Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
colonists who had emigrated from Russia in 1874 but, whose pacifis-
tic stance had created a hostile environment for these German speakers
in post-World War I Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In 1921, the govern-
ment began negotiating with Mennonite delegations, and Mennonite
colonies were established in the central Chaco in 1927. In exchange for
“populating, cultivating, and civilizing” the so-called Green Hell, Menno-
nites were promised special rights (including political autonomy, exemp-
tion from taxes and military service, and permission to establish their
own German-language schools and ban alcohol in their communities).
These positions were formalized in 1921 through Law 514. By 1928, eigh-
teen Mennonite villages and 255 farms had been founded on sixty-five
hectares of land in the central Chaco. Two other waves of Mennonite im-
migration in 1930 and 1947 added additional colonies, each comprised
of numerous villages and corresponding farms laid out in the
Strassendor-
fer
administrative style imported from sixteenth-century Prussia, with its
spatial emphasis on community order and church supervision.
30
Salt is also a key indicator of the presence of hydrocarbons. Oil was
discovered in the Andean foothills in 1919, a crucial factor in the subse-
quent Chaco War (1932-35). Standard Oil, which already had producing
wells near Villa Montes, Bolivia, began competing for leases in the north-
ern Chaco with Shell Oil, which was affiliated with the Paraguayan gov-
ernment. Both governments took a sudden interest in this area, which
included a vast amount of ancestral Ayoreo territory, and both sides began
making preparations for war. These preparations included building roads
and forts. In 1913, the Paraguayan army surveyed a road straight through
the center of the lands occupied by Ayoreo-speaking groups, north from
Fernheim to Madrejon, some fifteen kilometers east of Cerro León. In the
late 1920s, this road was built and forts erected along its length, almost
always near the few permanent water sources in the region.
31
Echoi again figured prominently in these geopolitical skirmishes, pre-
cisely because of its earlier importance for the Jesuits. In the buildup to
the Chaco War, history was instrumental. At the center of this was a de-
bate about the precise location of the “lost” mission of San Ignacio de
Zamucos. Government officials from Bolivia and Paraguay eagerly sought
historical precedents for their claims to the northern Chaco. Thus, Para-
guayan scholars placed it north of Echoi, while Bolivian sources from
the 1930s regularly placed San Ignacio far to the south, near the site of
present-day La Gerenza or Fortín Ingavi.
These contested historical geographies became military coordinates.
In July 1931, the Bolivian Lieutenant Coronel Angel Ayoroa set out south
from Roboré to the Salinas, with the objective of “reincorporating the
