Bernardino Caballero's accession to power in Paraguay…

Bernardino Caballero's accession to power in Paraguay is notable because he brings political stability, founding a ruling party—the Colorados—to regulate the choice of presidents and the distribution of spoils, and begins a process of economic reconstruction.

Despite their professed admiration for José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the Colorados have dismantled Francia's unique system of state socialism.

Desperate for cash because of heavy debts incurred in London in the early postwar period, the Colorados lack a source of funds except through the sale of the state's vast holdings, which comprise more than ninety-five percent of Paraguay's total land.

Caballero's government sells much of this land to foreigners in huge lots.

While Colorado politicians rake in the profits and themselves become large landowners, peasant squatters who had farmed the land for generations are forced to vacate and, in many cases, to emigrate.

By 1900, seventy-nine people will own half of the country's land.

Although the Liberals had advocated the same land-sale policy, the unpopularity of the sales and evidence of pervasive government corruption produces a tremendous outcry from the opposition.