Mennonites in Paraguay

Mennonite children inSan Juan Bautista
Total population
38,731 (2022)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Boquerón Department (Menno Colony,Neuland Colony,Filadelfia, etc.)
Religions
Anabaptist
Scriptures
Bible
Languages
Plautdietsch,Standard German,Spanish, English

Mennonites in Paraguay are eitherPlautdietsch-speakers of mostlyFlemish,Frisian andPrussian ancestry or, like the majority ofParaguayans, of mixed (southern European/Amerindian) orAmerindian ancestry.Ethnic Mennonites contribute heavily to the agricultural and dairy output ofParaguay.

In the 1780s, Catherine the Great of Russia invitedMennonites from Prussia to settle north of the Black Sea in exchange for religious freedom and exemption from military service, a precondition founded in their commitment to non-violence. After Russia introduced the general conscription in 1874, many Mennonites migrated to the US and Canada. The members of theMenno Colony moved to Paraguay from Canada when universal, secular compulsory education was implemented in 1917 that required the use of the English language. More conservative Mennonites saw this as a threat to the religious basis of their community. In 1927, 1743 pioneers came from Canada to Paraguay and turned the arid Chaco into fertile farmland over the years. It was the first Mennonite colony in the region.

In the beginning, the pioneers in the Chaco had to overcome many adversities. Many became sick due to the lack of medical care, of whom 121 died and some 60 families returned to Canada.

In 1930, another wave ofRussian Mennonite immigrants arrived in the Chaco area from Russia (mostly via a temporary stop in Germany) and founded theFernheim Colony. They were fleeing thepersecution by the Communists and a bad economic situation that was caused by thecollectivization in the Soviet Union and eventually led to theHolodomor. More Russian Mennonites fled to the west with the recedingGerman Army at the end of WW2 fearingpersecution,Russian forced labor camps and deportation. Some 3,500 of these Mennonites arrived in Paraguay and founded Neuland and Volendam colonies in 1947.^[2]

• 
  The appearance of the first houses built by the Mennonites.
• 
  Colony of Filadelfia, 1949.
• 
  Mennonite school children In Paraguay, 1949.
• 
  Girls from Fernheim Colony, 1987.

The vast majority of Mennonites in Paraguay, spread out over nineteen colonies across Paraguay, are of the Russian Mennonite variety, meaning they are originally of Dutch ancestry and can trace their history to theMennonite settlement in the Vistula Delta, from where they migrated to theRussian Empire and later to the Americas. The percentage of the Mennonites of Paraguay who came directly from Russia is 25 percent. 51 percent came from Russia via Canada, where they lived for several decades and a further 22% from Russia via Canada via Mexico (some from Mexico via Belize).

Smaller groups of Swiss German orOld Order Amish also exist in Paraguay, making up about two percent, and are descendants of Amish immigrants from the United States, who came originally fromSwitzerland andSouthern Germany.^[3]

The Russian Mennonite majority share a common ancestry,Plautdietsch language, and many other traditions, which are quite distinct from the small group ofAmish Mennonite in Paraguay, who speakPennsylvania German along with English.

There were 22,710 ethnic Mennonites living in Paraguay in 1987^[4] and 29,045 in 2000.^[5] Plautdietsch speakers were estimated 40,000 in 2007 according toEthnologue.^[6][8]

A 2020 survey found that there are more than 200 Mennonite colonies across 9 Latin American countries, with 25 in Paraguay alone.^[9]

Mennonite colonies are located in two quite different parts of Paraguay with quite different clime and natural resources: in the hot and dryGran Chaco region (West), and the milder and more humid in Eastern Paraguay.^[10] When calculating the population of Mennonites, sometimes only adult baptized members are counted, but here every Mennonite (i.e. baptized adult members, baptized young people and children who live in the colonies) is included.

^[1][11][12] *Colonies of English-speaking Mennonites of South German origin and Spanish-speaking Mennonites of divers origin likeBeachy Amish andConservative Mennonites^[13][14][15]

The Central Chaco region probably has the highest concentration of ethnic Mennonites anywhere in Latin America. German speaking people (almost all of them Mennonites) formed 32% of the total population of the Central Chaco as of 2005. Only Paraguayan Indians (52%) were more numerous compared to them. Latin Paraguayans, the majority ethnic group in Paraguay, constituted just 11% andBraziguayans and Argentines another 5%.^[16][17]

Mennonites have received some criticism from human rights organizations for their relations with a number of indigenous tribes, including theAyoreo people in Paraguay.^[18]

• Immigration to Paraguay
• Religion in Paraguay
• Mennonites in Bolivia – Religious denomination in South America
• Mennonites in Uruguay

• Gerhard Ratzlaff et al.:Lexikon der Mennoniten in Paraguay. Asunción 2009.
• Peter Klassen:Die Mennoniten in Paraguay : Reich Gottes und Reich dieser Welt. Bolanden 1988.
• Hendrik Hack:Die Kolonisation der Mennoniten im paraguayischen Chaco. Den Haag 1961.

• Mennonitism in Paraguay
• Immigration to Paraguay

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