“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

in 1834. Joaquim dos Santos Prado Lima had also supported Canabarro’s entry into the
town’s Masonic lodge in 1841. 51
With the outbreak of the Farrapos Rebellion, Canabarro joined the rebel army. He
rose through the ranks to become the head of insurrectionary forces by the end of the
conflict. After the rebels’ ultimate defeat in 1845, Canabarro remained in the army. He
returned to his home in Santana do Livramento to serve as the region’s frontier military
commander. Canabarro used the prestige of his military command to expand his
commercial interests. He also acquired considerable property around the border town. In
addition, Canabarro led a division in the 1851 Brazilian invasion of the Estado Oriental.
This further enhanced his connections across the border, particularly with the colorado
faction. By the mid-1850s, Canabarro had become one of the most prominent military and
commercial figures in the Brazilian borderlands. 52
Canabarro’s position as a frontier military commander offered him an important
mechanism to influence elections in Alegrete by ensuring that soldiers under his command
backed his chosen candidates. Much like Teixeira situated himself in an intermediary
position between local politics and the state though his legal practice, military commanders
like Canabarro could equally operate as intermediaries between the central government and
the local population through their military office. As Luís Farinatti described in his study of
elite strategies for maintaining their power in the Brazilian borderlands, military commanders
like Canabarro and Bento Manoel Ribeiro could utilize their positions to secure the service
of the local population in exchange for protection. 53 In turn, the ability of borderlands elites
to call upon progressively larger segments of the population for military service conveyed on
51 Caggiani, David Canabarro, 33-34, 97.
52 Ibid., 153-57.
53 Farinatti, "Confins Meridionais", 169-81.
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