Paraguay Flag

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Brief History. The region that would become Paraguay was inhabited by a number of indigenous peoples prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the early 1500s. The city of Asuncion, later to become capital city, was populated by the country's so-called elite and a struggle would emerge between the Jesuits and these Asuncionis over how the colony would develop. Independence was declared in 1813 two years after the Asuncion elite overthrew the Spanish. As a consequence of the War of the Triple Alliance (1865-1870) Paraguay was devastated: the population decimated (nearly all adult males died), tens of thousands of square miles of territory lost, and a huge debt accrued. Authoritarian rule was a constant in Paraguay from the 19th century through the 20th.