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14 of Paraguay was from the first a turbulent municipal republic. The colonists deposed their royally appointed governors with shouts of "Death to Tyrants," elected rulers of their own, and did as they liked for more than twenty-five years (1535–60). These and many other similar facts, prove that the colonization of South America was imbued from the commencement with the principle of individuality and with the instinct of independence, which naturally resulted in emancipation and democracy.

These insurrections were outbursts of Castillian spirit, but early in the eighteenth century, Creoles begin to call themselves with pride Americans, and for the first time is heard in Potosi the cry of Liberty. In 1711 the half-breeds proclaimed a mulatto King of Venezuela. In 1733 the Creoles rose in arms and compelled the abrogation of the commercial monopoly of the "Compania Guipuzcoana de Caracas." In 1730 two thousand half-breeds at Cochabamba (Upper Peru), made armed protest against the poll-tax, and acquired the right to elect Creoles as officers of justice to the exclusion of Spaniards. In 1765 the Creoles of Quito rose in armed insurrection against the imposition of direct taxes. None of these outbreaks had as yet any definite political character. The embryonic republic of Paraguay gave the first example of a revolutionary movement based upon the sovereignty of the people.

José Antequera, by birth an American but educated in Spain, appeared on the scene during a dispute between the governor of Paraguay and the Cabildo of Asuncion. The people named him governor by acclamation. He placed himself at their head, in opposition to the theocratic rule of the Jesuits, who were ruining the country. He fought pitched battles against the royal troops and was blessed as a saviour, but died on the scaffold as a traitor to his king.

After his death, his pupil Fernando Mompox organized the popular party under the name of the Comuneros,