“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

CHAPTER 4
BORDERLANDS LEGAL POLITICS AND RENEWED FACTIONAL DIVISIONS
IN THE WAKE OF THEIR TRIUMPH AT CASEROS, INHABITANTS THROUGHOUT THE
Río de la Plata basin started to sort out the consequences of two decades of warfare. They
once again began to confront questions of how to solve the persistent problem of order
throughout the region. In the eastern borderlands along the Uruguay, where the military
clashes of the previous decades had been most intense, political leaders in Montevideo
sought to end factional conflicts by “fusing” the blancos and colorados together through
accords and compromises. The goal was to forge the basis for a new national dialogue and
with it a new elite politics. Reformers hoped to overcome the sharp political conflicts over
questions of sovereignty and social order that, as we have seen, had produced nearly
incessant wars in the decades following the 1810 revolutions. Central to these efforts was
the persistent belief that once the anarchy in the borderlands ended, new states could finally
begin the process of consolidating their hold on the contested ground along the Uruguay. In
these “fusionist” visions, law could finally be extended into the interior now that archaic
political divisions had been suppressed.
The programs of would-be constitutionalists, fusionists and state-builders to tramp
down conflicts and forge workable coalitions in the name of state authority collided sharply
with the alternative legalities that continued to define personal and political identities in the
borderlands. While military conflicts had momentarily ended, local struggles over
borderlands courtrooms continued. At stake was the ability to control the local systems of
justice and cross-border trading networks that had arisen in the proceeding decades. As a
result, courtrooms became centers for renewed hostility over the power to define
borderlands legalities. In turn, these local conflicts in and around borderlands courtrooms
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