The Labor of the State: Unfree Workers and the Making of Paraguay’s First Republic (1811-1870)

The Labor of the State examines the role of labor coercion in the formation of Latin America republics through the understudied, yet fascinating case of Paraguay—a state that mobilized unfree work to an extent unparalleled in the region. Blending social and political history, The Labor of the State examines the lives, labor, and actions of the thousands of state-held enslaved people, tributaries, convicts, soldiers, and drafted peasants who forged the Paraguayan republic from independence from Spain (1811) to a devastating war where the country lost sixty percent of its population (1864-1870). The book reveals the original strategies that these workers developed against the backdrop of an authoritarian republic—how they leveraged their positions in the state’s labor force to challenge authorities, secure resources and privileges, and advance their own visions of good government. Overall, The Labor of the State argues that labor coercion was more than a relic from the colonial past or a tool for capital accumulation: it was also central to the establishment of sovereign polities in post-independence Latin America. The target readership includes scholars and students of Latin American history and an interdisciplinary audience of scholars of state formation, labor, slavery, and indigeneity.