The Revolt of the Comuneros () was a series of uprisings by settlers in Paraguay in the Viceroyalty of Peru against the Spanish authorities from 1721 to 1725 and 1730–1735. The underlying cause of the unrest was strong anti-Jesuit feelings among the Paraguayans and dislike for any governor seen as favoring the Jesuits. In the resumption of the revolt in 1730, economic issues came to fore as well. The rebel organization split in its second phase, as the rural poor and the urban elite each formed their own factions with similar grievances against the Jesuits, but incompatible politics. Paraguay had an unusually strong tradition of self-rule; the colonists did not have a tradition of strict obedience to everything the Spanish Crown's governor decreed. This independence helped push the revolt forward.
The beginnings of the revolt were quasi-legal at first. José de Antequera y Castro (1690–1731), a judge for the Real Audiencia of Charcas, was sent to Asunción in 1721 to examine charges of misconduct against pro-Jesuit Governor Diego de los Reyes Balmaseda. Antequera concluded the charges were valid, forced Reyes into exile and later imprisoned him, and declared himself governor by the power of the Audencia in 1722. Antequera also accused the Jesuits of various crimes, demanded that the mission Indians under their care be enslaved and distributed to the citizens of Paraguay, and expelled the Jesuits from their college in Asunción. All these actions had the support of the citizens of Asunción, and governors had been deposed and replaced before without the central government complaining. However, Viceroy of Peru Diego Morcillo, residing in Lima, did not approve of Antequera's action and ordered Reyes' restoration as governor. With the backing of the settlers, Antequera refused, citing the authority of the Audencia as superior to that of the Viceroy. The feud between Antequera and the Viceroyalty continued after Viceroy Morcillo was replaced by the Marquis of Castelfuerte as Viceroy of Peru. Antequera's Paraguayan militia attacked and defeated an allied force of Jesuit mission Indians and Spanish colonial forces during the standoff. The battle tainted the legitimacy of Antequera's claim of governorship, however, and a second force was sent by Castelfuerte against a movement now seen as clearly treasonous. Antequera resigned in 1725 and fled to Charcas, while order was seemingly restored in the province. Antequera was arrested, imprisoned for five years at Lima, and executed.
Paraguay was quiet for 5 years under interim governor Martín de Barúa, seen as friendly to the settlers and hostile to the Jesuits. When he was replaced by Ignacio de Soroeta, however, Paraguay refused its new governor. Fernando de Mompox y Zayas had spread ideas among the populace that the power of the people - the común - was superior to that of the governor and even the King. The comuneros held new elections to the town council of Asunción, won the seats, and resumed self-rule. A replacement governor sent in 1732, Agustín de Ruyloba, was killed by the comuneros. However, the comunero movement split several times. The notables of Asunción, who had been happy to defy the colonial authorities when the town council was run by them, now feared the total breakdown of order, as the poorer Paraguayans started to loot the estates and property of any notable not thought to be sufficiently pro-comunero. The inability of Asunción to trade with the rest of the Spanish Empire led to an economic crisis, as well. When colonial forces finally moved on Asunción, the divided comuneros scattered and fled, with most of the Asunción faction joining the government forces in a bid for clemency.
Background
A tradition of self-government Paraguay was one of the most loosely controlled parts of the Spanish Empire by the Crown, with a strong independent streak in its leadership. This partially stemmed from a quirk of history in 1537. Shortly after the first settlements on the Rio de la Plata were made, Governor Pedro de Mendoza died. The crown subsequently issued a Royal Decree (), which stated that if Mendoza had named a successor, that successor was confirmed as governor. However, if Mendoza had not named a successor—or the successor was dead—a replacement should be "peaceably elected." An election was a unique privilege in Spain's American colonies; historian Adalberto López calls it "strange" as King Charles V was a ruthless centralizer who spent much of his reign curtailing the autonomy of Spain's various holdings, especially since Paraguay was still thought to hold precious metals at the time. A further oddity is that the decree did not limit the use of election to a one-time exigency. The citizens of Paraguay used the decree to elect a governor, and would use it many more times to not merely elect replacement governors, but also to depose disliked appointed governors. The decree of 1537 was used again in 1544 to justify a coup against Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who had reigned as governor for only two years. Cabeza de Vaca had attempted to control the settlers' abuse of the native Indians, earning him the dislike of many of the colonists. He was arrested, a replacement governor was proclaimed, and he was sent back to Spain in chains with a number of likely false crimes accused of him. Some Paraguayan historians would later attempt to tie this 1544 coup to the Revolt of the Comuneros in Castile from 1520 to 1521 and call this the "First Revolt of the Comuneros of Paraguay." While Cabeza de Vaca had been part of the royalist forces in that earlier struggle and had helped defeat the Castilian comuneros, it is unlikely that contemporary Paraguayans identified themselves with the Castilian comuneros, according to López. As the plotters hoped to attain legitimacy for their choice of governor in the eyes of the king, identifying themselves with despised rebels would have been counterproductive. Rather, the main contemporary references to the Paraguayans calling themselves comuneros come from sources friendly to Cabeza de Vaca seeking to discredit the coup in the eyes of the king.
