Among the varied countries of South America the little republic of
Paraguay, clipped closely in between Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil,
presents the most singular history, this being due to the remarkable
career of the dictator Francia, who ruled over it for a quarter of a
century, and to the warlike energy of his successor Lopez. The tyranny of
Francia was one of the strangest which history records, no man ever ruling
with more absolute authority and more capricious cruelty. For many years
Paraguay was completely cut off by him from the rest of the world, much as
Japan was until opened to civilization by Commodore Perry. Unlucky was the
stranger who then dared set foot on Paraguayan soil. Many years might pass
before he could see the outer world again. Such was the fate of Bonpland,
the celebrated botanist and companion of Humboldt, who rashly entered this
forbidden land and was forced to spend ten years within its locked
confines. Such is the country, and such was the singular policy of its
dictator, whose strange story we have here to tell.
In May, 1811, Paraguay joined the other countries of South America in the
general revolt against Spain. There was here no invasion and no
blood-shed; the armies of Spain were kept too busy elsewhere, and the
revolution was accomplished in peace. A governing committee was formed,
with Fulgincio Yegros for its chairman and Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de
Francia for its secretary. The first was a man of little ability; the
latter was a man whose powers will soon be seen.
The committee decreed the independence of Paraguay. Two years later a new
convention was held, which dissolved the committee and elected two
consuls, Yegros and Francia, to govern the country. Two chairs were made
for them, resembling the curule chairs of Rome, and called Caesar's and
Pompey's chairs. On entering office Francia coolly seated himself in
Caesar's chair, leaving that of Pompey for his associate. This action
showed the difference in force of character between the two men.
In fact, Francia quickly took possession of all the powers of government.
He was a true Caesar. He appointed a secretary of state, undertook to
reorganize the army and the finances, and deprived the Spaniards in the
country of all civil rights. This was done to gain the support of the
Indian population, who hated the Spaniards bitterly. He soon went farther.
Yegros was in his way and he got rid of him, making the simple-minded and
ignorant members of the congress believe that only a sovereign magistrate
could save the country, which was then threatened by its neighbors. In
consequence, on the 8th of October, 1814, Francia was made dictator for
three years. This was not enough to satisfy the ambitious ruler, and he
played his cards so shrewdly that, on the 1st of May, 1816, a new congress
proclaimed him supreme and perpetual dictator.
It was no common man who could thus induce the congress of a republic to
raise him to absolute power over its members and the people. Francia at
that time was fifty-nine years of age, a lean and vigorous man, of medium
stature, with piercing black eyes, but a countenance not otherwise marked.
The son of a Frenchman who had been a tobacco manufacturer in Paraguay, he
was at first intended for the church, but subsequently studied the law. In
this profession he had showed himself clever, eloquent, and honorable, and
always ready to defend the poor and weak against the rich. It was the
reputation thus gained which first made him prominent in political
affairs.
Once raised to absolute power for life, Francia quickly began to show his
innate qualities. Love of money was not one of his faults, and while
strictly economical with the public funds, he was free-handed and generous
with his own. Thus, of the nine thousand pesos of annual salary assigned
him, he would accept only three thousand, and made it a strict rule to
receive no present, either returning or paying for any sent him. At first
he went regularly every day to mass, but he soon gave up this show of
religious faith and dismissed his private chaplain. In fact, he grew to
despise religious forms, and took pleasure in ridiculing the priests,
saying that they talked about things and represented mysteries of which
they knew nothing. "The priests and religion," he said, "serve more to
make men believe in the devil than in God."
Of the leading principle of Francia's political system we have already
spoken. It had been the policy of the old Jesuit missions to isolate the
people and keep them in strict obedience to the priesthood, and Francia
adopted a similar policy. Anarchy prevailed without, he said, and might
penetrate into Paraguay. Brazil, he declared, was seeking to absorb the
country. With these excuses he forbade, under the severest penalties,
intercourse of any character between the people of Paraguay and those of
neighboring countries and the entry of any foreigner to the country under
his rule.
In 1826 he decreed that any one who, calling himself an envoy from Spain,
should dare to enter Paraguay without authority from himself should be put
to death and his body denied a burial. The same severe penalty was decreed
against any native who received a letter speaking of political affairs and
did not at once present it to the public tribunals. These rigid orders
were probably caused by some mysterious movements of that period, which
made him fear that Spain was laying plans to get possession of the
country.
In the same year the dictator made a new move in the game of politics. He
called into being a kind of national assembly, professed to submit to its
authority, and ratified a declaration of independence. Just why this was
done is not very clear. Certain negotiations were going on with the
Spanish government, and these may have had something to do with it. At any
rate, a timely military conspiracy was just then discovered or
manufactured, a colonel was condemned to death, and Francia was pressed by
the assembly to resume his power. He consented with a show of reluctance,
and only, as he said, till the Marquis de Guarini, his envoy to Spain,
should return, when he would yield up his rule to the marquis. All this,
however, was probably a mere dramatic move, and Francia had no idea of
yielding his power to any one.
The dictator had a policy of his own--in fact, a double policy, one devoted
to dealing with the land and its people; one to dealing with his enemies
or those who questioned his authority. The one was as arbitrary, the other
as cruel, as that of the tyrants of Rome.
The crops of Paraguay, whose wonderful soil yields two harvests annually,
were seized by the dictator and stored on account of the government. The
latter claimed ownership of two-thirds of the land, and a communal system
was adopted under which Francia disposed at will of the country and its
people. He fixed a system for the cultivation of the fields, and when
hands were needed for the harvest he enlisted them forcibly. Yet
agriculture made little progress under the primitive methods employed, a
broad board serving for a plough, while the wheat was ground in mortars,
and a piece of wood moved by oxen formed the sugar-mill. The cotton, as
soon as picked from the pods, was spun on the spinning-wheel, and then
woven by a travelling weaver, whose rude apparatus was carried on the back
of an ox or a mule, and, when in use, was hung from the branch of a tree.
Commerce was dealt with in the same way as agriculture. The market was
under Francia's control, and all exchange of goods was managed under rules
laid down by him. He found that he must open the country in a measure to
foreign goods, if he wanted to develop the resources of the country, and a
channel of commerce was opened on the frontier of Brazil. But soldiers
vigilantly watched all transactions, and no one could act as a merchant
without a license from him. He fixed a tariff on imports, kept them in a
bazaar under military guard, and sold them to the people, limiting the
amount of goods which any of his subjects could purchase.
As a result of all this Francia brought about a complete cessation of all
private action, the state being all, and he being the state. All dealing
for profit was paralyzed, and agriculture and commerce alike made no
progress. On the other hand, everything relating to war was developed. It
was his purpose to cut off Paraguay completely from foreign countries, and
to be fully prepared to defend it against warlike invasion.
[Illustration: INDIAN SPINNING AND WEAVING.]