Paraguayan War Research Articles

Bringing War Back in: Victory and State Formation in Latin America

AbstractScholars have often dismissed the effect of war on state formation in regions like Latin America, where mobilization for war is deemed insufficiently intense and international conflict fails to out‐select weaker states. Against this conventional wisdom, I contend that wars can affect state‐building trajectories in a postwar period through the different state institutions that result from victory and defeat. After reconsidering the role of war outcomes in classical bellicist theory I use difference‐in‐differences analysis to identify the effect of losing vis‐à‐vis winning a war on levels of state capacity in a panel of Latin America (1865–1913). I then illustrate my causal mechanisms in case studies of the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) and the War of the Pacific (1879–1883) and apply the synthetic control method to these cases. Although out‐selection of losers obscures the effect of war outcomes in European history, Latin America illuminates their long‐term consequences.

Entre armas e pincéis

O presente artigo busca analisar o início, o desenvolvimento e os desdobramentos da Guerra do Paraguai ou Tríplice Aliança (1864-1870). O artigo também pretende analisar as diversas interpretações historiográficas produzidas sobre o conflito e, não obstante, a relação de uma destas correntes com a produção do quadro “Batalha do Avaí” (1877), do pintor oitocentista Pedro Américo. Para finalizar, estabeleceremos uma relação entre a confecção desta tela e a sua época de produção, ou seja, a segunda metade do século XIX, já que este período foi fortemente influenciado pela chamada “pintura histórica” e pelo financiamento estatal em pinturas que buscavam retratar feitos, heróis e a grandiosidade de uma nação.

"¿Qué decir de los dolores de entonces, veinte años después?": la correspondencia de Dominguito en la Guerra del Paraguay leída por Sarmiento en Vida de Dominguito

En Vida de Dominguito (1886), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento cuenta la biografía de su hijo adoptivo, Domingo Fidel Sarmiento, muerto veinte años antes en la Guerra del Paraguay. Con el objeto de reconstruir la vida y la muerte del joven, recurre a las voces de quienes lo conocieron así como a algunos textos escritos por el propio Dominguito. El resultado es una suerte de collage en el que las distintas versiones por momentos se contradicen. En este trabajo me propongo partir de allí para reflexionar en torno a las contradicciones que entraña la misma configuración de una figura heroica, es decir, la construcción de un relato de aquellos que dan su vida por la patria.

Agrarian Nationalism or “Imperial” Science? “El Sabio” Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Science

As a contribution to recent discourse over the practice of natural science in Latin America’s liberal years, this paper examines Swiss-born botanist Moisés S. Bertoni’s place in Paraguay’s agricultural development following the Paraguayan War (1864-70). The war forced leaders in a devastated Paraguay to promote the immigration of European scientific experts and farmers, with the expectation that their knowledge of modern agricultural science and practice would revitalize the nation’s agriculture and lift Paraguay out of its poverty. From the late nineteenth century Bertoni’s work and knowledge of Paraguay’s tropical and semi-tropical climate and botany shaped much of Paraguayan agricultural policy and practice. And while his contributions were influential in understanding the nation’s environment and agriculture, what is unclear is how much his approach was the product of deliberate introduction of European agricultural science or the result of autochthonous experience and his own trial and error.

Agrarian Nationalism or “Imperial” Science? “El Sabio” Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Science

Abstract: As a contribution to recent discourse over the practice of natural science in Latin America’s liberal years, this paper examines Swiss-born botanist Moisés S. Bertoni’s place in Paraguay’s agricultural development following the Paraguayan War (1864-70). The war forced leaders in a devastated Paraguay to promote the immigration of European scientific experts and farmers, with the expectation that their knowledge of modern agricultural science and practice would revitalize the nation’s agriculture and lift Paraguay out of its poverty. From the late nineteenth century Bertoni’s work and knowledge of Paraguay’s tropical and semi-tropical climate and botany shaped much of Paraguayan agricultural policy and practice. And while his contributions were influential in understanding the nation’s environment and agriculture, what is unclear is how much his approach was the product of deliberate introduction of European agricultural science or the result of autochthonous experience and his own trial and error.
 Keywords: agricultural science; natural science; Paraguay; tropical climate

The wars of the 1860s and the economic recovery of the province of Bahia

The economy of the Province of Bahia faced a recessive period between the years 1857 and 1860 due to three predominant factors, the prolonged drought that dragged on for four years, the US crisis of 1857, which spread its damaging effects on the international system and the monetary policy of the imperial government that ranged from pluriemissionism to centralization in the Bank of Brazil, culminating in the crisis of 1859-1860. After a significant decline in domestic economic performance, the trade balance showed a substantial recovery following the outbreak of the United States War of Independence (1861-1865), prolonging this auspicious moment with the advent of the Paraguayan War (1864-1870). The troubled belligerent years have had positive effects on local cultures, especially sugar, cotton and tobacco, revealing the important dependence of an exogenous factor to lead the internal burial in the face of a fragile domestic market of low monetarization, high concentration of income and little diversified productive structure.

