This country is considered the fairest portion of what was once the United Provinces. Its climate is mild and balmy; the surface is not mountainous, neither is it a dead level; it is well supplied with a great variety of streams of pure water; its soil is every where found to be exceedingly productive, and was originally covered with immense forests of stately timber. Among its more ample productions are grain, cotton, sugar, and excellent fruits—oranges, figs, the olive, and the grape—as well as the singular vegetable called matte, so extensively used in South America as a tea or beverage.
Insurrections and attempts at Revolution in the early part of the Eighteenth Century.—Paraguay is rendered remarkable by several projects, more than a century ago, having in view its independence, and, what is more wonderful, by the open and public assertion, at that time, of the principle, that the authority of the people was greater than that of the king himself. Thus was anticipated, in a colony of the most bigoted and despotic court of Europe, more than a hundred years ago, the modern liberal doctrine of the sovereignty of the people. The attempts referred to were made by individuals, who had, perhaps, their private causes of grievance, as Antequera, Mompo, and Mena, though one of them, certainly, Mompo, was the preacher of the doctrine above stated. No real independence, however, was effected, except for a short period. The revolutionary leaders were soon overcome in battle, put to death, or banished, and the authority of the king of Spain was rëestablished, and continued for the greater part of a century.
Establishment of Independence, and a Despotic Government.—In 1810, the junta of Buenos Ayres sent a body of troops to Paraguay to depose the Spanish governor, but they were compelled to retreat. The inhabitants, however, themselves deposed the governor, and took the government into their own hands. In 1813, they proclaimed Paraguay a republic, under two consuls, the principal of which was Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. At the end of the year, Francia caused himself to be named dictator for three years, and, at the close of this term, for life. On the 24th of September, 1826, a formal declaration of independence was made, though the country, for fourteen or fifteen years, had been governed independently of Spain.
The administration of Dr. Francia proved to be an absolute and perfect despotism, and that of a most severe and sanguinary character. He was a native of Paraguay, and received the degree of doctor of theology at the University of Cordova, in Tucuman. For nearly thirty years he acted the tyrant over the inhabitants of the country, and brought the entire mass into the most unresisting subserviency to his will. No personage has figured so conspicuously as Dr. Francia, in the modern history of South America. When, by consummate address, he had succeeded in getting himself appointed dictator for life, commenced one of the most extraordinary events on record. "From the moment when he found his footing firm, and his authority quietly submitted to, his whole character appeared to undergo a sudden change. Without faltering or hesitation—without a pause of human weakness, or a thrill of human feeling—he proceeded to frame the most extraordinary despotism that the world has ever seen. He reduced all the population of Paraguay to two classes; of which the dictator constituted one, and his subjects the other. In the dictator was lodged the whole power, legislative and executive; the people had no power, no privileges, no rights, and only one duty, to obey. All was performed rapidly, boldly, and decisively. He knew the character of the weak and ignorant people at whose head he had placed himself, and who had the temerity to presume that they had energy and virtue sufficient to form a republic. The inhabitants of Paraguay delivered themselves up, bound hand and foot, into the hands of an absolute and ferocious despot, who reduced them to absolute slavery, ruined their commerce and agriculture, shut them up from the rest of the world, and dragged to the prison or the scaffold every man in the country whose talents, wealth, or knowledge opposed any obstacle in the way of his tyranny. No human being was allowed to leave the country, or dispatch a letter abroad." A few only escaped, by means of the flooding of the country by the rise of the river Paraguay, and from these individuals the world has learned respecting the secrets of this more than Dionysian espionage and tyranny. No attempted conspiracies availed to secure his person or destroy his life. He managed so as to gain over his soldiers entirely to his interests. As was to be expected, he lived in constant fear of assassination or poisoning, ordering his guards sometimes to shoot those who dared to look at his house in passing along the streets, and taking the trouble to cook his own victuals. He died at about the age of eighty, in 1842, having thus enacted the despot during the long course of twenty-eight years.
The wonder of all is, that the people generally were contented and happy under this strict and unnatural regime; yet it is partly to be accounted for from the entire security of person and property which was felt, so far as the intercourse of the people among themselves was concerned. Each district was made responsible for every theft committed in it. All the inhabitants, Indians as well as Creoles, were taught to read, write, and keep accounts. Public schools were every where established, and children were required to attend them, until, in the judgment of the municipal authority, they were sufficiently instructed. The dictator also established lyceums and other liberal institutions. Every person was required to labor, and mendicity was prohibited. It has been represented, however, that there was a mitigation of the doctor's despotism, in the latter part of his life.
According to the more recent accounts, the government of this country was administered by five consuls; but this and the other matters pertaining to Paraguay, are very imperfectly known, as the country has, for so long a period, been avoided by foreigners.