Chapter 9

The Guarani'

Theodore Roosevelt said, "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages."

The president of the Royal Anthropological Institute said, "tribal beliefs in magic were a cause of folly and unhappiness."

He went on to say, "Existing tribes are plague spots:

"We should bring them to our justice, our education, and our science......

...few will deny that these are better than anything which savages have got."

Most of the 15,000 Guarani' are located in the rain forests of Paraguay

When the Europeans arrived in the 1500's there were over 1 million Guarani'.

Background

• Guarani people have been highly successful for hundreds of years.

How were they successful?

• considered the richest people for agriculture and stock raising
• they reared geese and other birds
• had an abundance of boar, deer, quail, partridge, and fisheries inthe river
• they grew potatoes, maize, fruit, peanuts, and collected honey from the trees

And they understood how to use agroforestry in the rain forests.

After their labor, they still had half the day devoted to leisure and socializing.

The Guarani' and their culture are now threatened.

How did this happen?

Since the 1970's Paraguay has dramatically increased the rate of forest destruction to make way for agriculture and cattle ranching.

It was the economic developed spawned by the needs of the global economy that threatened the Guarani' people, not military intervention or interethnic relations.

What things contributed to the rain forest destruction?

First, roads were built into forests for military defense, causing an influx of settlers into the rain forest.

Second, large-scale agriculture displaced small farmers.

A third factor was international finance.

Paraguay borrowed heavily in the 1970's to build roads and projects they believed necessary to build an industrial economy.

Environmental destruction soon followed.

Give some examples.

In sum, by the 1980's
(in 10 years)
the Guarani' society was more disrupted than the previous 400 years total.

Should we condemn the governments that destroy indigenous populations?

The nation-states are doing what capital controllers are supposed to do:
choosing modes of production and ways of life that will bring the greatest immediate monetary return.

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