page_title: History of Paraguay
section_title: The first Colorado era
hierarchical_section_title: History of Paraguay / Liberals versus Colorados / The first Colorado era
caption_attribution_description: Bernardino Caballero
context_page_description: The history of Paraguay is a result of development and interaction of varying cultures of indigenous peoples in Paraguay and overseas immigrants who together have created the modern-day Paraguay. Paraguay celebrates Independence Day on May 15, from 1811 to now.
  William E. Barrett wrote: "Paraguay is the country of prophecy. One of the two smallest nations [as of 1952] on the American continent, it was the first American communistic state, the first American nation to be governed by an absolute dictator."
context_section_description: Cándido Bareiro, López's former commercial agent in Europe, returned to Paraguay in 1869 and around him grew a group of López loyalists, including Bernardino Caballero and Patricio Escobar but also López opponents, including Juan Bautista Gill, who eventually was elected to the presidency. After President Juan Bautista Gill was assassinated in 1877, Caballero used his power as army commander to guarantee Bareiro's election as president in 1878. When Bareiro died from a stroke in 1880, Caballero seized power in a bloodless coup and dominated Paraguayan politics for most of the next two decades, either as President or through his power in the army. His accession to power is notable because he brought political stability, founded the Colorado Party in 1887 to regulate the choice of Presidents and the distribution of spoils, and began a process of economic reconstruction.
  In 1878, the international commission led by US President Rutherford B. Hayes awarded Paraguay the disputed Chaco area between the Río Verde and Río Pilcomayo. In his honor the Presidente Hayes Department was created.
  Governments led by two former López-era officers Bernardino Caballero (1880–86) and Patricio Escobar (1886–90) started a more earnest national reconstruction. A general political amnesty was proclaimed and opposition allowed in Parliament. National University was founded in 1889. A census in 1886–87 showed a population of 329,645. To improve this, foreign immigration was encouraged.
  Despite their professed admiration for Francia, the Colorados dismantled Francia's unique system of state socialism. Desperate for cash because of heavy debts incurred in London in the early postwar period, the Colorados lacked a source of funds except through the sale of the state's vast holdings, which comprised more than 95% of Paraguay's total land. Caballero's government sold much of this land to foreigners in huge lots. While Colorado politicians raked in the profits and themselves became large landowners, peasant squatters who had farmed the land for generations were forced to vacate and, in many cases, to emigrate. By 1900, seventy-nine people owned half of the country's land.
  Although the Liberals had advocated the same land-sale policy, the unpopularity of the sales and evidence of pervasive government corruption produced a tremendous outcry from the opposition. Liberals became bitter foes of selling land, especially after Caballero rigged the 1886 election to ensure a victory for General Patricio Escobar. Ex-Legionnaires, idealistic reformers, and former Lopiztas joined in July 1887 to form the Centro Democrático (Democratic Center), a precursor of the Liberal party, to demand free elections, an end to land sales, civilian control over the military, and clean government. Caballero responded, along with his principal adviser, José Segundo Decoud, and Escobar, by forming the Colorado Party one month later, thus formalizing the two party system. Both parties had internal divisions and very little ideology separated them, allowing Colorado and Liberal members to change sides whenever it proved advantageous. While the Colorados reinforced their monopoly on power and spoils, Liberals called for reform.
  Frustration provoked an aborted Liberal revolt in 1891 that produced changes in 1894, when war minister General Juan Bautista Egusquiza overthrew Caballero's chosen President, Juan Gualberto González. Egusquiza startled Colorado stalwarts by sharing power with the Liberals, a move that split both parties. Ex-Legionnaire Ferreira along with the cívico (civic) wing of the Liberals joined the government of Egusquiza, who left office in 1898 to allow a civilian, Emilio Aceval, to become President. Liberal radicales (radicals) who opposed compromising with their Colorado enemies boycotted the new arrangement. Caballero, also boycotting the alliance, plotted to overthrow civilian rule and succeeded when Colonel Juan Antonio Escurra seized power in 1902. This victory was Caballero's last, however. In 1904 the old nemesis of Caballero, General Benigno Ferreira, with the
caption: Bernardino Caballero
exif: {}