One of the most frustrating aspects of working in Paraguayan history is the utter lack of reliable “hard” data. There are no statistical compilations for the pre-1870 years and historians in the past have been singularly loath to attempt to pull together quantifiable data. As a result, there is little we can be sure about in Paraguayan history. The building blocks so taken for granted in the study of most other societies are missing.
A case in point is the realm of historical demography. There are two widely divergent figures for the 1537-1872 period: for the late colonial era, the Félix de Azara census of 1785 postulates a population of 94,295; an informed guess indicates a total of 231,000 for the war-ravaged country in 1872.1 More data is available, but in unpublished form in the Archivo Nacional, in Asunción.
In 1845, Dictator Carlos Antonio López ordered that a detailed census be carried out in each partido of the nation. By 1847, the last of the data reached Asunción. Other, more limited censuses, for militia or tax purposes, were undertaken in succeeding years. The “Census of 1846” is the only comprehensive count undertaken between 1785 and 1872, yet until lately, it lay untouched among other unknown treasures in the Archivo Nacional.
The census data comprises some 20,000 pages of documents assembled by priests in their individual partidos. Unfortunately, various priests used differing criteria in collecting their information. Thus, returns from only a few of the partidos offer data as to age, the definition of “child” varies widely, some priests omit mention of sex, some do not utilize categories such as entenado, agregado or arrimado. Only for total numbers in each partido, slaves, libertos, free pardos, and numbers of households is the information relatively complete. Thus, while not as revealing as we might desire, the 1846 census can provide us with data not available elsewhere.
Distribution
The distribution of the population in 1846 was unusual, and similar to what it had been a century earlier.2 Of the total of 238,862 people, fully 100,314 (forty-two percent) lived in the capital or within a radius of fifty miles of that city. This pattern, evident from the colonial era, was the result of three centuries of Indian war which forced a concentration of the populace for safety. During most of Paraguay’s history, the frontier began only a short distance from Asunción. If we examine only the city itself and the surrounding partidos of Luque, Limpio, Lambaré, San Lorenzo and Capiatá, we find a population of 45,080 (nineteen percent) clustered close to the bay of Asunción.
The area surrounding the town of Villa Rica was the site of the only other major concentration of population, with over 35,000 people. The remainder of the populace was quite scattered. Pueblos were fairly numerous along the banks of the Río Tebicuari in South-Central Paraguay, but very few persons dwelt along the track of the Alto Paraná, and virtually no one was to be found in far eastern Paraguay near the border with Brazil. Also very lightly populated was the large and strategically vital region between the Ríos Apa and Ypané on the northern frontier, and the entire vast, inhospitable Chaco was devoid of habitation save by wandering bands of warlike M’Bayá and Guaicurú.3
Pardos, Free and Slave
The 1846 census is especially revealing in the case of the Black minority. In fact, it offers the only statistical data on the subject— data which contradict earlier work done by this writer and by Josefina Pla, the only other scholar to have treated the role of the Black in Paraguayan history.4 We now have reliable information concerning the pardos, as Blacks and mulattoes were generically labeled in the Río de la Plata.5 While mestizos, owing to their ubiquity, were not even mentioned, and Indians appeared in the census only when their cultural patterns distinguished them from the mass of Paraguayans, pardos of all tones were invariably noted as such. While most Latin American nations distinguished degrees of blackness, or type of interracial mixture, in Paraguay persons of partly negroid features were assumed to be Black.6 Even many who had no visible negroid features were listed. For example, in Limpio was “The House of Nicolás Torres, his sisters Ygnacia and Nicolasa, confessed Free Pardos.”
Because of this inflexible typology we have a better profile of the pardo community than might be expected, and can not only draw conclusions on its relative size, but also on its geographical dispersion and legal status. This in turn sheds new light on the institution of slavery in Paraguay, and, on a much broader level, on social aspects of the nation under Carlos Antonio López.
It should be noted that in 1842 the Law of Free Womb was enacted, to become effective on the first day of the following year. This law, contrary to some claims, did not end slavery in Paraguay, but merely the slave trade, and it guaranteed that children of slaves born after December 31, 1842, would be free upon reaching the ages of twenty-four and twenty-five, for females and males respectively. These children, called Libertos de la República until their coming of age, would work for their parents’ masters while young. We thus find three categories of pardos in the census: slave, liberto and free.
The census indicates that in 1846 there were 17,212 pardos, representing 7.19 percent of the total population. Of these, 7,893 were slaves and 523 libertos. The remaining 8,796 were free. Pardos in bondage, then, temporary and permanent, represented 48.8 percent of all pardos and 3.51 percent of all Paraguayans.
