“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...
“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ... “MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...
Mitre and others set out to ensure that the organization of any new Argentine state under the terms of the 1853 Constitution would remain firmly under Buenos Aires’ control. While Argentina attempted to reconcile ideas of local autonomy and federalism by forging more stable state structures through the 1853 Constitution, other areas of the Río de la Plata worked to suppress sovereign conflicts through tacit compromises among elites. The broader political developments in Rio Grande do Sul throughout the 1850s and 1860s reflected these efforts to foster personal relationships to reduce tensions and avoid the prickly questions of peripheral sovereignty. As the province emerged from the Farrapos Rebellion in the late-1840s, the recent memory of internal disorder and continuing conflicts across the border in Uruguay encouraged provincial elites to reject ideological divisions. The province’s post-revolutionary politics instead emphasized unity, reconciliation and personal alliances among the elite class in the name of order. At the provincial level, this led to the formation of two nebulous political groupings. These two entities embodied the post-revolutionary desire to create a politics of elite “persons” bound together by reputation and mutual respect rather than “parties” that splintered along ideological lines. 4 The first, termed the Liga [League], aimed to overcome the traditional divisions between the Liberal Party, associated with the Farrapos rebels, and the centralist Conservative Party by combining the two into a political coalition. Although designed to unify the province’s political factions, the Liga’s formal creation in 1852 prompted the creation of a “Contra-Liga” [Counter-League], itself combining moderate conservatives, as well as the majority of provincial liberals. Manoel Marques de Souza, the Barão de Porto Alegre, led the Contra-Liga. The Barão had led the 1851 Brazilian invasion of the 4 Helga I. L. Piccolo, "A Política Rio-Grandense no Império," in RS: Economia e Política, ed. José Hildebrando Dacanal and Sergius Gonzaga (Porto Alegre: Mercado Aberto, 1979). 150
Estado Oriental and had fought at Caseros in Argentina. His faction now drew its electoral strength, particularly in the borderlands, from the Barão’s personal prestige. By 1855, the Barão’s alliance, reformed as the Partido Liberal Progressista [Progressive Liberal Party], had expanded from its base in the western campanha. It triumphed in the provincial elections throughout Rio Grande do Sul. The Contra-Liga’s political victory, however, initially brought little change at the provincial level as both the Liga and their progressista rivals stressed a common desire to conduct “politics by principles.” 5 Principles that remained deliberately ill- defined in order to reduce long-standing ideological tensions, particularly regarding the relationship between local elites in the borderlands and imperial authorities in Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro. Across the border in the Uruguayan Republic, similar efforts to reduce factional conflicts and forge a state were underway. Uruguay had been the central front in the Río de la Plata’s decade-long sovereign struggles. Over the course of the 1840s, armies from neighboring Brazil and the Argentine Confederation had repeatedly invaded the small republic. With each campaign, forces on both sides seized cattle throughout the countryside to sustain their forces. By the end of the conflict, the Uruguayan borderlands ranching economy had been devastated. José Pedro Barrán estimated that Uruguayan herds declined from some 6 to 7 million head to around 2 million over the course of the 1840s. The salting industry that had emerged along the Uruguay River collapsed. Desperate ranchers returned to the old colonial practices of simply slaughtering and curing cattle when and where they 5 Newton Luis Garcia Carneiro, A Identidade Inacabada: O Regionalismo Político no Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS, 2000). 151
- Page 109 and 110: With his money now in limbo and his
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- Page 179 and 180: men. They were capable of protectin
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Estado Oriental and had fought at Caseros in Argentina. His faction now drew its electoral<br />
strength, particularly in the borderlands, from the Barão’s personal prestige. By 1855, the<br />
Barão’s alliance, reformed as the Partido Liberal Progressista [Progressive Liberal Party], had<br />
expanded from its base in the western campanha. It triumphed in the provincial elections<br />
throughout Rio Grande do Sul. The Contra-Liga’s political victory, however, initially brought<br />
little change at the provincial level as both the Liga and their progressista rivals stressed a<br />
common desire to conduct “politics by principles.” 5 Principles that remained deliberately ill-<br />
defined in order to reduce long-standing ideological tensions, particularly regarding the<br />
relationship between local elites in the borderlands and imperial authorities in Porto Alegre<br />
and Rio de Janeiro.<br />
Across the border in the Uruguayan Republic, similar efforts to reduce factional<br />
conflicts and forge a state were underway. Uruguay had been the central front in the Río de<br />
la Plata’s decade-long sovereign struggles. Over the course of the 1840s, armies from<br />
neighboring Brazil and the Argentine Confederation had repeatedly invaded the small<br />
republic. With each campaign, forces on both sides seized cattle throughout the countryside<br />
to sustain their forces. By the end of the conflict, the Uruguayan borderlands ranching<br />
economy had been devastated. José Pedro Barrán estimated that Uruguayan herds declined<br />
from some 6 to 7 million head to around 2 million over the course of the 1840s. The salting<br />
industry that had emerged along the Uruguay River collapsed. Desperate ranchers returned<br />
to the old colonial practices of simply slaughtering and curing cattle when and where they<br />
<br />
5 Newton Luis Garcia Carneiro, A Identidade Inacabada: O Regionalismo Político no Rio<br />
Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS, 2000).<br />
151 <br />
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