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“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

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matter, he was an outsider. Tristani was born in Spain and had only arrived in Montevideo<br />

in 1852. 83 Tristani worked as a lawyer and journalist in the Uruguayan capital. Tristani also<br />

befriended Manuel Oribe, penning several articles praising the blanco general following his<br />

death in 1857. In 1859, Tristani crossed the Uruguay River to Argentina. 84 He first settled in<br />

Paraná, Entre Ríos and then moved to Rosario in Santa Fe province in 1860. There, he<br />

edited the newspaper El Eco Comercial, which supported the Argentine Confederation in its<br />

struggle against Buenos Aires. When the confederation collapsed in 1862, Tristani left<br />

Argentina for Salto. 85<br />

Almost as quickly, he was embroiled in litigation. Tristani’s paper aligned itself with<br />

the local blanco faction. This meant largely supporting the blanco-controlled municipal<br />

government. Tristani openly associated with important blancos like Pedro Real, the alcalde<br />

ordinario in the town. For Salto’s colorado faction, challenging Tristani’s personal reputation<br />

offered an effective means to attack Salto’s blanco leadership. Once again, local connections<br />

and personal reputations provided the backdrop for the litigation. Because the declaration<br />

and enforcement of these relationships occurred in local courtrooms throughout the<br />

borderlands, challenging a faction’s authority to speak for the community provided an<br />

important means to win allies along trading routes and manifest one’s own ability to dispense<br />

justice. Within the framework of borderlands legalities operating around Salto’s theater, the<br />

litigation between Tristani and Parejas was about much more than each man’s personal<br />

reputation. Rather, the webs of factional associations that relied on “honorable vecinos” to<br />

























































<br />

83 Miguel Angel de Marco, Abogados, Escribanos y Obras de Derecho en el Rosario del Siglo<br />

XIX (Rosario: Universidad Catolica Argentina: Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales,<br />

1973), 99-117.<br />

84 D. José Parejas c. D. Manuel R. Tristani por retractación, 103-5.<br />

85 Ibid., 105-6.<br />


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