Carlos Antonio López Ynsfrán (November 4, 1792 – September 10, 1862) served as leader of

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

from 1841 to 1862.

Early life

López was born at Manorá (Asunción) on November 4, 1792, as one of eight children. He graduated from Real Colegio y Seminario de San Carlos and then began a law practice, a profession which allowed him to develop influential connections. He attracted the hostility of the

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times ...

José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia y Velasco () (6 January 1766 – 20 September 1840) was a Paraguayan lawyer and politician, and the first dictator (1814–1840) of Paraguay following its 1811 independence from the Spanish Viceroyalty of ...

, his reputed uncle, which caused him to go into hiding for several years.

Political career

López served briefly as secretary of the

military junta A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...

led by Colonel

Mariano Roque Alonso Mariano Roque Alonso Romero (16 August 1792 Ybytimí – 7 August 1853) was President of the Provisional Junta of Paraguay from 9 February 1841 to 14 March 1841. On 14 March 1841, he established a government ruling jointly with Carlos Antonio L� ...

that ruled the country from 1840 to 1841, after the death of Francia. On March 12, 1841, Congress chose López and Alonso to be joint consuls for three years. In 1844, he exiled Roque and assumed dictatorial powers. A few months later, Congress adopted a new constitution, which changed the head of state's title from consul to

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

and elected López to the new post for a 10-year term. The constitution vested López with powers almost as sweeping as those "El Supremo" had held for most of his 26-year rule, effectively codifying the dictatorial powers he had seized just months earlier. The document included no guarantees of civil rights; indeed, the word "liberty" was not even mentioned in the text. He was re-elected for a three-year term in 1854 and again in 1857 for ten more years, with the power to nominate his own successor. His government was directed towards developing Paraguay's primary resource extraction and strengthening Paraguay's armed forces. He contracted numerous foreign technicians, most of which were English, and built up the formidable

Fortress of Humaitá The Fortress of Humaitá (1854–68), known metaphorically as the Gibraltar of South America, was a Paraguayan military installation near the mouth of the River Paraguay. A strategic site without equal in the region, "a fortress the likes of ...

. Prior to the constitution adopted in 1844 that legitimized López’s presidency, Paraguay had no official document of sovereignty; López’s influence led to the recognition of Paraguay as an independent nation. However, his approach to foreign affairs several times involved him in

diplomatic Diplomatics (in American English, and in most anglophone countries), or diplomatic (in British English), is a scholarly discipline centred on the critical analysis of documents: especially, historical documents. It focuses on the conventions, p ...

disputes with the

Empire of Brazil The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and (until 1828) Uruguay. Its government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Dom Pe ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

, which nearly resulted in

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

. His government was somewhat more tolerant of opposition than Francia's had been. He released all political prisoners soon after he took full power and also took measures to abolish

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

.Compare: During López’s presidency, Paraguay’s economy saw unprecedented growth. He signed commercial treaties with Brazil in 1850; Great Britain, France, and the United States in 1853; and Argentina in 1856. His government worked to improve infrastructure and transportation within the country through the establishment of a new railroad line and steamship river routes. López also encouraged public education through the expansion of primary schools and the reopening of the seminary he attended as a young man, which increased literacy throughout the country. His eldest son,

Francisco Solano López Francisco Solano López Carrillo (24 July 1827 – 1 March 1870) was President of Paraguay from 1862 until his death in 1870. He was the eldest son of Juana Pabla Carrillo and of President Carlos Antonio López, Francisco's predecessor. ...

(1827–1870), succeeded him as president after his death. A barrio of Asuncion is named after him. Sources on his life are scarce. For a brief modern biography see Bealer, Lewis W. "Carlos Antonio Lopez, Organizer and Dictator of the Paraguayan Republic" (Chapter Eleven, pages 136-153) in South American Dictators During the First Century of Independence, edited by A. Curtis Wilgus (George Washington University Press, 1937; reissued by Russell & Russell Inc., 1963). Bealer cites Captain Richard F. Burton's Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay (London, 1870) as his primary source of factual information, though for those who read Spanish, he cites in the positive Andres Gelly's El Paraguay (Paris, 1926), who was Lopez's minister at Rio de Janeiro, as a good source for information "on developments to 1848". Bealer claims Washburn's History of Paraguay (2 vols., Boston, 1871) is "woefully unreliable and biased except where direct quotation is made".

References

Sources

* *Plá, Josefina (1976). The British in Paraguay 1850–1870. The Richmond Publishing Co in association with St Antony's College, Oxford. *Williams, John Hoyt (1977). "Foreign Tecnicos and the Modernization of Paraguay". Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs (Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miam): pp. 233–257. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lopez, Carlos Antonio 1792 births 1862 deaths People from Asunción Presidents of Paraguay 19th-century Paraguayan people

Early life

Political career

See also

References

Sources