Manuel Antonio Ortiz, who had become President…

Manuel Antonio Ortiz, who had become President of the Provisional Junta of Paraguay on September 20, 1840, following death of the dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, remains chairman of the Junta until January 22, 1841.

He is succeeded briefly by Juan José Medina, then by Mariano Roque Alonzo Romero, who on March 14, 1841 establishes a government ruling jointly with Carlos Antonio López, secretary of the Junta; they both style themselves “consuls of the republic".

López, born at Asunción on November 4, 1790, had been educated in the ecclesiastical seminary of this city.

Having attracted the hostility of Francia, he had been forced to keep in hiding for several years.

He had acquired, however, so unusual a knowledge of law and governmental affairs that, on Francia's death in 1840, he had obtained almost undisputed control of the Paraguayan state, which he is to maintain without interruption until 1862.