One of the most important issues that confronted the colonial powers in the New World was the problem of European-Indian relations. Upon this pivotal point hinged such fundamental questions as political sovereignty, the moral responsibilities of Christian states towards aboriginal inhabitants and, on a less elevated level, the economic rights of the Europeans to the wealth and labor of the Indians. All colonial nations in the western hemisphere grappled with the problem introducing, modifying, and ultimately substituting a variety of institutions to regulate European-Indian contacts.

When Brazilian troops occupied Asunción on January 1, 1869, the worst war in South American history appeared to be nearing its end. This was a conflict caused by power politics, boundary disputes, and traditional animosities in the Plata basin. In a very real sense, the Paraguayan War was a climactic event in the evolution of nationalism in all of the four countries involved. A fortuitous combination of circumstances found Brazil and Argentina supporting the same party in Uruguay; although still intensely suspicious of each other's intentions, they had come to realize that an independent Uruguay was essential for the maintenance of peace between them. Argentina and Brazil had long sustained territorial disputes with Paraguay; indeed, if their desires had been satisfied, Paraguay would have been reduced to the territory she now has between the Paraná and Paraguay rivers.

One of the consequences of the Buenos Aires revolution in May of 1810 was the eventual independence of Paraguay and the rise to power of Doctor José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia. But before analysing the events of the Independence Movement in the isolated province of Paraguay it is necessary to consider both the conditions in that region in the last decade of colonial rule and the activities of Doctor Francia in the same period.

It is well known that the initial task of interpreting the Monroe Doctrine as a functional policy in international relations fell largely on John Quincy Adams. Somewhat ironically, the noncolonization principle in Monroe's famed Annual Message of 1823 for which Adams, then Secretary of State, was most responsible, received relatively little attention in the 1820's. Leaders in the United States and Spanish America alike were more concerned with the meaning of the other main principle involved in the Message—nonintervention. What were the practical implications of Monroe's warning that the United States would consider intervention by a European power in the affairs of any independent American nation “ as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States ” ? John Quincy Adams laid the groundwork for an answer to this question in July, 1824, when Colombia, alarmed by rumors of French interference in the wars for independence, sought a treaty of alliance. The President and Congress, Adams replied, would take the necessary action to support nonintervention if a crisis arose, but there would be no alliance. In fact, he added, it would be necessary for the United States to have an understanding with certain European powers whose principles and interests also supported nonintervention before any action could be taken or any alliance completed to uphold it. The position taken by the Secretary of State cooled enthusiasm for the Monroe Doctrine, but Spanish American leaders did not accept this rebuff in 1824 as final.

The day after the successful ouster of Spanish authority in the viceregal capital of the Río de la Plata, on May 26, 1810, the revolutionary Junta in Buenos Aires sent a series of circulars to the governors and cabildos of the provinces formerly subjected to its leadership. These circulars announced the revolution, its aims and purposes, and made it quite clear that the new authorities in Buenos Aires expected to remain in control over the entire immense region. Most of the provinces responded in the affirmative, but royalists in the Banda Oriental and in Alto Perú declared themselves enemies of the revolution and prepared to resist it. In Paraguay, the situation was sufficiently ambiguous that the Junta decided to send Colonel José de Espínola, former military chief of Paraguay's northern frontier and now a partisan of the revolution, to Asunción to state the “ Porteño ” case. He brought with him formal letters from the Junta to the cabildo of Asunción and the Spanish governor, Bernardo de Velasco y Huidbro.