Decoud, Hector Francisco (1855–1930)

Hector Francisco Decoud (b. 1855; d. 1930), Paraguayan historian and journalist. Born in Asunción, Decoud was a mere youth when the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance began in 1864. Entering the army as a noncommissioned officer, he fought in several battles before being arrested, together with his mother, by the dictator Francisco Solano López. Though his imprisonment was brief, he was poorly treated, and this left him with a lifelong hatred of López, a hatred that was reflected in his historical writings.

After the war, Decoud dedicated himself to journalism, working for La Regeneración and other Asunción newspapers. In 1882, he was appointed district attorney, but he resigned that post the following year after having been elected a national deputy, a position he held until 1887.

Decoud found the time during subsequent years to produce many highly partisan historical works. He focused on the War of the Triple Alliance and on the figure of López, whom he regarded as the worst sort of tyrant. His many studies included Sobre los escombros de la guerra: Una década de vida nacional, 1869–1880 (1925), Guerra del Paraguay: La masacre de Concepción ordenada por el mariscal López (1926), La revolución del comandante Molas (1930), and Elisa Lynch de Quatrefages (published posthumously in 1939). Decoud died in Asunción.

See alsoWar of the Triple Alliance .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

William Belmont Parker, Paraguayans of To-Day (repr. 1967), pp. 305-306.

Jack Ray Thomas, Biographical Dictionary of Latin American Historians and Historiography (1984).

                                   Thomas L. Whigham