Indenpendence of Paraguay
The French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte's ascension and the subsequent wars in Europe inevitability weakened Spain's capacity to control its colonies. When the British troops attempted to invade and dominate Buenos Aires in 1806, the attack was repressed by the city's residents with some Paraguayan help. The Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808 and the abdication of the Spanish king Fernando VII (governed 1808 and 1814-33) in favor of Napoleon, who placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne, broke what was left of the political links between the metropolis and its overseas possessions. Joseph did not have any means to control the American colonies, nor did he have the loyalty of Spanish Americans. Therefore, without a recognized king, the colonial system lost its legitimacy and the colonists incited rebellions. Encouraged by the Porteños' recent victory against the British troops, the municipal council in Buenos Aires demoted the Spanish viceroy on May 25, 1810 and established a junta, which took an oath to govern in Fernando VII's name.
The Porteño's actions had unexpected consequences in Argentine and Paraguayan history. The news of the events in Buenos Aires stunned Paraguayans, who still felt loyal to the crown. The Porteño junta insisted in including Paraguay under its jurisdiction and chose a Paraguayan, José Espínola y Peña, as their spokesman. Regardless of any grievances they might have with the old regime, Paraguayans did not want to be under Porteño rule. According to the historian John Hoyt Williams, Espinola was perhaps the most hated Paraguayan during his time, in part because he was associated with the atrocious politics of the ex governor, Lázaro de Rivera, who had arbitrarily shot hundreds of fellow citizens and had been forced to resign in 1805. Therefore, Espinola's reception in Asunción was anything but amiable. Officials in Paraguay arrested Espinola and sentenced him to exile in northern Paraguay, but he escaped and made it to Buenos Aires. He lied about the amount of support in Paraguay for the Porteño junta, convincing Buenos Aires to send its entire cavalry to Paraguay. Manuel Belgrano, a lawyer turned Porteño general, assembled a force of about a 1,100 men with the intention of occupying Asunción. However, the Paraguayan troops spectacularly routed the Porteños in Paraguarí and Tacuarí. Nevertheless, officers from both armies fraternized openly during the campaign and due to these contacts Paraguayans realized that Spanish domination in South America was at its end and that they, not Spain, had real power.
If Espínola and Belgrano's efforts helped to stir up up the first nationalist sentiments in Paraguay, the actions of the remaining royalist officials in the colony inflamed them. The royal governor, Bernanardo de Velasco, came to believe that the officers who had defeated the Porteño army represented a threat to his government and ordered the demobilization of the units under them. He sent most of the soldiers home without pay for their eight months of service. Velasco had already lost respect of the officers when he had fled the battlefield at Paraguarí. The breaking point came when Asunción's municipal council solicited the protection of the Portuguese army against Belgrano's forces, which were camped just beyond the border. Far from bolstering the position of the royal government, the request triggered a coup on the night of May 14 and May 15, 1811, which overthrew the Spanish authorities.
Independence was formally declared on May 17.
