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“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

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litigation in Alegrete, questions of personal reputation were never fully divorced from<br />

factional struggles.<br />

In much the same way, these local factional struggles to solidify their reputation<br />

intertwined with the power to dispense private law rights to their factional allies. We already<br />

glimpsed the connections between access to justice and cross-border trade in Agustín<br />

Guarch’s use of carefully constructed webs of commercial relations to vindicate his legal<br />

rights in Alegrete throughout the 1830s and 1840s. These reciprocal ties with men like<br />

Prado Lima were vital to Guarch’s commercial prosperity. This in turn fed back into his<br />

reputation as a trader, enhancing his reciprocal ability to provide legal and pecuniary<br />

patronage to his factional allies in the colorado party. He repeatedly did so, arranging a<br />

number of transactions between colorados and prominent merchants in Uruguaiana. These<br />

merchants in turn possessed connections back to Prado Lima’s faction, completing the cycle.<br />

The juicios de imprenta in Salto reveal similar relationships between the reputation of<br />

officials and the legal recognition of property rights. In particular, the public forum of the<br />

juicio de imprenta once again provided a vehicle for factional rivals to challenge unfavorable<br />

legal actions against their allies and seize the power to restore their property rights in the<br />

eyes of the community. Two cases involving Miguel Santos Martinez, a local attorney,<br />

public notary and military officer in Salto reveal the interconnected nature between disputes<br />

over local reputation and conflicts over property rights. The conflict began when Martinez,<br />

a committed blanco, became involved in an ejectment proceeding filed by Ignacio Bastos<br />

Pereira against Antonio Perez. 93 Pereira alleged that Perez had unlawfully trespassed on his<br />

property by grazing cattle against his permission for a number of years. Accompanied by the<br />

























































<br />

93 D. Miguel S. Martinez c. D. Antonio Peres por injurias, AGN-SJ. Salto. Penales. No. 65<br />

(1862).<br />


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