Los inmigrantes españoles en Concepción (Paraguay). Entre la Guerra Guazú y la reconstrucción nacional (1869-1932)

El presente trabajo analiza el colectivo español en Concepción entre finales de la Guerra de la Triple Alianza y la Guerra del Chaco (1869-1932). La investigación se desarrolla tratando primero la inmediata posguerra (1869-1879), las estrategias de reconstrucción y la llegada de los primeros inmigrantes. Posteriormente, se somete a consideración la consolidación económica que experimentó la villa de Concepción entre 1880 y 1898 así como el papel ejercido por los españoles en este proceso. Finalmente, y tomando también como eje la aportación de la inmigración española, versa sobre la modernización arquitectónica, asociativa, infraestructural y productiva de la ciudad y el interior de la zona de Concepción (actuales Departamentos de Concepción, Amambay y el norte de San Pedro) entre 1899 y 1932. This paper analyses the Spanish community in Concepción from the end of the Triple Alliance War to the Chaco War (1869-1932). The immediate post-war period (1869-1879), reconstruction strategies and the arrival of the first immigrants are examined first. The paper then considers the economic development that Concepción experienced between 1880 and 1898, as well as the role played by Spanish residents in this process. Finally, attention is given to the architectural, associative, infrastructural and productive modernisation of the city and the broader region of Concepción (the modern Departments of Concepción, Amambay and northern San Pedro) between 1899 and 1932, once again with reference to Spanish immigration.

Museus e espaços de memória – representações do Brasil a partir da Guerra do Paraguai

Este artigo tem como propósito apresentar as análises e resultados obtidos a partir do desenvolvimento de duas pesquisas cujo objetivo em comum foi conhecer, a partir da temática da Guerra do Paraguai, como o Brasil e os brasileiros estão sendo representados em museus e espaços de memória no Paraguai e no Uruguai. A partir da perspectiva teórica de Serge Moscovici, da Teoria das Representações Sociais, foram analisadas as seguintes instituições escolhidas para os estudos: o Panteão Nacional dos Heróis e o Instituto de História e Museu Militar, localizados na cidade de Assunção, no Paraguai, e o Museu Histórico Nacional do Uruguai e o Museu Histórico Cabildo de Montevideo, ambos situados na capital uruguaia. A metodologia utilizada foi a de análise de conteúdo, tanto das exposições através de visitas de campo quanto das informações e dados coletados, aliados a uma revisão da literatura sobre o tema. Dos resultados encontrados, destaca-se no Paraguai uma representação social muito forte de valorização e enaltecimento dos heróis que lutaram e deram a vida pela pátria durante o conflito. Já no Uruguai, constatou-se que a Guerra é entendida como um episódio da história do país cuja representação social é marcada por certa negatividade e arrependimento pela participação no conflito. Em um paralelo comum, destaca-se em ambos os países uma culpabilização do Brasil pelos acontecimentos, observada especialmente nas entrelinhas e ausências dos discursos nos quais as representações sociais se manifestam.

Country of Women? Repercussions of the Triple Alliance War in Paraguay

Skewed sex ratios often result from conflict, disease, and migration, yet their long term impact remains less understood. The War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) in South America killed up to 70% of the Paraguayan male population. According to Paraguayan national lore, the skewed sex ratios resulting from the conflict are the cause of present-day low marriage rates, high rates of out-of-wedlock births and a generally male chauvinist culture. We collate historical and modern data to test this conventional wisdom in the short and the long run. We examine both cross-border and within-country variation in child-rearing, education and labor force participation in Paraguay over a 150 year period. We find that more skewed post-war sex ratios are associated with higher out-of-wedlock births, more female-headed households, and better female educational outcomes, even after the first returned to normal. Cross-country comparisons suggest that Paraguayan women are less likely to be employed than those in neighboring districts in Argentina and Brazil, but that within Paraguay, they are more likely to be employed where the sex ratio shock was more severe. The impacts of the war persist into the present, and are seemingly unaffected by variation in economic openness, uncertainty, or traditional norms.

