Menno (Paraguay)

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Colonia Menno is a colony founded by Plautdietschen Mennonites in Paraguay in 1926 in the central Chaco in northwestern Paraguay and covers an area of ​​around 7,500 square kilometers. Its main town is Loma Plata . Mennonite neighboring colonies are Fernheim and Neuland .

History and settlement

The approximately 9,000 citizens (2010) are originally of German-Dutch or Russian Mennonite origin. Before settling in Paraguay, the direct ancestors had already settled in the West Prussian Vistula Delta until the end of the 18th century , in the Russian Black Sea region until 1874 and in Manitoba , Canada until 1926 .

With around 3,500 inhabitants, Loma Plata is the center and largest town in the settlement area and the seat of the administration. The main reason for moving from Canada to Paraguay was the introduction of compulsory schooling on a secular, English-speaking basis in Canada in 1917 . A conservative section of the Mennonites saw this as a threat to the religious base of the community. Because if one were to hand over one's own community schools to the state, religious instruction and the German language would be lost and with it the basis of the community. Furthermore, the Canadian settlement laws were the cause of the emigration, which opposed the form of cooperative agriculture developed in Russia .

In 1921, Mennonite congregations from the east (Chortitzer) and west (summer fields) reserves of the Red River in Manitoba and from Bergthal in Saskatchewan sent a delegation to South America to look for settlement land for a new home. This Chaco expedition, led by the Norwegian land broker and pacifist Fred Engen, who had already traveled alone in the Chaco in 1919, found the elongated sawanne ridge of the Chaco interior to be very suitable for establishing an agricultural settlement. Since the Paraguayan state was interested in energetic settlers who could reclaim the huge, previously largely undeveloped area of ​​the Gran Chaco , it made extensive concessions in Law 514. In it it guaranteed exemption from military service , the running of its own German schools, largely autonomous administration and jurisdiction, absolute freedom of religion and the unlimited possibility of further Mennonites immigrating. The Mennonites bought the land they needed at inflated prices from the Argentine company Carlos Casado SA , one of the most powerful large landowners who owned millions of hectares of land in the Chaco.

Between December 1926 and November 1927, 1,743 Mennonite settlers from Canada arrived in Paraguay. However, they could not immediately move to the settlement land that had not yet been surveyed and that had not yet been made accessible by rail, as discussed by the Chaco expedition in 1921. Thus, the settlers first lived in camps in Puerto Casado and in the Chaco interior, and 171 immigrants died in the 18-month waiting period before settling in villages. Many traveled back to Canada, and around 1200 formed the basis of the Menno colony in the Paraguayan Chaco. In the 1950s, there was a wave of emigration due to the persistently adverse living conditions and the conservatism of the colonies. However, due to the rapidly developing economy and the well-functioning community, Menno has also become a magnet for Paraguayans in recent decades.

Economic development

For a long time the life of the Mennonites in the Chaco was marked by extreme hardship. So the newcomers completely lacked agricultural experience in tropical conditions. The climatic and soil conditions, especially the drought of the winter months, turned out to be much more rigid than the descriptions of the Paraguayan advertisers. These circumstances were caused by the z. Sometimes voluntary renunciation of the achievements of modern agriculture is made even more difficult. Due to the isolated location of the colonies, trade could hardly take place, so that most of the businesses were geared towards subsistence farming .

The economic upswing in Central Chaco began when the agricultural cooperatives invested in milk processing with the help of a World Bank loan in the early 1980s . This was preceded in 1955 by the introduction of the resilient North American buffalo grass as the basis for extensive livestock farming and in 1965 by the construction of the connecting road to Asunción, the Ruta Trans-Chaco. The reform of the school system and general liberalization were also important prerequisites for the economic upswing - all the more so since Menno was long considered the most conservative of the colonies.

Culture

The cultural life in Loma Plata is limited to theatrical performances in schools and occasional readings and lectures. The central city library (librería) has reading books and board games in Spanish and German for loan and sale.

Indigenous population

At the time of the Mennonite immigration, the area was inhabited by Lengua Indians. This Indian tribe then numbered around 600 people and has grown rapidly since Menno was founded. Due to improved living conditions and the extremely good relationship between indigenous people and Mennonite settlers, Menno and the neighboring settlements also became the preferred settlement destination for other Indian tribes. For the social and economic promotion of the indigenous population, the Mennonite community founded the service cooperative Asociación de Servicios de Cooperación Indígena Mennonita ( ASCIM ) in 1961 . ASCIM has 300 employees, half Mennonite and half Indian. The general assembly of the non-profit association currently consists of 30 Indian and 32 non-Indian representatives. The number of the indigenous population has risen to a total of 25,000 today and thus far exceeds the number of Mennonites. Although Mennonites and indigenous people have been working closely together for a long time and parts of the latter have now adopted the Plautdietsch of the settlers, there has been virtually no intermingling to this day. In terms of proselytizing the Indians, there is competition between the missionary efforts of the Mennonites and Catholic missionaries in Paraguay.

See also

swell

Web links


Coordinates: 27 ° 20 ′  S , 55 ° 52 ′  W