Governors in office were more constrained than elsewhere in the Spanish Empire. Unpopular governors faced the threat of being removed through the application of the Decree of 1537; but even when such drastic measures were not used, the governor's power was curtailed. The cabildo (town council) of Asunción was powerful, and governors often found it difficult for their edicts to be enforced or obeyed if they acted without consulting the cabildo and securing its consent. Spain contributed relatively little in the way of troops, officials, funds, or armaments to Paraguay, and after it was determined that the region was not in fact rich in precious metals or other resources, immigration slowed. However, the interior of South America was dangerous, with Portuguese-aligned slavers and hostile Indian tribes to threaten the Paraguayans. Paraguay fended for itself with an armed militia. This also limited the governor's influence, as it was the members of the cabildo who rallied the militia.
The Jesuit missions
In 1588, the first missionaries from the Society of Jesus arrived in Asunción at the invitation of the settlers and the governor. They set to work at converting the Indians in the area. They also built a prominent church and college; the college was the only educational institution of any importance in the province. The Jesuits gathered a large number of Indians under their care, where they were able to go about Christianizing them and introducing the Indians to elements of Spanish civilization. Most importantly, the Jesuits were able to offer Indians under their care a measure of protection against other whites. Indians on their mission would not be sold into slavery, tricked out of their goods, or have their women taken for extra wives. Over time, an entire "empire within an empire" was built up, and the Jesuits took on responsibilities far beyond religious education. In order to pay royal taxes for the Indians, the Jesuits ran an economy and sold goods at market. In order to defend against Portuguese slavers and hostile Indians, the Jesuits gathered armaments and trained in the arts of war. This arming of mission Indians with firearms was highly controversial and was opposed by the Paraguayan settlers, but the constant threat of Portuguese invasion meant the Spanish Crown gave its consent, seeing the Jesuits as defenders of the border.. Avellaneda notes that permission to wield firearms was revoked for a period by the crown, although restored later.
As time went on, relations between the settlers and the Jesuits soured. The native population of the Guaraní Indians, initially large compared to the number of Spanish settlers, decreased greatly. In part this was due to the abuse and overwork engendered by the encomienda system, a legal framework similar to slavery, and in part due to the Spanish laws that declared the offspring of Spaniards and their Guaraní wives to be Spaniards themselves and thus entitled to their own native slaves under encomienda. As immigration slowed, the province became heavily populated by Spanish-Guaraní mestizo (mixed blood) descendants, who, due to the increasing unavailability of pure-blood Guarani to claim as servants, became a new class of "poor whites." Meanwhile, the Guaraní on the Jesuit missions were flourishing, and many Guaraní actively chose mission life over remaining independent or risking falling into the encomienda system. The result was a perceived "shortage" of cheap encomienda labor—a shortage that could be fixed if the Jesuit mission Indians were taken and impressed into the encomienda. Additionally, the Jesuit missions were an economic competitor to Paraguay's settlers, as both's major export was yerba mate used for the production of the caffeinated drink mate. The variety of yerba produced in the mission lands (yerba caaminí) was considered superior to the yerba harvested in the civil province (yerba de palos), reducing the Paraguayans' revenue even further. Since the mission lands were closed off to almost all Paraguayans, wild rumors about Jesuit activities within them found easy currency among the Paraguayans. Tales of hidden great treasures and secret lucrative mines worked by captive Indians were not uncommon.