(^330) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
republic caught in the jungles and forests of South America
hundreds of miles from the sea. Some scholars, beguiled by this
experiment—one of them speaks of an economic "takeoff^33 —see it
as one more instance of native enterprise and aspiration stifled by
European imperialists and their local henchmen.^34 This is a
misreading, however, of a not uncommon pattern of premature
development for political ends.
Paraguay was a most exceptional country, more Indian (Guarani)
than any other on the continent, for the grinding of the natives
inflicted in other parts had been prevented here by intercession of
the Jesuits. These had been allowed to establish autonomous
districts, and so far were such areas from places of treasure and traffic
that they had been largely left alone. Besides, the Spanish needed the
Guaranis: without them, they could not have held the area against
Portuguese-Brazilian incursions.
After independence, like other debris states of the great Hispanic
empire, Paraguay had fallen almost immediately under the control of
dictators. The laws said republic, but the practice was one-man
rule—a mix of benevolent despotism and populist tyranny. * The first
of these dictators (that is what he called himself), Dr. Gaspar
Rodriguez de Francia, was something special. A Jacobin ideologue,
and like many of the original French variety, a lawyer by training,
Francis was committed to a republic of equals and him more equal
than the rest. He was the "organic leader," the elitist embodying the
popular will.^35 He cultivated this image. When an Indian villager
came to see him, he received the petitioner with every courtesy, sat
down beside him, patted him on the back, radiated interest and
warmth. But let a landowner or bourgeois seek an audience, and Dr.
Francia had him cool his heels and drum his fingers, eventually to be
admitted into a disdainful, impatient presence.
This was class discrimination (affirmative action), but also racial:
the lines of division in Paraguayan society were the same for both.
The Dictador Supremo wanted to build on the special Guarani
character of the society, to subdue the old Spanish and Creole elite.
To this end he forbade the whites to marry among themselves,
requiring them rather to take their spouses from among Indians,
mulattoes, and blacks.^36 How strictiy this rule was enforced is hard to
- The three dictatorial rulers and their dates were Gaspar Rodriguez Francia
(1814-40); Carlos Antonio Lopez (1840-62); and the latter's son, Francisco Solano
Lopez (1862-70).