Certain geographic patterns are pronounced. There were two large foci for the Black population. In the four barrios of Asunción, with a total population of 11,003, there were 1,636 pardos, some 14.87 percent. Very near the capital were other partidos with large pardo communities. If we include Limpio, Villeta and Emboscada with Asunción, we find 10.96 percent of the national population, but 32.48 percent of all pardos.
The other concentration of pardos is unexpected. It was south of Asunción in the partidos situated in the lovely, rolling grasslands just north of the Río Tebicuari, then as now site of much of the nation’s ranching. Quiquió, center of the pastoral zone, was fully 43.09 percent pardo, Tabapí was an all-Black community, and Caapucú was home to the country’s largest single, unsegregated pardo grouping. This partido counted 529 slaves, 57 libertos and 1,127 free pardos. Also in this region were the partidos of Ibicuy, Quiindí, Ybitimí and Mbuyapeí, all with large pardo minorities. These seven partidos, with only 8.27 percent of the national population, contained 25.97 percent of the republic’s slaves, 16.57 percent of its libertos, and 28.75 percent of its free pardos.
This area, in which more than a quarter of all Paraguayan Blacks lived, was dedicated to ranching, and almost none of the nation’s major crops were grown there. Nor were there any huge agricultural or industrial operations of any type in the Tebicuari zone. Thus one can assume that most of the pardos in the area, both slave and free, engaged in ranching, a rare situation in New World slavery.
To the large number of Blacks in the cattle zone north of the Tebicuari could be added the significant, although smaller, proportion in the cattle lands just south of the river. The ex-Jesuit mission area, largely devoted to pastoral pursuits, included the partidos of Santa María de Fe, Santiago, San Juan Bautista, San Ygnacio Guazú and Santa Rosa, all of which counted substantial pardo minorities. There were also partidos with few pardos or none.
The census is more revealing on the status of slavery in Paraguay. This writer, gathering social data on nineteenth-century Paraguay, compiled a list of all slaveholders who owned ten or more slaves and libertos in 1846. In all the republic, there were 176 such individuals, of whom 102 were male and 74 female. In all, these people held 2,583 slaves and 186 libertos, or 32.84 percent of all slaves and 35.84 percent of all libertos in Paraguay. Of the 176 slaveholders, 145 owned from 10 to 19 slaves and libertos, 22 owned from 20 to 29, and 6 owned from 30 to 39. Only three individuals owned 40 or more slaves and libertos. The largest single slaveholder, Juan Bernardo Dávalos, a bachelor from Bobi, owned 43 of the 46 slaves in his partido. Fifty-one of the 176 owners lived in the northern Tebicuari zone, a figure consonant with the high proportion of slaves in that region.
Aside from private, individual slaveholders, the state itself maintained a large number of slaves to work its estancias and other lands, as did the Church. Some 302 slaves labored on the state estancia at Tabapí, and most of the other eighty-three state estancias and puestos had some slaves among their work forces. The colegio lands which belonged to the state in Paraguarí were worked by 170 slaves, while those at Ñuati were cared for by another 207. The Asunción Cathedral admitted one slave in 1846, as did individual churches at Horqueta, Luque and Piribebuy. At Pirayú there were 11 slaves of the Virgin of Rosario, at Quiquió there were 5 slaves dedicated to the Christ Child, and in Tobatí 35 pertained to the local Virgin. It was common for the testament of a wealthy person to include a clause in that epoch donating one or more slaves to a local church or patron saint.
Family Size
We have data on household size for all the partidos but the San Roque barrio of Asunción, Guarambaré, Cacicazgo de Moroguí, Paraguarí, Itacurubí, Pilar and Tacuatí. The term “casa” was used by the census-takers, denoting literally all people, family and retainers, living under one roof. The total population of the other partidos was 224,420, divided into 32,133 households, or casas; an average of 6.98 persons per unit. Average household size varied considerably, from lows of 4.48 in Caazapá (Indian), 4.99 in Jesusa, and 5.5 in Yaguarón, to highs of 11.89 in Yriarte, 13.73 in Piribebuy, and 15.85 in Curuguatí-North.
All of the very low averages occur in partidos composed largely of Indians (although not labeled as such), and further investigation reveals that these areas reported few agregados or slaves, which might have boosted the averages. Most of the partidos registering very high averages, conversely noted large numbers of both agregados and slaves, such as Quiquió, with 19.41 and 19 percent respectively in those categories. There is no doubt that in Curuguatí-North, the large household size also indicates a large family average, for there were no slaves there and few agregados. Family size in that partido was nearly triple the national average.
