Early Paraguay History Timeline
The brief Paraguay History: The prehistory of Paraguay, or the pre-Columbian history of Paraguay is the period from the beginning of the human settlement of present-day Paraguayan territory to the arrival of the European conquerors in the 16th century. There is almost no information before the first Jesuit missions in Paraguay established in the 17th century.
History on Paraguay
- Total Area of Paraguay: 406,752 sq km land: 397,302 sq km water: 9,450 sq km
- Capital of Paraguay: Asunción (Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción)
- Language of Paraguay Spanish: República del Paraguay; Guarani: Tavakuairetã Paraguái
- Continent of Paraguay: South America
- Currency of Paraguay: PYG – Paraguayan Guarani
Religions Ration in Paraguay
Roman Catholic 89.6%, Protestant 6.2%, other Christian 1.1%, other or unspecified 1.9%, none 1.1%
Prehistory Paraguay and Settlement
Paraguay history of Settlement: It is estimated that the Paleolithic peoples arrived where paraguay is currently around 6000 years BC, and the Neolithic peoples 3000 years before Christ. More than 6,000 years ago, the Kaingang were the prehistoric ancestors of the Guarani. The first human beings to reach the current territory of the country, communities of Paleolithic culture, settled in the Paraguayan Chaco. They were hunter-gatherers and nomads. Later humans are different from Neolithic culture, they practiced incipient agriculture and practiced pottery. They were semi-sedentary and occupied the eastern region of the country.
In prehistoric Paraguay, there were three racial groups: the Pampids, who settled in chaco; the Laguídeos, located in random spaces in the eastern region, and the Neolithic of the Amazonian peoples, who settled on the banks of the Paraguay River and also in the Paraná River basin. These three rational groups would correspond freely to the Mascoian, Mataco-Guaicurú and Tupi-Guarani peoples respectively.
Cerro Guazú is the main heritage of paí tavyterã a place where, according to indigenous beliefs, the Creator God and great-grandfather, Ñande Rú, emerged from where the world and humanity were created. The oldest human presence is found on this hill, where human ossadas were found more than 5,200 years ago. At that time, arrowheads and objects were made of quartzite on site. Also documented were about 1400,60 drawings recorded within <> m of the walls of the shelter, as a sample of rock art.

Origin of Paraguay History
Origin Paraguay history: As it has played a great role throughout its history, to know the origin of Paraguay you must first know how it is and its geographical location. Enclosed in the heart of the South American continent, “trapped” between the two great ones of the South, Brazil and Argentina, Paraguay borders to the north and northwest with Bolivia, to the south and west with Argentina and to the northeast and east with Brazil.
It is a country of splendid and fertile lands in which a large part of the population still lives in economic phases of subsistence and barter. And it suffers from a secular backwardness that, until recently, placed it among the poorest countries in America. In Spanish times it oscillated between the domains of Peru and Río de la Plata. Until the revolt of the comuneros against the Peruvian authorities decanted the inclination of the country towards the orbit of the River Plate.
That did not free him from the occupation, as he was literally invaded by Argentine President Manuel Belgrano. Independence brought him only chronic dictatorial situations; moreover, it had to bear the cost of wars with Brazil and Bolivia, and thus resolve both its identity and its borders.
Currently, Paraguay is striving to recover its territory, organize its network of urban infrastructures, colonize every corner of the depopulated Chaco; in short, to get out of your isolation.
Pre-Hispanic development of Paraguay History Timeline
Tupí-Guarani
Tupi-Guarani Paraguay History: During the period prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, the Tupi-Guarani groups were distributed over a wide geographical area. The Tupi occupied the middle and lower part of the Amazon basin and the main tributaries of the Atlantic coast. In Paraguay, the presence of several Tupi-Guarani peoples is documented, including the Guarani themselves, paí tavyterã, chiriguanos and tapietés. These groups would constitute the majority of the Amazonian peoples of pre-Hispanic Paraguay.
The Guarani occupied the area of the coast between Cananea and Rio Grande do Sul, from where they stretched to the Paraná, Uruguay and Paraguay rivers. Its territory reached the north to the Tietê River and west to the Paraguay River. In addition, separated from this block, lived the Group Avá-Guarani, located on the border with the Inca empire. Despite the dispersion, these groups shared a sociocultural base. In Paraguay, the Guarani occupied basically the eastern part of the territory.
The Guarani guided their actions and are still guided by La Tierra Sin Mal, who was at the base of his warrior culture and ritual cannibalism. These groups were organized into extended families that inhabited the malocas, where they constituted the basic unit of kinship characterized by a high degree of political and economic autonomy. At a higher level of organization, there were villages that could receive up to 1,000 people. Each village had a leader, but the group of villages that formed a tekóa recognized the mburuvichá, who led the group’s external relations, and the warrior groups above their leaders.
They were skilled canoe navigators, jungle hunters, gatherers, fishermen and practiced agriculture. Among the most important crops were cassava, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, corn and yerba mate, which they used to drink, a drink that is still consumed today.
