The conflict began after Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano L\u00f3pez (1827\u20131870) invaded Mato Grosso and the Argentine province of Corrientes, and ended after he was killed by Brazilian forces and his country was destroyed. Disputes surrounding the conflict continued to be fought in the history books, and it took decades of studies to dispel the myths and misconceptions that emerged as soon as the troops returned home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe traditional historiography of the period, written at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, was done without much methodology and with a lot of emotion,\u201d says historian Francisco Doratioto, retired professor at the University of Bras\u00edlia (UnB) and author of Maldita guerra \u2013 Nova hist\u00f3ria da Guerra do Paraguai<\/em> (Damned War \u2013 A new history of the Paraguayan War; Companhia das Letras). The book, which has become a reference point for the topic in Brazil, was published in 2002 and was revised and expanded by the author two years ago. \u201cThere has been a lot of historical falsification, because the goal of various authors has been to create myths and legitimize political groups.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 1960s, a wave of revisionists, including Brazilian writer J\u00falio Jos\u00e9 Chiavenato, author of Genoc\u00eddio americano<\/em> (American genocide; Brasiliense, 1979), proposed a new theory for the war\u2019s origin. He attributed the cause of the conflict to the interests of the then powerful British Empire, which had funded the involvement of Brazil and its allies to prevent Paraguay\u2019s economic development. This theory was discredited over time.<\/p>\n Brazilian National Library Foundation\u2019s Collection <\/span>Brazilian soldiers in the Paraguayan War kneeling during a religious procession in 1868Brazilian National Library Foundation\u2019s Collection <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n In Brazil, the most rigorous work on the war began being produced in the late 1990s, when historians trained at the first graduate centers in the field began studying the subject. Among them are Doratioto and colleagues such as Ricardo Salles (1950\u20132021), of the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), Vitor Izecksohn, of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), and Wilma Peres Costa, of the Federal University of S\u00e3o Paulo (UNIFESP).<\/p>\n These historians contextualized the conflict within the nation-building process in the region and the interests that Brazil and its neighbors had in navigating the River Plate basin. They also began to pay attention to issues such as the conscription of enslaved people, women\u2019s participation, and life in the camps, which have been explored in greater depth in more recent works. Doratioto took it upon himself to arrange publication of the memoirs written by Doroth\u00e9e Duprat de Lassereb (1845\u20131932), a Frenchwoman who lived through the hardships of the Paraguayan War (see <\/em>Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 338<\/em>). The book was published in 2023 by Ch\u00e3o Editora. Four years earlier, the same publishing house published a book by historian Jos\u00e9 Murilo de Carvalho (1939\u20132023) about Jovita Alves Feitosa (1848\u20131867), a woman from Cear\u00e1 who tried in vain to become a soldier in the conflict.<\/p>\n The digitization of previously inaccessible sources and discoveries made in unexplored archives have contributed to the advances made in research conducted in Brazil and neighboring countries. In May, the Guita and Jos\u00e9 Mindlin Brasiliana Library at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (BBM-USP) received a collection of 4,000 books and documents about the Paraguayan War, including works considered rare by experts. The collection was built up over decades by a former business consultant, Sin\u00e9sio de Siqueira Filho, who decided to sell it to ensure its future preservation. Someone who prefers to not be identified purchased the collection, donated it to the USP library, and hired the company that will catalog the material.<\/p>\n The collection covers a wide range of topics and includes sources that enhance studies of the war and broaden our understanding of the history of the involved countries and their relationships. \u201cThere are many accounts from foreign travelers who visited the region during the conflict that can provide new perspectives,\u201d highlights USP historian Rodrigo Goyena Soares, who helped evaluate the collection. Researchers will be able to access the material after it is cataloged later this year. The library plans to digitize the rarest works.<\/p>\n Goyena researched the history of Paraguayan War veterans in Brazilian, Argentine, and Uruguayan archives while writing his master\u2019s thesis, presented in 2014, and continued the study in his doctoral dissertation, defended in 2017. Both works were carried out at UNIRIO, under the supervision of Salles. Goyena was immersed in the subject when he made a discovery that had major implications for researchers dedicated to the Paraguayan War.<\/p>\n In 2014, the researcher found a forgotten diary at the Imperial Museum of Petr\u00f3polis (RJ). The diary was written during the final phase of the conflict, by Gast\u00e3o de Orl\u00e9ans (1842\u20131922), Count of Eu, husband of Princess Isabel (1846\u20131921). He had been sent by his father-in-law, Emperor Pedro II (1825\u20131891), to take command of the Brazilian troops in 1869. The document, written in French, had never been carefully studied. Goyena found information in it that allowed him to refute versions that implicated the count in the executions of enemy officers by Brazilian troops at the end of the war. Translated by the historian, Di\u00e1rio do conde d\u2019Eu<\/em> (The Count of Eu\u2019s diary) was published by Paz & Terra publishing house in 2017.