A pattern which emerges from the data is that of the prevalence and generality of the small, nuclear family, averaging about five persons. Extended families under the same roof were rare, perhaps occurring in two percent of all cases. Household averages were considerably inflated by the inclusion of agregados and slaves, an inflation by no means canceled by the existence of a large number of small households headed by widows or widowers. The average household in Paraguay in 1846 would consist of mother, father, three children and two servants, slave or free.
Other Categories
The large category of agregado, recorded by census-takers in seventy-three of the eighty-nine partidos, is a very vague one, defined in nineteenth-century Paraguay loosely as people in service to others. This catch-all category comprised some one in twelve Paraguayans and probably embraced such diverse groups as debt peons, family retainers and concubines.
The category of viuda and viudo is interesting but frustrating, and few conclusions can be drawn. For the sixty-six partidos which are represented by data in this category, we find a total of 3,745 widows and 1,320 widowers, a ratio of almost three to one. This revelation, however, is of little use, for it is probable that most men who lost their wives remarried, while most women who lost their husbands did not. It is interesting to note that in most partidos widows continued as family heads. Also, among the seventy-four females who held ten or more slaves and libertos, forty-six percent were widows, an indication that such status did not imply impecunity.
As can be seen in Table I, only 1,200 people are classified as indio. This appears to be a gross underestimate for Paraguay in this era. Several factors combined to present an inaccurate picture. In the words of a clerical census-taker of interior San Joaquín, who did not categorize anyone in his area as Indian, “due to there being even now some families of Natives spread throughout various partidos in the Republic, for now I omit. . .” reference to those in my partido. Most census-takers omitted “wild” Indians (indios bárbaros) from their reports. The nomadic tolderías of the various stone age tribes escaped mention in 1846 as before and after. An educated guess would be that some 20,000 avá, or “unbaptized” roamed the North and the Chaco. Also distorting the picture was the Paraguayan view that anyone who lived or acted like “a Paraguayan” could not be listed as Indian. To be a Paraguayan in 1846 was to be settled, mestizo and Christian. Racially, the Indians and mestizos (who themselves were predominantly Indian) were physically similar in appearance: pardos were distinct. Only those Indians demonstrably different in cultural patterns from other Paraguayans could be considered “indio.”
Entenados, who were specified in only eleven partidos, were the children of one of the adult family heads but not of the other. At times indicating illegitimate children brought into the family, it seems more often that the category designated children of one spouse by a previous marriage. In only ten partidos was the category peon used, and here it appears to be coterminous with state ranchhand. This does not explain, however, why many other partidos known to have had state estancias did not use the category. The classification of arrimado, ignored in all but three partidos, refers to people who have put themselves in the care of another, and probably included mostly children and old people. Adoptivos were children formally, although not always legally, adopted or brought into a family and given its name. There is no clear pattern among the seventeen partidos for which we have data. The category of ahijado deals with children living with their godparents, but, for one reason or another, were not formally adopted. This can be seen in that several partidos list both adoptivos and ahijados, but since only nine census-takers used the category, no conclusions can be drawn. The classification of huérfano would have been a valuable one if more census-takers used it, for there were fifty-two orphans noted in the four small partidos which included the category. Púpila, a category used only in Concepción, refers to parentless children living with others on a less than permanent basis, for purposes of training, apprenticeship or tutoring, rather than in semi-adoption.
Local Notes
In addition to the population statistics the census data record many notes of social interest. One of Paraguay’s record holders was a family in the Recoleta barrio of Asunción: Anastacio Rodrigues and his wife Petrona, were aged eighteen and seventeen respectively, bouncing their five-year old son Rufo on their knees while Petrona’s father, Pantaleon Cubillas, age thirty-six, contented grandfather, looked fondly on. The census-taker of Curuguatí was more frank than most. In his interior pueblo, he noted thirteen people who were “stupid and dull and retarded in their senses.” In addition to the estúpido y bobo minority, the good priest reported the pathetic case of one Modesto González, “who crawls like a snake and is absolutely mute.”
Most census-takers refrained from reporting the genetic local color and confined themselves to the basics, which in themselves could be interesting. There were some very large nuclear families, such as that of English resident William Lir (Lear?), of Asunción’s Cathedral barrio, who, while unmarried, admitted sixteen children. In fecund San José de los Arroyos, we encounter Gregorio and María González with their eighteen children, Pedro Pascual and Eusavia Toledo with twenty-three offspring, and Agustín and Ysabel Quiñones with twenty-six, none of whom were adopted, orphans, arrimado or ahijado. The highest number of children belonged to the widow Simeona López of Villeta, who in 1846 claimed twenty-seven surviving, almost single-handedly changing her partido’s household average of 7.6.
