“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

a district judge in Alegrete in 1865 signaled his and the Liberals’ definitive triumph over the
Ribeiros and the progressistas in Alegrete. 74 Canabarro and his party of new, ideologically
focused Liberals would dominate Rio Grande do Sul’s politics for the next two decades until
the collapse of the empire in 1889.
The increasing assertiveness of the borderlands Brazilian Liberals did not escape the
notice of the imperial government. With the decade-long Farrapos Rebellion still a recent
memory, imperial officials had good reason to believe that growing tensions in the
borderlands could produce renewed civil war. At the same time, the complaints of
prominent borderland ranchers and committed Liberals like Antonio Souza Netto about
persistent violations of Brazilian property rights in the borderlands, particularly at the hands
of coercive blanco officials in the Estado Oriental, flowed across the desks of bureaucrats in
Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro. In connection with Netto’s claims, a newspaper from Rio
Grande do Sul declared: “if nationality does not suffice so that our compatriots’ interests are
respected, it is worth nothing.” 75 Imperial officials now found it necessary to again focus
their attention on conflicts around property rights and across national boundaries along its
southern borders.
Over the course of the 1850s, Alegrete experienced nearly constant factional fighting
to control the administration of justice in the town. The intensity of these struggles reflected
the nature of borderlands legalities and their vital importance to defining one’s social
standing and personal power in a tumultuous world. Judicial officials like Teixeira and
Amaral, as well as military officers and landowners like the Ribeiros and Canabarro spent
substantial resources to control the courts and to secure success in litigation because it
74 CV-3454 (February 15, 1865).
75 Barrán, Apogeo y Crisis, 84.
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