“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Frustrated by the lack of progress, imperial officials appointed Luís Alves Lima e
Silva (more commonly known by his title as the Barão de Caxias) provincial president in late
1842. Caxias immediately embarked on a concerted campaign to end the conflict. He raised
a large army of some 12,000 troops and advanced into the interior. Over the next year,
Caxias captured most of the principal cities in Rio Grande do Sul. Deprived of their bases
of operation in the Brazilian campanha, the remaining Farrapos rebels increasingly resorted to
raids against imperial forces from across the border in Uruguay. With the rebels on the run
but hardly defeated, Caxias also adopted a number of conciliatory policies that explicitly
played upon the tensions within the opposition over the question of independence. In
particular, he opened negotiations with rebel commanders like David Canabarro who
supported reunification with the empire so long as local autonomy could be guaranteed. 22
On 1 March 1845, the two sides reached an agreement to end the conflict. To secure
the peace, Caxias made substantial concessions to the rebels. The empire agreed to assume
all of the former republic’s debts, Farrapos officers retained their prior ranks and could
return to service in the imperial army and the province could elect its next president. The
Ponche Verde Treaty in effect restored the old status quo. It recognized imperial authority
over its southern peripheries, but equally codified the personal autonomy and political power
of elite Brazilian ranchers in the borderlands. While a failure politically, the revolution had,
for the moment, reconciled the system cross-border economic relationships and localized
justice throughout the borderlands with the broader framework of imperial federalism. This
uneasy truce, however, did not yet end sovereign conflicts. Threats now emerged across the
border in the Uruguayan Republic. The stage was set for a decisive clash between
22 Moacyr Flores, História do Rio Grande do Sul, 5th ed. (Porto Alegre: Nova Dimensão,
1996), 96-98.
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