José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia

José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia Tomás (* January 6, 1766; † September 20, 1840 in Asunción ) was from 1814 to 1840 dictator of Paraguay.

Life

Rodríguez de Francia studied in Argentina at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba theology and subsequently worked as a lawyer in Asunción. He was a leading figure in the struggle for Paraguay's independence from Spain (1811 ). After gaining independence, he was elected to the Board. Rodríguez de Francia ruled from 1814 until his death in 1840, the dictator in Paraguay.

He forced the Spanish upper class under penalty of banishment to intermarriage with Guaranís, mulattoes or blacks and led his country into a radical Autarkismus; it was nothing imported and exported only mate tea, foreigners were not allowed into the country. This policy meant that there was hardly any poverty in Paraguay - but also no wealth - and a kind of Latin American exceptionalism was taken, which was a departure from Great Britain funded in Latin America, market liberalism. But put the personal government of Francia is also a precedent for the future: He left behind virtually no existing administrative machinery, which were possible in the sequence only personal dictatorships strong military rulers. Significantly, his is - in Latin America often cited - outburst: "I am in a land of idiots, in which I have to do everything alone. "

The history and personality Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia Augusto Roa Bastos suggested to his 1974 novel, Yo, el Supremo ( I, the Almighty ).