Commentator J.H. asks what I think of the Whigham-Potthast methodology for estimating Paraguayan deaths in the War of the Triple Alliance. Coincidentally, the Whigham-Potthast article was exactly what I planned to be the subject of this post!
But first, let me say that I agree with J.H.’s point that had the country really lost 90% of its male population, then we would have seen bigger effects on its culture and literature than we do. Let me also say that careful researchers (like Reber) have tried to adjust for Paraguay’s territorial losses, but regardless those losses affected very little populated territory.
Which brings us to the work of Thomas Whigham (U-Georgia) and Barbara Potthast (Bielefeld). They uncovered an 1870 population survey taken at the tail end of the war. The survey was the work of the Provisional Government established by the Allied countries, who were not yet prepared to simply partition Paraguay between them. It isn’t entirely clear why the Provisional Government wanted the survey, but the answer is likely taxation: the government asked that information be gathered on the acreage sown with various crops in addition to the population data.
Now, the survey wasn’t really a census: rather, the government asked the political chiefs and justices of the peace in the various counties to report the data. Age groups were divided into children, adults and elderly, with no further elaboration. In addition, the survey omitted the cities of Asunción and Pilar. But it was data, and data are always useful! Consider what we were able to do with the highly flawed 1886 census.
So what did Whigham and Potthast do with their data? First they added estimates for Asunción and Pilar. The Asunción data came from an 1872 British diplomatic report; the Pilar data came from an 1871 newspaper article. Then they added up all the reported numbers of people.
And ... uh ... well, that is what they did. They got a total of 116,351. To that they added a guess of 50,000 people in non-reporting districts. That made a high estimate of 166,351. They then divided that number by their estimate of a prewar population of 389,000 to 457,000. Ergo, a population decline between 57% and 69%.
Do I have to explain why this is unlikely?
Oh, all right. The 1870 numbers do not jibe with other data. First, the 1870 survey reports 39,334 children. Whigham and Potthast take “children” to mean age 12 and below; which would place them as born between 1858 and 1870. In 1886, the number of the children born between 1856 and 1871 was 78,605. That is a difference of more than 39,000 people. A simple adjustment to remove 1856, 1857 and 1871 would cut that difference to 32,000, but it would still mean that more than 60% of the Whigham-Potthast upward adjustment of 50,000 would have to consist of uncounted children for their results to match 1886.
It is harder to match other cohorts. In 1870, adults were defined as anyone born between 1820 and 1857. They totaled 29,310. In 1886, people born between 1816 and 1855 totaled 52,584. Even people born just between 1836 and 1855 totaled 40,648. That is an additional 11,000 people at minimum, which would when combined with the missing children just about eat up their 50,000 fudge factor.
The Whigham-Potthast numbers are still remotely possible but ...
... the second problem is that we know that the 1886 census was also an undercount. How do we know that? Well, the 1886 census reported 28,113 people born between 1882 and 1884. By 1899, that cohort had grown to 43,907 people, all Paraguayan-born. That is, shall we say, not possible unless the 1886 count was too low. The same applies to later cohorts. The 1886 census found 80,476 people born between 1866 and 1881; the 1899 census reported 122,955 people born between 1864 and 1881. Unless 1864 and 1865 were rather astounding fertile years (which would be odd, considering as they were the first two years of the war) then the 1886 count once again has to be too low. (This problem does not apply to older cohorts; it seems that 1886 was particularly bad at recording children and young adults.)
In other words, 1886 suffered a minimum undercount of 58,000 relative to 1899; and 1870 suffered a minimum undercount of 43,000 relative to 1886. That is a total minimum undercount of 101,000. Lopping off the 50,000 fudge factor leaves us with an additional 51,000 missing people ... for a new minimum 1870 population estimate of 217,000.
To double-check, let’s adjust the 1886 numbers using the 1899 data for the undercounted cohorts. That would give us a minimum population of 290,061. (I feel ridiculous using more than two significant digits to report these numbers, but whatever.) That implies a growth rate of 3.5% per year between 1870 and 1886, which is really not possible in the age before antibiotics. In fact, Paraguay never mustered growth much above 1.7% per year; the figure of 3.1% between 1886 and 1899 is an artifact of the 1886 undercount.
To triple check, let’s match the 1870 data to the 1873 data. (Which actually reported numbers for 1872.) Now, we do not have original manuscripts for 1873, but I am not clear as to why we should discount its existence given that it was reported in British consular reports and Argentine newspapers. I am certain that the 1873 data are terrible, but that also applies to 1870. Anyway, the 1873 data report 86,079 people born between 1858 and 1872, which about 46,000 more than the 39,334 reported born in 1858-70 in the 1870 survey. (Jan Kleinpenning of the University of Nijmegen got to this point first.)
Finally, their 1864 baseline is almost certainly too high. It ignores the 1864-67 survey data. (That would be point #4 at the link.) The lowest estimate that they have is barely possible, but still not that likely.
I hate to make the calculation, but if we combine the high estimate of the 1864 population (370,000, assuming an average household size of seven people) with the low estimate of the 1870 population (217,000) we get a roughly 41% decline over the six years. Not all of that will be excess mortality, of course. Some will be international refugees, others away from their homes in Paraguay (for example, men still in the field who have not returned home), others undercounted, and some normal deaths that were not compensated for due to low fertility during the war. In other words, 41% is a meaningless figure ... but it does at least serve as a bracket.
A more realistic 1864 estimate uses an average household size of 5.5, which was typical for Chile and Mexico at the time. That would give a prewar population of 292,000. A population size of 292,000 implies 1.8% growth between 1864 and 1899 (and 2.2% growth from 1870 to 1899). Combining that figure with an 1870 population pf 217,000 pushes the total population fall to 22%. That is still, of course, a meaningless figure ... but it is the equivalent calculation to the more dramatic claims.
In short, the Whigham-Potthast method is a good one, but in this case it relies on bum data. The war was clearly catastrophic, but a 57%+ genocidal massacre it was not.
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