“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

do Sul and the Estado Oriental to expand his own commercial operations. He arranged
several transactions involving the sale of goods and even slaves for prominent Farrapos allies
like Almeida, then the treasury secretary for the rebel government, through his merchant
contacts in Montevideo. 79 These transactions in turn connected to webs of relationships
throughout the borderlands. They included Uruguayan merchants like Guarch who were
supplying the Farrapos. In short, like Guarch, Lemos Pinto and others, Chaves was
intimately familiar with the process of using personal reputation, reciprocal relationships and
political alliances to construct commercial networks throughout the borderlands.
Chaves’ death in 1837 also served as a reminder of the dangers commercial activities
posed for cross-border traders. While traveling by steamer between Pelotas and
Montevideo, the Brazilian merchant’s ship capsized and Chaves drowned. Chaves’ death
reflected the region’s instability in the late 1830s. As war swept the region, the trading routes
upon which merchants traveled were increasingly fraught with peril. At the same time, the
fact that Chaves continued to remain in constant communication with his old trading
partners across the border in Rio Grande do Sul again suggests that commercial linkages and
cross-border ties were developing alongside this violence. Chaves’ commercial connections
to Guarch and other merchants throughout the borderlands survived his death. In
particular, Antonio José Gonçalves Chaves, the eponymous son of the deceased merchant
and author, assisted in negotiations and final closing of a land transaction between Guarch
and Oliveira. Guarch had originally arranged this sale through his connections in
79 CV-221 (August 9, 1837). Ironically, Almeida wrote the letter indicating that he was
sending some 1,500 pesos to Chaves some two weeks after his death. Almeida remained
unaware of this fact until four days later. CV-222 (August 13, 1837).
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