“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

traffic along the Uruguay. Rosas first prohibited direct trade between the Argentine Littoral
and Montevideo in 1849. This effectively closed off the re-export trade at the center of
Entre Ríos’ economy. Merchants along the rivertine interior scoffed at porteño demands that
they surrender profitable trade routes in order to support Buenos Aires’ monopoly on the
overseas trade. Rosas further took steps to end the steady drain of specie from Buenos
Aires into Entre Ríos and to Urquiza in particular by banning gold shipments to the littoral
provinces. For the cash-starved interior, denying access to hard currency threatened to
undermine the delicate webs of credit stitching commercial relationships together. In short,
Rosas threatened the very foundations of rivertine prosperity. 36
Rosas’ efforts to restore Buenos Aires’ special position as the regulator of
commercial linkages along the Río de la Plata’s river networks provoked an immediate
reaction in the interior. Urquiza once again asserted his position as the political guarantor of
the Uruguay River trade, petitioning Rosas to reconsider his policies. When Rosas refused,
Urquiza moved to protect his cross-border trading relationships, as well as his personal
reputation, by beginning to forge a coalition to now confront Rosas and his ally Oribe. At
this moment the besieged colorados in Montevideo began to encourage Urquiza to break with
Rosas in the name of his province’s right to maintain its advantageous economic position.
The colorados equally reached out to the aggrieved Brazilian ranching community by offering
concessions designed to reopen the northern Uruguayan borderlands. These concessions
included foregoing any and all taxes on the export of cattle from Uruguayan pasturelands
into the empire.
For more than a decade, the unitarists and colorados in Montevideo had been
repeatedly frustrated in their efforts to defeat Rosas through alliances with the British and
36 Barrán, Apogeo y Crisis, 40-41.
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