Mennonites in Bolivia

The Mennonites in Bolivia are descendants of mostly ethnic Mennonites of German and Dutch descent who came to South America in the early 20th century. The groups in Bolivia belong to the so-called "Russian Mennonites", who lived for more than 200 years in West Prussia before moving to the Russian Empire in 1789. Starting in the 19th century several groups migrated to Canada before moving to Mexico and other Latin American countries in the 1920s.

Mennonites in Bolivia speak Plautdietsch, a German dialect that originated in the Vistula delta (now within modern-day Poland). Since coming to Bolivia, a number of other people from other ethnic background have converted to Mennonite Christianity. The "Russian Mennonites” in Bolivia are among the most traditional and conservative of all the Mennonites denominations in South America. As of 2012, there are about 70,000 Mennonites living in Bolivia.

History

Origins

In the early-to-mid 16th century, Mennonites began to move from the Low Countries to the Vistula delta region, seeking religious freedom and exemption from military service. There they gradually replaced their Dutch and Frisian languages with the Plautdietsch dialect spoken in the area, blending into it elements of their native tongues. The Mennonites of Dutch origin were joined by Mennonites from other parts of Germany.

In 1772, most of the West-Prussian Mennonites' land in the Vistula area became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in the first of the Partitions of Poland. Frederick William II of Prussia ascended the throne in 1786 and imposed heavy fees on the Mennonites in exchange for continued military exemption.

Russia

In the 1760s Catherine the Great of Russia invited Mennonites from Prussia to settle north of the Black Sea in exchange for religious freedom and exemption from military service, a precondition founded in their commitment to non-violence. The ancestors of the Bolivian Mennonites settled in the Russian Empire in two main waves in the years 1789 and 1804, coming from the Vistula delta in West Prussia. After Russia introduced the general conscription in 1874, many Mennonites migrated to the US and Canada.

Canada

In the years after 1873 some 7,000 left the Russian Empire and settled in Manitoba, Canada. The Russian Mennonites settled in Canada until a universal, secular compulsory education was implemented in 1917 that required the use of the English language, which the more conservative Mennonites saw as a threat to the religious basis of their community.

Mexico, Paraguay and Belize

The more conservative Mennonites from Russia, some 6,000 people, left Canada between 1922 and 1925 and settled in Mexico. Another 1,800 more conservative Mennonites migrated to the Chaco region in Paraguay in 1927. In 1930 and in 1947 the Paraguayian Mennonites were joined by Mennonites coming directly from Russia. In the years after 1958 some 1,700 Mennonites from the Mexican settlements moved to what was then British Honduras and today is Belize.

Bolivia

The Bolivian government granted a privilege to future Mennonite immigrants including freedom of religion, private schools and exemption from military service in the 1930s, but that was not deployed until the 1950s.

Between 1954 and 1957, a first group of 37 families from various Mennonite colonies in Paraguay established Tres Palmas colony, 25 km northeast of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Soon, a second colony was established five km away from Tres Palmas by a group of 25 conservative families from Menno Colony in Paraguay. The settlers from Paraguay were experienced and well prepared to practice agriculture in a subtropical climate. In 1959, the total Mennonite population in Bolivia was 189.^[2]

In 1963, new settlements were founded where Mennonites from Paraguay and Canada lived together. In 1967, Mennonites from Mexico and from their daughter colonies in Belize began to settle in the Santa Cruz Department. Las Piedras colony, founded 1968, was the first colony founded exclusively by Mennonites from Canada. Most settlers in Bolivia were traditional Mennonites who wanted to separate themselves more from the “world”. Altogether there were about 17,500 Mennonites living in 16 colonies in Bolivia by 1986, of whom nearly 15,000 were Old Colony Mennonites and 2,500 Bergthal or Sommerfeld Mennonites.^[3]

Colonies

In 1995, there were a total of 25 Mennonite colonies in Bolivia with a total population of 28,567. The most populous ones were Riva Palacios (5,488), Swift Current (2,602), Nueva Esperanza (2,455), Valle Esperanza (2,214) and Santa Rita (1,748).^[1] In 2002 there were 40 Mennonite colonies with a population of about 38,000 people.^[4] An outreach of Conservative Mennonites can be found at La Estrella, with others in progress.

^[5]

Members and population

In 2012 there were 23,818 church members in congregations of Russian Mennonites, indicating a total population of about 70,000. Another 1,170 Mennonites were in Spanish speaking congregations.^[6] The number of colonies was 57 in 2011.

The total population was estimated at 60,000 by Lisa Wiltse in 2010.^[7]

^[8]

Rape cases of 2013

In 2011, eight men belonging to the Manitoba Mennonite Colony were convicted of a series of sexual assaults committed from 2005 to 2009. Prior to the discovery, the rapes had been attributed to a ghost or demon. The victims were reported to be between the ages of 3 and 65. The offenders used a type of gas used by veterinarians to sedate animals during medical procedures. Despite long custodial sentences for the convicted men, an investigation in 2013 reported continuing cases of similar assaults and other sexual abuses.^[9]

See also

• Mennonites in Mexico
• Mennonites in Belize
• Mennonites in Paraguay
• Mennonites in Argentina
• Mennonites in Uruguay

Literature

• Huttner, Jakob: Zwischen Eigen-art und Wirk-lichkeit : Die Altkolonie-Mennoniten im bolivianischen Chaco. Berlin 2012.
• Schartner, Sieghard and Schartner, Sylvia: Bolivien : Zufluchtsort der konservativen Mennoniten. Asunción 2009.
• Cañás Bottos, Lorenzo: Old Colony Mennonites in Argentina and Bolivia : Nation Making, Religious Conflict and Imagination of the Future. Leiden et. al. 2008.
• Hedberg, Anna Sofia: Outside the world : Cohesion and Deviation among Old Colony Mennonites in Bolivia. Uppsala 2007.
• Pasco, Gwenaëlle: La Colonisation Mennonite en Bolivie : Culture et agriculture dans l'Oriente. Paris 1999.

References

External links

• Photographic essay on the Mennonites of Bolivia
• Bolivia's isolated Mennonite community