During one of the most brutal wars in modern times the combined forces of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay fought against and almost annihilated the Paraguayan nation. From 1865 to 1870 Paraguayans earned the world’s respect for their resistance to overwhelming invading forces, yet they endured hideous oppressions under a tryannical government. Although the United States then had little interest in Paraguay or direct involvement in the war and its issues, some valuable articles, including jewelry and money, deposited for safe-keeping in the United States legation in Asunción during the hostilities opened a lingering controversy that plagued the two countries’ relations for more than a half-century.

Paraguay after the War of the Triple Alliance was in a state of political and economic shock. Governmental institutions were shattered, their functions practically ceased, and the very basis of political life had to be reconstituted. Fertile fields lay uncultivated, livestock had all but disappeared, buildings were in ruins, orange groves were untended, and the remnant population survived on the bare edge of subsistence. Land titles, never very clear, became further tangled in a welter of conflicting claims. Well might a Buenos Aires editor observe: “The future of Paraguay is so dark that none can read it.”

Indian policy in Brazil, as in many countries, was and is a confused mixture of religion, humanitarianism, and greed. Almost every kind of system has been tried: open barter during the early years, undisguised slavery until 1570, lay administrators until 1624, missionary tutelage in some form from 1624 to 1759, with intermittent relapses into lay administration, secularization after 1755, with lay directors until 1798; military administration under civil judges until the end of the empire, and finally in 1910 the establishment of the Indian Service under General Rondón.

All Americans know that much of our coffee comes from Brazil. Most have heard of marvelous Rio de Janeiro, one of the beauty k queens of the earth—a city compressed between ocean and granite hills with dazzling white beaches, mosaic sidewalks, scores of night clubs, merry-making sambas, and a lavish Carnival. Quite a number have read of its awesome new capital Brasília, a fabulous creation of glass and concrete built in the middle of nowhere. Some are aware that it is a vast country, our largest and most powerful Latin American neighbor, with huge natural resources and a mushrooming growth in population: its high-grade iron ore reserves are among the richest in the world; its population is estimated to be 80,000,000, the major portion distributed along the Atlantic seaboard. Brazil, the fourth largest country in the world, occupies approximately one-half of South America, with a surface of 3,287,195 square miles, much of it unexplored, and has borders with all the countries of that continent excepting Ecuador and Chile.