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{{Short description|Religious denomination in South America}}
{{Infobox religious group
| group = Mennonites in Bolivia
| image = Mennonit in Bolivien.jpg
| image_caption = Mennonite in [[Ñuflo de Chávez Province|Colonia del Norte]]
| poptime = ~150,000 (2023)<ref name="News, Mongobay">{{cite web |author= Iván Paredes Tamayo, Matthew Rose |work= |title=Expansion of Mennonite farmland in Bolivia encroaches on Indigenous land |url=https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/expansion-of-mennonite-farmland-in-bolivia-encroaches-on-indigenous-land/ |year=2023 |access-date=15 May 2023}}</ref>
| popplace = [[Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia)|Santa Cruz]]
| rels = [[Anabaptism]]
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}}
The '''Mennonites in Bolivia''' are among the most traditional and conservative of all [[Mennonite]] denominations in
==History==
=== Origins ===
{{main| Vistula delta Mennonites}}
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 language|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
In 1772, most of Poland [[Vistula delta Mennonites|Mennonites' land in the Vistula area]] became part of the Kingdom of [[Kingdom of Prussia|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.
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{{main|Chortitza|Molotschna|Mennonites in Mexico|Mennonites in Paraguay|Mennonites in Belize}}
In the 1760s [[Catherine the Great]] of Russia invited [[Vistula delta Mennonites|Mennonites from Prussia]] to settle on land and farm north of the Black Sea in what is modern [[Ukraine]], near Zaporizhia, 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
In the years after 1873 some 11,000 left the Russian Empire and settled in [[Manitoba]], [[Canada]], and an equal number went to Kansas, Nebraska and Dakota territory. 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.
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]].
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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
In 1963, new settlements were founded where Mennonites from Paraguay and Canada lived together. In 1967, [[Mennonites in Mexico|Mennonites from Mexico]] and from [[Mennonites in Belize|their daughter colonies in Belize]] began to settle in the [[Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia)|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 Colony|Bergthal]] or [[Sommerfeld Mennonites]].<ref name=GAMEO/>
== Colonies and population ==
{{Historical populations
| shading = off
| percentages = pagr
| 1959 | 189
| 1986 | 17500
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| 2010 | 60000
| 2013 | 70000
| 2023 | 150000
| footnote = Estimates:
}}
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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.<ref name=GAMEO/> The number of colonies was 57 in 2011.
[[Martyna Wojciechowska]], a Polish journalist, created a TV documentary about the colony in Santa Rita, as a part of her TV programme ''[[Kobieta na krańcu świata]]'', that aired on Polish TV on 1 October 2017. A 2020 survey found that there are more than 200 Mennonite colonies in nine
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
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==Rape and sexual assaults==
{{main|Bolivian Mennonite gas-facilitated rapes}}
In 2011, eight men belonging to the [[Manitoba Colony, Bolivia|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. Canadian author [[Miriam Toews]] has made these crimes the center of her 2018 novel ''[[Women Talking (novel)|Women Talking]]''.<ref>
==Literature==
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* 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
* Hedberg, Anna Sofia. ''Outside the world: Cohesion and Deviation among Old Colony Mennonites in Bolivia''. [[Uppsala]] 2007.
* [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39848918.pdf Pasco, Gwenaëlle. ''La Colonisation Mennonite en Bolivie: Culture et agriculture dans l'Oriente''. Paris 1999].
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{{reflist}}
{{Bolivian people}}
{{Mennonites in the world}}
==External links==
* [http://www.jordibusque.com/en/story/menno_bolivia/DSK66-DSC_0051.jpg Photographic essay on the Mennonites of Bolivia]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20180509221349/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2018/february/mennonites-bolivia-busque/ Butet-Roch, Lawrence (text); Busqué, Jordi (photographs) (February 27, 2018) "Step Back in Time With the Mennonites of Bolivia"], ''[[National Geographic]]''.
* [https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.5683/SP2/I4FEQZ "Data for "Pious Pioneers: The expansion of Mennonite colonies in Latin America""], This data is provided in support of the paper "Pious Pioneers: The expansion of Mennonite colonies in Latin America", published in ''Journal of Land Use Science'', December 15, 2020, 1–17, [[Taylor and Francis]]
Accessed August 29, 2020.
* [http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/30/bolivias-isolated-mennonite-community/ Bolivia's isolated Mennonite community]
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[[Category:Mennonitism in Bolivia| ]]
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