Succession from father to son was not a consensual rule, although there was a tendency to institutionalize hereditary leadership, maintaining leadership within the same lineage.
when was Paraguay founded?
Europeans first made contact with the semi-nomadic tribes that lived in what is now modern day Paraguay in 1516, and by 1537 the Spanish Empire had founded the city of Asuncion, making it one of the first modern settlements on the continent. Its position on the Paraguay River was a strategic site which remained important to the Spanish, who held control for the next 300 years. It was during this time that the evangelical Christian denomination the Jesuits came to eastern Paraguay to convert the local population. The Jesuit presence lasted for nearly 150 years until the central Spanish government banished them since they were unhappy with their practices.
History of Paraguay in colonial times
Independence of Paraguay
Independent Paraguay History Timeline: In 1776, Spain created the Viceroyalty of La Plata, which included present-day Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.
Following Argentina’s example, Paraguay in turn proclaimed its independence on May 14, 1811, which was ratified by Congress two years later. The country then experienced a succession of regimes.
In 1865, López launched the country into a war against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay: it was the Paraguayan War or War of the Triple Alliance (1865-1870), which caused the ruin of the country, decimated the male population and led to its occupation by the Brazilian army, until 1876. In addition, Paraguay had to cede the Misiones region and the territory north of the Apa River to Brazil, as well as part of the Chaco to Argentina.
From 1912 onwards, periods of political stability and revolts followed one another. The border with Bolivia, in the Chaco region, led to many conflicts, especially because of the presence of oil. Thus, in 1928, the Chaco War broke out, following the invasion of the region by Bolivia. After the 1935 armistice, Paraguay received about three-quarters of the disputed region by the 1938 treaty. From then on, the Paraguayan government moved towards profound economic and social reforms.
From 1940, the country experienced a new alternation between liberals (colorados) and conservatives (azules), through dictatorial regimes and military juntas. Power passed successively to General Higinio Moríñigo, from 1940 to 1948, Federico Chaves, from 1949 to 1954, and General Alfredo Stroessner, supported by the Colorado Party, from 1954 to 1988.
The War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870)
The allies did not have it easy, because the Paraguayan people resisted heroically. Virtually the entire adult male population died and it was women who had to rebuild the country. The figure of the Paraguayan woman was taken by nationalism and made her a national symbol.
Such is the importance of women in the Paraguayan collective imagination that Paraguayan Women’s Day (February 24) mobilizes the population more than March 8. Moreover, in Paraguay stands one of the few patriotic monuments dedicated to women, the monument to the Residentas.
what if paraguay won the paraguayan war
- The response of Solano López of Paraguay was to support Uruguay by issuing an ultimatum to the Brazilian empire if there was any military intervention towards Uruguay. Brazil entered Uruguay with troops and caused the overthrow of the president of the Blanco party.
- The response of Solano López of Paraguay was to support Uruguay by issuing an ultimatum to the Brazilian empire if there was any military intervention towards Uruguay. Brazil entered Uruguay with troops and caused the overthrow of the president of the Blanco party.
Return to democracy in Paraguay History
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Paraguay experienced a period marked by an economic crisis and rising unemployment. Stroessner was ousted in a February 1989 coup led by General Andrés Rodríguez, supported by the Colorado Party. His government directed its policy towards numerous reforms, both in the economic field, through privatizations, and in the political field, orienting the country towards democratization (ratification of the new Constitution in 1992). In foreign policy, Paraguay acceded to the Mercosur Treaty in March 1992.
In May 1993, Juan Carlos Wasmosy became president with a majority of votes; He is the first democratically elected president.
Raul Cubas Grau, Minister of Economy under President Juan Carlos Wasmosy, was General Lino Oviedo’s running mate in the 1998 presidential elections. But Oviedo is imprisoned for an attempted coup and presents himself in his place. He was elected president and freed Oviédo. Vice-President Luis Argana was assassinated and unrest led Raul Cubas Grau to resign in 1999. He was replaced by Senate President Luis Angel Gonzalez Macchi, who held power until 2003.
Nicanor Duarte Frutos, a former journalist and Minister of Education in the 1990s, candidate of the Colorado Party, won the presidential elections of April 2003.
After 61 years in power, the Colorado Party lost the presidential elections in 2008 to former Bishop Fernando Lugo, becoming Paraguay’s second leftist president with Rafael Franco, who served from 1936 to 1937.
During Fernando Lugo’s mandate, Paraguay joined UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations). Lugo set up a free health system for all in Paraguay, developed the education system by distributing a laptop to every schoolchild, and cooperated with private companies to develop the country’s economy. In 2010 and 2011 Paraguay recorded a record growth rate of 14.5%.
But in 2012 a political crisis broke out and Fernando Lugo was removed from office for obscure reasons. Vice-President Federico Franco assumed the presidential function pending the 2013 general elections.
Read Also History of Uruguay
References
La fascinante historia de Paraguay, un país ‘invisible’ – Mi Viaje