The Contestado War (Portuguese: Guerra do Contestado), broadly speaking, was a guerrilla war for land between settlers and landowners, the latter supported by the Brazilian state's police and military forces, that lasted from October 1912 to August 1916.It was fought in an inland southern region of the country, rich in wood and yerba mate, that was called Contestado because it was contested by the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina as well as Argentina.