Paraguay a fines de la Colonia: ¿mestizo, español o indígena?

TELESCA, IGNACIO

Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas

Böhlau Verlag

Lugar: Colonia; Año: 2009 vol. 46 p. 257 - 284

1438-4752

This article highlights the relationship between the demographic conformation of Colonial Paraguay and the construction of Paraguay?s identity. This work analyses the data provided by the XVIIIth Century census showing the demographic change happened after the expulsion of the Society of Jesus in 1767/8: half of the population of the Jesuit Missions abandoned their villages and moved among the poor peasants. Nevertheless, the census taken in 1782 columned them under the category of ?Spanish?; they were not included as ?Indian? neither ?Mestizo? (which it was no-existent at that moment). This paper considers this moving as a strategy of the Indigenous people who, like the Afro descendent population, tried to avoid discrimination. Although we can see here a ?guaranization? of the society, people built their identity neglecting both their indigenous and their African roots.