Bienvenido a la Nueva Australia! Quiz

Answer: Recession and massive unemployment

Most of the Nueva Australia colonists were Queensland sheep-shearers who railed against the less favourable working conditions imposed upon them by employers during the recession of the early 1890s. When their strike failed, they were unemployed and desperate.

The prospect of a utopian existence in Paraguay promised to them by the charismatic socialist journalist, William Lane, was irresistible. Unfortunately, the impossible moral conditions imposed by Lane, as well as the back-breaking unpaid work required of them to establish the commune of Nueva Australia, caused many to realise that the conditions in Paraguay were far worse than those they had left.

Hence, the commune ultimately failed.

Answer: To repopulate (90% of its male population had been killed in war)

Paraguay needed to rebuild the nation after it lost 90% of its able-bodied male population in the War of the Triple Alliance. The former dictator of Paraguay, Francisco Lopez, had simultaneously declared war on Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina in 1865 precipitating mass slaughter of its menfolk. Only 14,000 able-bodied men remained in Paraguay after five years of warfare.

The country was devastated, having lost not just manpower but much of its original borders. Land was offered to anyone from anywhere who was capable of working the land and re-populating the country; and William Lane, the leader of an Australian socialist co-operative looking to establish a socialist commune, saw the offer of 185,000 acres of fertile land in return for settling 1,200 families in Paraguay as the best of the offers he had received.

Answer: South-east of Asunción (towards Argentina)

Nueva Australia and its breakaway colony, Cosme, are both south-east of Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, and fairly close to the town of Villarrica (about 80 miles from Asunción). The actual train the settlers took in 1893 from Asunción to Villarrica was still operating in 2006. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fbt9QiLWWc

Answer: By steamship up the Río Paraná and the Río Paraguay to Asunción

William Lane founded the New Australia Settlement Association in 1893 and, with about 2000 subscribers each paying a fee of £60 (a small fortune in 1893), purchased a ship, the Royal Tar, to take them to their new home, Nueva Australia, in Paraguay. The voyage took 68 days.

The first voyage of the Royal Tar left Sydney on 16 July 1893 and was largely comprised of shearers from Queensland. The second voyage of the Royal Tar left from Adelaide on l January 1894, arriving at Montevideo 21 February 1894.

The first settlers arrived in Asunción on 22nd September 1893 and from there they travelled by train to Villarrica.

Answer: By ox wagons

From Villarrica, the Australian settlers used oxen and wagons to travel to Nueva Australia. The journey took six weeks which, considering the distance, is evidence of just how backward and dangerous the terrain was in 1893. They had many river crossings to traverse; they were practically eaten alive by mosquitoes; jaguars stalked their camp at night; polvorinos (tiny ground-dwelling parasites) ate into the soles of their feet and laid eggs; and by the time they arrived at their 185,000 acres of fertile land they were exhausted and disappointed with what they saw.

They did, however, manage to transform their little bit of Paraguay into a liveable, sustainable and pretty village within a very short space of time. Social tensions, however, destroyed what might have been a true utopia.

Answer: Preservation of the "colour line"

In the 21st century, William Lane's racism sounds deplorable but for 19th century socialists, especially those in Australia, the mingling of the races was a taboo. In fact, the "White Australia Policy" was enshrined in the Australian Labor Party platform, and continued to influence Australia's immigration policy until the 1960s.

The "colour line" was taken for granted in Australia in 1893, but in Paraguay it did not. At the time the Australian settlers arrived in Paraguay, the local women comprised about 80% of the population due to a 5-year war which had killed their menfolk.

Intermarriage with the local women was therefore necessary for Paraguay's survival.

Answer: Caña

Caña is the local name for sugar-cane rum in Paraguay, and the sugar-cane fields of Queensland are the source of Australia's most famous alcoholic beverage, Bundaberg Rum. William Lane, the founder of Nueva Australia, had been a leading light in the Australian labour movement, also founding Australia's first labour newspaper, the "Queensland Worker", at a time of economic depression in the early 1890s (when employers were cutting pay).

In February 1891, Queensland shearers walked off their jobs by the thousands to protest pay-cuts.

Other bush workers joined them, but the strike was eventually broken by redcoat troops. Unemployed and full of hatred for "authority", these shearers jumped at the opportunity to start a new life in Paraguay. They knew that one of Lane's conditions was "no booze", but they blatantly defied him.

Answer: Cosme

Existing problems with Lane's prohibition on alcohol and fraternising with the local women, as well as the whole notion of a socialist commune, worsened in 1894 after a second group of Australian colonists arrived from Adelaide. On 12 May 1894, Cosme was founded by Lane south-east of Nueva Australia as a new colony for teetotallers. Eventually, the socialist cooperatives of both Cosme and Nueva Australia were dissolved by the government of Paraguay and the settlers gained private ownership of their land.

Answer: Conditions in Paraguay were not as good as they had expected

As early as 1899 even William Lane, the founder of Nueva Australia and Cosme, finally abandoned his dream of a socialist utopia and relocated to New Zealand, becoming the editor of the "New Zealand Herald". For a few years after William Lane left a handful of new colonists arrived from Australia and Britain, but the majority of settlers didn't settle down and found 'communal' living to be against their natural bent.

They either returned to Australia or migrated to Britain or found work elsewhere in South America. Of the eight or so families that did remain, and intermarried, their descendants now number into the thousands.

Answer: New London

Many of the Nueva Australia settlers, like William Lane himself, originally came from the British Isles to Australia or were descended from English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh settlers in Australia. To call the new village after London may have been their second choice, but it was appropriate in view of their ancestry and the fact that intermarriage with the local population over nearly 100 years had rendered most of them more Mestizo than Australian. Apart from a gift of a toilet to the local school from the Australian Embassy, the Australian government showed no interest in this unusual "Australian" colony in Paraguay.

It is interesting, though, that the schoolteacher who went to Nueva Australia and stayed there for five years, Mary Gilmore, is featured on the A$10 note.