalism and the Chaco frontier. Given that Paraguay does not have a central archive for the period, Chesterton has done an admirable job tracking down sources in order to document how the liberal elite justified Paraguay's claims to the Chaco region prior to the war. A potential weakness is the near omission of the perspective of the Chaco Indians. Much of chapter 4 studies how early twentieth-century scientists, naturalists, and anthropologists viewed the native peoples of the Chaco, but it fails to explore the Indians' views of Paraguay, Paraguayans, and other outsiders. Chesterton references the military explorer Juan Belaieff's claim that the Indians of the Chaco liked Paraguayans more than Argentines and Bolivians, but she goes no further. Similarly, in chapter 5 Chesterton discusses the missionaries working among the Indians of the Chaco but again does not address the topic from Indians' perspective. Chesterton's work could also have benefited from an analysis of the rural agriculturalists' perspective on the Chaco prior to the war, as she did for the elite perspective. That said, Chesterton's contribution to the cultural history of nonindigenous Paraguay is significant.The following two chapters focus on Paraguay's rural soldier-agriculturalists and are the most original. In chapter 6, Chesterton draws out the voices of Paraguay's “subaltern” class (p. 113), for whom there are few sources, by creatively using songs and poetry published in Ocara poty cue-mí, a small literary magazine whose authors and audience were Paraguay's soldier-agriculturalists. It would be interesting to explore how these ideas fit with the oral histories that veterans of the Chaco War recounted to Chesterton. Chapter 7 explains how the Chaco War veterans' disenchantment with Liberal Party rule led to the revolution that brought the Febrerista Party to power and transformed Paraguayan nationalism by enshrining Francisco Solano López and Chaco War soldiers as brave defenders of Paraguay and its unique culture and values. While Chesterton makes a convincing argument that the Chaco War shaped Paraguayan nationalism and helped glorify the memory of Francisco Solano López, I am not fully convinced that such sentiment can solely be attributed to the rural agriculturalists of Paraguay. Rural agriculturalists made up the majority of those who fought in the Chaco, but a number of elites likely served as members of the officer corps. To what degree did they and other elites influence ideas of Paraguayan nationalism? Were Paraguay's rural agriculturalists encouraged or manipulated to embrace this form of nationalism? As Chesterton describes, prior to the war Lopista elites such as Juan Emiliano O'Leary held strikingly similar ideas about Paraguayan nationalism and the heroic actions of Francisco Solano López to those that prevailed after the Chaco War. I also wonder about the degree to which rural classes had such nationalist ideas prior to the war. Chesterton describes a full-page cartoon glorifying Solano López printed in El Porvenir, a newspaper of Paraguay's rural classes, three decades before the war.Chesterton makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of contemporary Paraguay by showing that post–Chaco War nationalism resulted in the prevailing view that the uniqueness of Paraguayan culture needed to be preserved and protected. As the author reveals, such national pride led to the promotion of Guaraní language, music, and the arts. Future studies will hopefully provide in-depth exploration of how Paraguayans reconciled the continued existence in the Chaco of both Anglican missionaries and Mennonites with such nationalist sentiment. Chesterton has written a strong book that is of great value to historians of Paraguay. With her innovative and convincing readings of a diversity of primary sources, she has helped us better understand Paraguayan nationalism.