<\/p>\n Over the last 10 years, thirty-nine master\u2019s theses and fifteen doctoral dissertations on the Paraguayan War have been submitted in Brazil, according to the catalog kept by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education in Brazil (CAPES) and the websites for major graduate programs. An average of five theses per year seems low in a field where 1,400 researchers complete at least one of the two stages of graduate studies each year, but it could be a sign that interest in the subject is not yet exhausted.<\/p>\n Um Fluminense [Jos\u00e9 Alves Visconti Coaraci, 1837\u201392], Tra\u00e7os biographicos da heroina brasileira Jovita Alves Feitosa<\/em>.Rio de Janeiro: Tipografia Imparcial de Brito & Irm\u00e3o. 1865\u2009\/\u2009Collection: Guita and Jos\u00e9 Mindlin Brasiliana Library\u2002| Jos\u00e9 Rosael\u2009\/\u2009H\u00e9lio Nobre\u2009\/\u2009Paulista Museum \u2013 USP<\/span>Jovita Alves Feitosa and the canvas Her\u00f3i da Guerra do Paraguai<\/em> (Hero of the Paraguayan War; n.d.), by Belgian Adrien Henri Vital van EmelenUm Fluminense [Jos\u00e9 Alves Visconti Coaraci, 1837\u201392], Tra\u00e7os biographicos da heroina brasileira Jovita Alves Feitosa<\/em>.Rio de Janeiro: Tipografia Imparcial de Brito & Irm\u00e3o. 1865\u2009\/\u2009Collection: Guita and Jos\u00e9 Mindlin Brasiliana Library\u2002| Jos\u00e9 Rosael\u2009\/\u2009H\u00e9lio Nobre\u2009\/\u2009Paulista Museum \u2013 USP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Many of these papers examine the problems associated with recruiting troops in Brazil. Research by Salles and other historians since the 1990s has shown that local political leaders resisted enlisting members of the National Guard in the provinces and landowners resisted freeing enslaved people and allowing them to don the uniform even after the central government began paying compensation. More recent studies have confirmed these findings and present new evidence.<\/p>\n In Piau\u00ed, Valerio was able to gather information about 96 former soldiers, such as Professor Carvalho, after studying official documents and newspapers from the period, digitized by the National Library and the Piau\u00ed Journalism Remembrance Project, an initiative undertaken by the Federal University of Piau\u00ed (UFPI). In addition, he scoured the Piau\u00ed Public Archive and collected petitions from people who wanted to be exempted from military service, documenting situations that other publications have only described based on the reports sent to the Court by the provincial chairmen during the war.<\/p>\n Historian Edilson Pereira Brito followed a similar path in his research on recruitment during his master\u2019s thesis, defended in 2011 at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), as well as his doctoral dissertation on the National Guard, completed in 2018 at UNICAMP. Police reports and private letters helped him tell the story of interpreter Frutuoso Ant\u00f4nio de Moraes Dutra, who recruited Indigenous people from villages in Paran\u00e1 for the war effort, in exchange for rewards.<\/p>\n Additionally, the researcher found evidence that enslaved people took advantage of the conflict to negotiate the conditions of their release, since many free men did not want to fight and only freedmen could join the Army in their place. \u201cThe liberation of enslaved people who joined the troops was conditional on them completing a few years of military service, which created opportunities that many seized to achieve freedom,\u201d says Brito, of the Federal Institute of Paran\u00e1 (IFPR).<\/p>\n Data from an 1872 Ministry of War report, compiled by Izecksohn, of the UFRJ, indicate that participation by enslaved people in the troops was relatively minor, but proved crucial to sustaining war efforts in the final phase of the conflict. At least 6,000 enslaved people were recruited into the Army and Navy. In an article published in 2015 in Navigator<\/em>, a science journal released by the Brazilian Navy, historians calculated that they represented only 4 percent of the total number of combatants, but a quarter of those sent to the front during the last two years of the war. \u201cThe number of men mobilized by Brazil could have been as high as 150,000, but nobody knows for sure because of the precariousness of the statistics at the time,\u201d says Doratioto.<\/p>\n According to biologist Pedro Souza Moreira da Silva, who began studying the war while completing a master\u2019s program in history at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation\u2019s Oswaldo Cruz House (COC-FIOCRUZ), the conflict helps us understand how the country is still dealing with some of its problems today. Later this year, he will complete his doctorate at the same institution, where he seeks to understand the war from an environmental perspective, by analyzing the interactions between soldiers and the environment they encountered\u2014from using plants to feed the troops and care for the wounded, to dealing with the obstacles imposed by climate and geography.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way the troops [interacted] made the environment even more unhealthy and dangerous, which contributed to the spread of diseases and prolonged the conflict longer than perhaps necessary,\u201d says Moreira. Documents show that Army officers ate better than soldiers and slept in tents at their camps, while troops often slept out in the elements. \u201cThe inequality was a reflection of the slave society at the time, but it makes us reflect on the inequality that persists in our social relations today,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/RPF-guerra-paraguai-soldados-brasileiros-2024-09-1140.jpg\")
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