Editing Paraguay (section)

===Colonial era===
The first Europeans in the area were Spanish explorers in 1516.<ref name=eec>{{cite report |author=Sacks, Richard S. |section=Early explorers and conquistadors |editor1-last=Hanratty |editor1-first=Dannin M. |editor2-last=Meditz |editor2-first=Sandra W. |year=1988 |title=Paraguay: A country study |location=Washington, DC |publisher=U.S. [[Library of Congress]] / [[Government Printing Office|GPO]] |url=http://countrystudies.us/paraguay/2.htm |url-status=live |access-date=19 September 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110919163833/http://countrystudies.us/paraguay/2.htm |archive-date=19 September 2011}}</ref> The Spanish explorer [[Juan de Salazar de Espinosa]] founded the settlement of [[Asunción]] on 15 August 1537. The city eventually became the center of a [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Spanish colonial province of Paraguay]].

An attempt to create an autonomous Christian Indian nation<ref name="cite wdl|#2581">{{cite web |title=Paraguariae Provinciae Soc. Jesu cum Adiacentibg. Novissima Descriptio |language=la |trans-title=A Current Description of the Province of the Society of Jesus in Paraguay with Neighboring Areas |year=1732 |via=[[World Digital Library]] |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2581/ |access-date=8 September 2015 |archive-date=28 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428011358/http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2581/ |url-status=live }}</ref> was undertaken by [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] missions and settlements in this part of South America in the eighteenth century. They developed Jesuit [[reductions]] to bring Guarani populations together at Spanish missions and protect them from virtual slavery by Spanish settlers and Portuguese slave raiders, the ''[[bandeirantes]]'', in addition to seeking their conversion to Christianity. Catholicism in Paraguay was influenced by the indigenous peoples: The [[syncretic]] religion has absorbed native elements. The ''reducciones'' flourished in eastern Paraguay for about 150&nbsp;years, until the expulsion of the Jesuits by the Spanish Crown in 1767.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ganson |first=Barbara Anne |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Guaran%C3%AD_under_Spanish_Rule_in_the_R/CG7fscxlgpUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=isbn:9780804754958&printsec=frontcover |title=The Guaraní under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata |date=2003 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-5495-8 |language=en}}</ref> The ruins of two 18th&nbsp;century [[Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue]] have been designated as [[World Heritage Sites]] by [[UNESCO]].<ref name="cite wdl |#2581"/>

In western Paraguay, Spanish settlement and Christianity were strongly resisted by the nomadic [[Guaycuru peoples|Guaycuru]] and other nomads from the 16th century onward. Most of these peoples were absorbed into the [[mestizo]] population in the 18th and 19th centuries.