Tur audio Origins and Migrations

THE WAY TO PARAGUAY

The history of the Mennonites is characterized by persecutions, migrations and relocations. Forced by the systems of government, at different moments in history they looked for places where they could live their lives apart from the world and without religious and political restrictions.

The lines on the world map illustrate these journeys, relocations and migrations. One of them takes us to the Paraguayan Chaco.

In the 1920s, a group of Canadian Mennonites decided to move to South America, to a country that was largely foreign to them: Paraguay. For the first time in history, Mennonites settled in the southern hemisphere.

In November 1926, 309 people traveled on trains from Niverville, Carey and Altona in Manitoba through Minneapolis and Chicago to New York. From there, they took the ocean liner Vasari of Lamport & Holt Steamship Lines to Buenos Aires.

From Buenos Aires, they continued their journey on a small steamer named Apipe and arrived in the port of Asunción on December 29. President Dr. Eligio Ayala welcomed the travelers. They then continued their journey and arrived in Puerto Casado on December 31, 1926.

As the railroad had not been built to the interior of the Chaco, and their land had not been surveyed as previously agreed, they had to wait 16 months before settling on land of their own.

Six more groups followed by November 1927. 1,745 Mennonites in total came from Canada to the Paraguayan Chaco.

The journey had been long, full of obstacles and hardships. And what awaited them during the settlement period in the Chaco was to be even more difficult.