A Future for the Illusion
The implications of the 1846 census in light of later events are worth consideration. If we accept, with minor reservations, the figure of 238,862 for the population of Paraguay in 1846, it raises a question as to the population of the country on the eve of the Paraguayan War. Using the above as a base figure, we can calculate to 1864 at rates of annual increase ranging from 2.5 to 5 percent:
Although the difference between the lowest and the highest figure is a significant 200,000, even the highest figure is far short of what is usually claimed by historians not utilizing hard data. Given the circumstances of Paraguay in the 1846-1864 epoch, this author is inclined to accept the three percent figure as a high-average annual increase. The oft-posited figure of a million or more Paraguayans in 1864, in the absence of immigration, is absurd. It is no slur upon Paraguay that “only” one-half her population died in the war and that Francisco Solano López’ supposed last words, muero con mi patria. were raw rhetoric.
A Note on Method
The only author to have previously worked with the 1846 census is Olinda Massare de Kostianovsky, who incorporated some of her findings in a chapter contributed to an anthology (note 1). She accepted the census-takers figures (which this author calculates as incorrect in sixty-four of eighty-five cases), miscopied, duplicated figures, and used data for other years without correction. This author, in many months of labor in the Archivo Nacional, encountered 1846 census data for seventy-three of the eighty-nine partidos. For fifteen of the remaining sixteen, census material was encountered for other years:
No data was encountered for Itacurubí, and it was necessary to use Kostianovsky’s figures for that partido. For the above partidos, the author calculated the 1846 population on the basis of a constant rate of three percent natural increase, considered a high average for the area and the epoch. The San Roque barrio of the capital presented another problem, as the 1845 data only enumerated men aged fourteen to forty-six. The author admits to the simplistic solution of multiplying the militiamen listed by a factor of five to obtain the approximate 1845 barrio total, and then by 1.03 to achieve the 1846 estimate found in the text.
See Félix de Azara, Geografía física y esférica de las provincias del Paraguay y misiones guaraníes (Montevideo, 1904), p. 442, and Olinda Massare de Kostianovsky, “Historia y evolución de la población en el Paraguay,” in Domingo M. Rivarola and G. Heisecke, eds., Población, urbanización y recursos humanos en el Paraguay (2nd ed., Asunción, 1970), p. 227.
To avoid repetitious footnoting, since all partido censuses save that of Itacurubí are found in the Sección Nueva Encuademación of the Archivo Nacional in Asunción, the following citation is presented:
Partido . | Volume . | Partido . | Volume . |
---|---|---|---|
Acaay | 3303 | Guarambaré | 3322 |
Aguaye Guazú | 3301 | Hiatí | 3308 |
Aguaye Rincón | 3301 | Horqueta | 3306 |
Ajos | 3306 | Ibicuy | 3291 |
Altos de Carayao | 3295 | Itá | 3321 |
Altos: Agregado | Jesús | 3305 | |
al pueblo | 3305 | Jesusa | 3295 |
Asunción: | Lambaré | 3318 | |
Catedral | 3315 | Laureles | 3293 |
Encamación | 3313 | Lima | 3306 |
Recoleta | 3295 | Limpio | 3299 |
San Roque | 3290 | Loreto | 3315 |
Barrero Grande | 3289 | Luque | 3312 |
Batovi | 3303 | Mbuyapeí | 3310 |
Bobi | 3295 | Ñuatí | 3310 |
Boyacatí | 3307 | Paraguarí | 3283 |
Caacupé | 3288 | Pilar | 3281 |
Caapucú | 3309 | Piribebuy | 3292 |
Caazapá: Indian | 3297 | Pirayú | 3319 |
Caazapá: White | 3297 | Quiindí | 3290 |
Cacicazgo de Moroguí | 3318 | Quiquió | 3305 |
Capiatá | 3314 | Rincón de San Pedro | 3298 |
Calistro | 3301 | San Cosme y Damián | 3294 |
Caraguatay | 3308 | San Estanislao | 3311 |
Caraguatay: Agregado | San Joaquín | 3283 | |