La representación de la Guerra del Paraguay en la “historia Argentina” (1965) de José Luis Busaniche. Una aproximación historiográfica

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the history of historiography about Paraguayan War is one of the topics that has been examined with “new eyes”: in this line of research, this work is dedicated to exploring the representation of the warfare in José Luis Busaniche´s “Historia Argentina” (1965). The referred book constitutes the main source of analysis. In addition, the author´s letters with other historians of the country which contain information regarding his previous notions about the Paraguayan War are examined. Our hypothesis is that the chronicle offered by Busaniche in the “Historia Argentina” mixed various elements, some of which represented a breaking point with the traditional interpretation of the conflict, while others reflected a clear continuity.

Fronteiras Meridionais e Transfiguração Territorial: gênese e permanência do estigma de estrangeiros atribuído aos Guarani no Brasil

Through this article we will analyze historically how Brazil attributed the stigma of foreigners to Guarani. We found that the employment of this xenophobic category in the twentieth century is triggered at specific times, in general when the Guarani intensify actions for guaranteeing land. However, this same process is not perceived with the same intensity in other cases of cross-border peoples. We note that both the Guarani and the territory they occupied was the object of colonial geopolitical disputes between the Iberian crowns, and between settlers, Sao Paulo mercenaries and religious of the Society of Jesus. We also identified that, during the 19th century, Brazil exalted the Guarani as the founding hero of the nation, but in its passive, subjugated and voluntarily killed version, to bring about a new nation, white and western. However, this place occupied by the Guarani gradually fades, especially with the Triple Alliance war, when Paraguay is identified as the “Guarani Nation” and, with the end of the war, Brazil definitively abandons the Guarani, whether in the ideal is the duty to protect these people. Guarani will now appear in the anthropological literature as the “integrated Indian”. The Indianist movement also abandoned Guarani and started to consider Tupi and its anthropophagy, the new face of a modern Brazil.

Pacíficos actores, ávidos espectadores. El Mercurio de Valparaíso y la cobertura de la Guerra del Paraguay (1864-1870)

This article examines the characteristics and mutations of the editorial line of El Mercurio of Valparaiso regarding the Paraguayan War (1864-1870). In its analysis, it seeks to focus on three central aspects that guided the newspaper's programmatic discourse in relation to the trans-Andean conflict: 1) the critical evaluation of Chilean diplomatic management in the Rio de la Plata; 2) an intense dialectic battle with a sector of the press in Buenos Aires and 3) the progressive creation of a favorable account of the Paraguayan cause. From this approach, the study reveals not only the position of a media with a wide reach in the local and international advertising scene, but also its understanding the role of the press as a space for building public opinion around the armed confrontations in the Americas during the 1860s.

Sobre el libro de Luis Rojas Villagra, La tierra en disputa: extractivismo, exclusión y resistencia

Paraguay has had a long history of land struggles from colonial times until the present time, with the conclusion of the War of the Triple Alliance in 1870 being the most representative historical fact that occurred. In effect, the land under the dominion of the State is considered as a mercantile object, which installed the matrix of intensive exploitation and extraction of national resources towards international markets. As a consequence of these actions, the indigenous and peasant communi...

Cartas truncas, de amor, de miedo y de muerte: el epistolario de Dominguito Sarmiento a su madre (1865-1866) en la Guerra del Paraguay

In this paper we analyze the exchange of letters between Domingo Fidel Sarmiento and his mother from the battlefield of the Paraguayan War. These private anguished texts of love and of fear -fear because of the threat of an imminent death- are testimonies of the conflict in first-person that contribute to widen the margins of the war studies. In this filigree woven between writing and life, this ordinary writing (Fabre, 1993) bases a string of experiences around the camp daily routines. As custodian of vital forces and desires, of tangible requirements, of requests and exhortations, the letters show a whole intelligibility of affections (Antières, 2019). Undoubtedly, the letters claim a resonance regarding everything, involving everything: the love between mother and son, a son dying at 21th in Curupaytí.

Long-Term Effects of the Paraguayan War (1864 – 1870): From Male Scarcity to Intimate Partner Violence

This paper investigates the long-term effects of the Paraguayan War (1864-1870) on intimate partner violence. The identification of these causal effects relies on a novel historical dataset from which I exploit the distance from municipalities to military camps during the war. Over 130 years later, the likelihood of intimate partner violence is still 5.54 percent higher than average in municipalities that were more heavily affected by the war. The loss of life among men led to female-biased sex ratios and defined Paraguay as the 'country of women'. However, I show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, female-biased sex ratios are not the only driver of the long-term effects of the war. Instead, the main transmission channel is the relative status of females within the household. Male scarcity leads to atypical status inconsistencies within the household that do not respect traditional gender roles and induces intimate partner violence that is transmitted across generations.

