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“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

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conflicts between peripheral ranchers and the empire. Brazilians in the borderlands already<br />

blamed imperial incompetence for the defeat. As the ranching elites in Rio Grande do Sul’s<br />

western campanha deployed borderlands legalities to forge a new basis for commercial<br />

prosperity, they again clashed with more centralized notions of imperial and national<br />

sovereignty emanating from Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. These ever-deepening fault<br />

lines eventually erupted in a massive revolution that threatened the fragile unity of the<br />

Brazilian empire. 1<br />

The defeated Brazilian ranchers did not remain passive in the face of the 1828<br />

division of their borderlands world. As we saw in the last chapter, they almost immediately<br />

began to forge commercial and political linkages across the Uruguayan border in order to<br />

reestablish their ranching operations. Men like Agustín Guarch served as important<br />

intermediaries by securing property for their Brazilian allies and establishing reciprocal<br />

economic and political linkages that provided a vital source of order. These relationships<br />

revolved around borderlands courthouses. There, litigants drew upon traditional juridical<br />

concepts like vecindad to secure legal rights and cement commercial and political allegiances.<br />

Because borderlands legalities were simultaneously integrated and local, they necessarily<br />

hinged upon open borders and flexible identities that were frequently at odds with putative<br />

national categories. As Maria Padoin pointed out, Brazilian ranchers in this period “sought<br />

to avoid imperial and Uruguayan orientations, providing continuity to struggles for free<br />

passage” across the border. 2<br />

The movement of Brazilian ranchers back into the newly created Estado Oriental<br />

repeatedly triggered conflicts between state-centered legal norms and borderlands legalities<br />

























































<br />

1 Leitman, Raízes.<br />

2 Padoin, Federalismo Gaúcho, 82.<br />


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