“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

officials could ensure that he appeared at the second trial. 107 Lamas issued the order, but
Perez never appeared and the file ended.
Because juicios de imprenta directly involved issues of reputation and private law rights
that constituted the core elements of borderlands legalities, the litigants in defamation cases
often served as proxies for more powerful local elites as they jostled for prominence in the
town. A final case between Angel Galina and Victor Delort demonstrates how factional
leaders used the juicio de imprenta proceedings to challenge their rivals by attacking the
reputation of more vulnerable allies. Like many elite conflicts, the case originated with a
dispute between Pedro Real and Angel Tejo over property boundaries. 108 Tejo, a committed
colorado with close ties to the Brazilian ranchers in the region, had been a strong and open
critic of the blanco government in Salto. When César Díaz launched his abortive revolution
in 1858, Tejo had complained bitterly that local officials had used the uprising to seize his
property. 109 As the 1860s progressed, the increasing conflicts between the blanco and colorado
factions in the borderlands merged with a personal conflict between Real and Tejo over a
survey of their respective lands.
The factional and personal tensions between Tejo and Real came to a head when El
Salteño published a series of letters purportedly from Delort to another man named Serby.
The letters addressed the proposed settlement of the boundary dispute through a formal
survey. In the first letter, Delort alleged that Galina was hopelessly biased in favor of Angel
and Pastor Tejo. He wrote: “if you thought it was possible that a surveyor [agromensor] that
has measured the lands claimed by Misters Real and Tejo, having surveyed it with a compass
107 Ibid., 22.
108 Juicio de imprenta promovido por D. Angel Galina c. D. Victor Delort, AGN-SJ. Salto.
Penales, No. 38 (1862). The pages of this proceeding were not numbered.
109 Lucas Piris al Sor. Gefe Político interino del Departamento del Salto D. Bernardino Alcain,
AGN. Salto. Jefatura (March 30, 1858).
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