“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

orderlands legalities and rival models emanating from Buenos Aires and the Estado
Oriental.
Californias and Cross-border Conflicts
While calm temporarily returned to Rio Grande do Sul in 1845, tensions increasingly
flared up in neighboring Uruguay over efforts to consolidate control over borderlands
commercial chains. Throughout the Río de la Plata basin, the Guerra Grande continued to
rage. Manuel Oribe, Rosas’ close ally, had decisively defeated Rivera and his unitarist
supporters at the battle of Arroyo Grande in late 1842. The following year, Oribe had driven
Rivera from the Uruguayan countryside, forcing the colorado leader to take refuge behind
Montevideo’s walls. Rivera’s various attempts to break the siege and defeat Oribe by
launching invasions from Rio Grande do Sul failed in the mid-1840s. By 1847, Oribe’s
blancos possessed absolute control over the Uruguayan interior.
Although dominant in the countryside, Oribe and his federalist allies from Argentina
lacked sufficient resources to capture Montevideo itself. Protected by the British and French
navies, Montevideo’s port could ensure almost indefinite colorado resistance. European naval
blockades of Buenos Aires also guaranteed that the besieged city received the bulk of the
trans-Atlantic trade flowing into the region. This provided the colorado government with
revenues to continue the struggle. Without access to Montevideo’s customs receipts or
European financial assistance, Oribe resorted to a number of unorthodox and increasingly
dangerous measures to sustain his campaign. In 1845, Oribe began confiscating numerous
tracts of land belonging to colorados. These moves once again began to destabilize cross-
border reciprocal ties between colorados and many prominent riograndense ranchers. Inevitably,
Brazilian ranchers grumbled that blanco officials had wrongly seized their properties. They
loudly complained to politicians in Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro, conspicuously
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