The lost treasure of Lopez

A real national treasury that vanished in 1870, still unaccounted for

Separate the documented part from the legend, because with this one the documented part is the heavier of the two.

Francisco Solano López was president of Paraguay from 1862 and led it through the War of the Triple Alliance against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay from 1864. It is one of the most destructive wars in the history of the Americas, and Paraguay lost an enormous share of its population, with the worst estimates putting the loss at more than half. The end came on 1 March 1870 at Cerro Corá, in the far northeast near the Brazilian border, where López was run down with the remnant of his forces and killed. He is said to have declared that he died with his country. He lies in the National Pantheon of the Heroes in Asunción, and Paraguay regards him as a national martyr.

The legend is what he is supposed to have had with him. The story is that the national treasury went with the retreat, gold, jewels and church silver on ox carts, and that as the columns dwindled it was buried in stages along the line of march and never accounted for afterwards. Paraguayans have hunted it since, and it has been the object of expeditions, rumours and a fair amount of fraud.

Be clear: the war, the retreat and the death at Cerro Corá are history. The buried treasury is not documented. No credible account has ever placed it.

Guaraní tradition fills the same forests with its own figures, the Pombero and the Yasy Yateré, and in that country the two kinds of story sit together comfortably.

Cerro Corá is a national park now, cerrado and forested hills with the memorials on the battlefield. Go for that. It is a quiet place with a great deal underneath it.