Gill, Juan Bautista (1840–1877)

Juan Bautista Gill (b. 1840; d. 12 April 1877), president of Paraguay (1874–1877). Born into a well-connected Asunción family, Gill spent his earliest years in the Paraguayan capital, where, for a time, he worked as apprentice to his father, a high official of the Carlos Antonio López government. In 1854 the younger Gill journeyed to Buenos Aires, where he spent several years studying medicine. He returned to Paraguay just before the beginning of the War of the Triple Alliance in 1864. During the fighting he distinguished himself as a medical orderly and participated in several battles before being captured at Angostura in 1868.

Upon his release one year later, Gill immediately involved himself in the turbulent politics of the postwar period. His vociferous support for Conservatives Cirilo Antonio Rivarola and Cándido Bareiro gave him some prominence on the Paraguayan scene, as did his friendly connections with the Brazilians, whose army occupied the country. These same connections, however, earned Gill many enemies in the liberal camp.

Between 1872 and 1874 Bareiro masterminded a series of revolts aimed at toppling the government of Salvador Jovellanos. Although Gill played only a minor part in these actions, he stood the most to gain when the Brazilians dropped their support of Jovellanos. With their help, he became president in 1874.

Gill has often been portrayed as a Brazilian puppet, but he sincerely wished to see foreign troops leave Paraguay and worked tirelessly to that end. In 1876 he signed the Machaín-Irigoyen treaty with Argentina, an agreement that provided for the arbitration of the border dispute involving the Gran Chaco territory and thereby hastened the evacuation of the remaining Brazilian troops.

Gill had little opportunity to enjoy his laurels. In April 1877, a band of assassins led by Juan Silvano Godoi murdered the president on his way to government house.

See alsoChaco Region; López, Carlos Antonio; War of the Triple Alliance.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harris G. Warren, Paraguay and the Triple Alliance: The Postwar Decade, 1869–1878 (1978), pp. 195-274 and passim; Carlos Zubizarreta, Cien vidas paraguayas, 2d ed. (1985), pp. 192-195.

                                 Thomas L. Whigham