Long-term effects of a war: from male scarcity to intimate partner violence. Evidence from the Paraguayan War (1864-1870)

This paper investigates the long-term effects of the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) on intimate partner violence. The identification of these causal effects relies on a novel historical dataset from which I exploit the distance from municipalities to military camps during the war. Over 130 years later, the likelihood of intimate partner violence is still 5.54 percent higher than average in municipalities that were more heavily affected by the war. The loss of life among men led to female-biased sex ratios and defined Paraguay as the 'country of women'. However, I show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, female-biased sex ratios are not the only driver of the long-term effects of the war. Instead, the main transmission channel is the relative status of females within the household. Male scarcity leads to atypical status inconsistencies within the household that do not respect traditional gender roles and induces intimate partner violence that is transmitted across generations.

O Panteón Nacional de los Heroes e a construção do mito de Solano López

A formacao da memoria bem como da identidade nacional perpassa pelaconstrucao de simbolos e mitologias nacionais que agregam valor a um bem ou a umevento. Com os herois a historia e muito parecida: sao criados como o exemplo daquiloque deve ser considerado como qualidades importantes de uma pessoa integrante daquelanacao. A Guerra da Triplice Alianca produziu esses imaginarios de todos os ladosdo conflito, obviamente, com diferencas de graus em cada pais envolvido. Este trabalhovisa examinar uma dessas construcoes, o resgate dos restos mortais de Solano Lopez e aconstrucao do Panteon Nacional de los Heroes em Assuncao e, a partir disso, sua elevacao a categoria de heroi nacional.

A Guerra da Tríplice Aliança como conhecimento escolar no Paraguai: Narrativas históricas centradas em personagens (1897-2009)

The present research defines didactic works of History conceived and adopted inschools of basic education in Paraguay, as a documental corpus for this study. Twelve didacticParaguayan books of History were analyzed with the purpose of observing the translationof the War of the Triple Alliance into the school knowledge environment, specificallyabout historical narratives centered on characters. The selected works cover a timeline, whichinitial mark is at the end of the conflict. It is thus, from the second half of the nineteenthcentury until the year 2009. It was assumed that in Paraguay, the War of the Triple Allianceevent, marked the collective memory of that country, and had / still has an important roleon national identities development. Regarding the narratives of Paraguayan textbooks, itwas predominant in most of the, a descriptive perspective based on military campaignsand individual actions of army commanders, and they were non-rare associated with actsof heroism. It is important to mention that in Paraguay, during the whole XX Century,the political and historical discussions practically led to the dichotomization between theones who were in favor of Solano Lopez and the ones who were against him (“lopists” and“non-lopists”), which were eventually transposed to the school books of that country.

Emancipación y guerra en el Río de la Plata, 1840-1865: hacia una historia social de las relaciones internacionales

Las causas de la guerra grande o guerra del Paraguay (1864-1870) han sido discutidas desde el final de ésta y continúan siendo objeto de polémica entre los historiadores. En este artículo analizo la relación entre la coyuntura política brasileña y el proceso de abolición de la esclavitud en Uruguay entre las décadas de 1840 y 1860. Pretendo argumentar que la presencia de individuos esclavizados y de terratenientes y dueños de esclavos brasileños en territorio uruguayo afectó las relaciones internacionales entre los países de la región de la Plata en el siglo XIX, contribuyendo fundamentalmente en el crecimiento de las tensiones que llevaron al inicio de la guerra. Más allá de este argumento, al utilizar documentos y métodos típicos de la historia política tradicional y de la historia social, también busco defender la pertinencia del análisis de las relaciones internacionales a partir de la perspectiva de la historia social. Así, pretendo demostrar que los fenómenos de tránsito de individuos por las fronteras, de la fuga de esclavos, de la violencia del reclutamiento de ejércitos y milicias uruguayos y brasileños y de los ataques a las comunidades de negros libres y libertos ocurridos en este periodo tienen una importante dimensión internacional, cuya comprensión es fundamental para el entendimiento de los orígenes de la guerra del Paraguay.

Conflicto político y prensa federal durante la Guerra de la Triple Alianza. Entre Ríos, 1864-1867

Desde el comienzo de la Guerra de la Triple Alianza la prensa fue un ámbito privilegiado para la polémica y el debate dentro del escenario político. En este trabajo analizamos la prensa federal de la provincia de Entre Ríos con el propósito de indagar sobre la dinámica política entrerriana y su interrelación con la guerra. Nuestra hipótesis es que, si bien la prensa federal entrerriana mostró una constante oposición al conflicto bélico, la crítica no fue lineal a lo largo del período aquí analizado y estuvo subordinada a la impugnación de las políticas del presidente Bartolomé Mitre y del partido liberal.