al pueblo | 3303 | San José de los | |
Carapeguá | 3301 | Arroyos | 3313 |
Concepción | 3306 | San José de Yetití | 3304 |
Concepción de Cuascúa | 3295 | San Juan Bautista | 3317 |
Curuguatí | 3311 | San Juan Nepomuceno | 3296 |
Curuguatí-North | 3315 | San Lorenzo | 3288 |
Emboscada: Black | 3310 | San Salvador | 3318 |
Emboscada: White | 3310 | San Ygnacio Guazú | 3300 |
Encamación | 3317 | Santa María de Fe | 3294 |
Espartillar | 3301 | Santa Rosa | 3314 |
Santíssima Trinidad | 3305 | Yacaguazú | 3307 |
Santiago | 3294 | Yaguarizo | 3303 |
Tabapí | 3290 | Yaguarón | 3293 |
Tacuatí | 3281 | Yariguaá | 3310 |
Tobatí | 3309 | Yataití | 3296 |
Valenzuela | 3295 | Ybiraití | 3303 |
Villa del Rosario | 3304 | Ybitimí | 3306 |
Villa Rica | 3299 | Yriarte | 3303 |
Villeta | 3289 | Ytapé | 3296 |
Yabebirí | 3307 | Yuti | 3300 |
Partido . | Volume . | Partido . | Volume . |
---|---|---|---|
Acaay | 3303 | Guarambaré | 3322 |
Aguaye Guazú | 3301 | Hiatí | 3308 |
Aguaye Rincón | 3301 | Horqueta | 3306 |
Ajos | 3306 | Ibicuy | 3291 |
Altos de Carayao | 3295 | Itá | 3321 |
Altos: Agregado | Jesús | 3305 | |
al pueblo | 3305 | Jesusa | 3295 |
Asunción: | Lambaré | 3318 | |
Catedral | 3315 | Laureles | 3293 |
Encamación | 3313 | Lima | 3306 |
Recoleta | 3295 | Limpio | 3299 |
San Roque | 3290 | Loreto | 3315 |
Barrero Grande | 3289 | Luque | 3312 |
Batovi | 3303 | Mbuyapeí | 3310 |
Bobi | 3295 | Ñuatí | 3310 |
Boyacatí | 3307 | Paraguarí | 3283 |
Caacupé | 3288 | Pilar | 3281 |
Caapucú | 3309 | Piribebuy | 3292 |
Caazapá: Indian | 3297 | Pirayú | 3319 |
Caazapá: White | 3297 | Quiindí | 3290 |
Cacicazgo de Moroguí | 3318 | Quiquió | 3305 |
Capiatá | 3314 | Rincón de San Pedro | 3298 |
Calistro | 3301 | San Cosme y Damián | 3294 |
Caraguatay | 3308 | San Estanislao | 3311 |
Caraguatay: Agregado | San Joaquín | 3283 | |
al pueblo | 3303 | San José de los | |
Carapeguá | 3301 | Arroyos | 3313 |
Concepción | 3306 | San José de Yetití | 3304 |
Concepción de Cuascúa | 3295 | San Juan Bautista | 3317 |
Curuguatí | 3311 | San Juan Nepomuceno | 3296 |
Curuguatí-North | 3315 | San Lorenzo | 3288 |
Emboscada: Black | 3310 | San Salvador | 3318 |
Emboscada: White | 3310 | San Ygnacio Guazú | 3300 |
Encamación | 3317 | Santa María de Fe | 3294 |
Espartillar | 3301 | Santa Rosa | 3314 |
Santíssima Trinidad | 3305 | Yacaguazú | 3307 |
Santiago | 3294 | Yaguarizo | 3303 |
Tabapí | 3290 | Yaguarón | 3293 |
Tacuatí | 3281 | Yariguaá | 3310 |
Tobatí | 3309 | Yataití | 3296 |
Valenzuela | 3295 | Ybiraití | 3303 |
Villa del Rosario | 3304 | Ybitimí | 3306 |
Villa Rica | 3299 | Yriarte | 3303 |
Villeta | 3289 | Ytapé | 3296 |
Yabebirí | 3307 | Yuti | 3300 |
The Itacurubí figure was drawn, with trepidation, from Kostianovsky, “Historia y evolución,” p. 222.
It should be noted that the combined totals of the various categories always exceed the total population figure. This, of course, is due to the fact that a person may be listed more than one time: as an adult and as an Indian or pardo.
See my article, “Esclavos y pobladores: Observaciones sobre la historia parda del Paraguay en el siglo XIX,” Revista Paraguaya de la Sociología, 31 (Sept– Dec., 1974), 7-27, and Josefina Pla, Hermano negro: La esclavitud en el Paraguay (Madrid, 1972). Pla estimated that as many as one in four Paraguayans were pardos in this epoch, while the current author posited one in eight.
See my article, “Race, Threat and Geography: The Paraguayan Experience of Nationalism,” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, I (Spring, 1974), 173-190, passim.
Magnus Mömer, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston, 1967), p. 57.
Author notes
The author is Associate Professor of History at Indiana State University, Terre Haute. He wishes to thank the Indiana State University Research Committee for its generous support.