“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

property of Joaquim dos Santos Prado Lima in Alegrete. It then broadens its focus to look
at how Alegrete’s rival factions similarly clashed over the definition of property rights in the
neighboring Uruguayan Republic. They did so in order to secure additional allies in their
escalating struggles to control courthouses back in Brazil. The effect of these repeated
interventions was to destabilize the region and invite further disputes over the role of the
prominent Brazilian ranching community in the Uruguayan borderlands.
The third section then broadens the context even further in order to explore the
escalating conflicts over sovereignty in the Argentine provinces in the 1850s. It looks at how
emerging national political leaders like Mitre and Urquiza aggressively courted local allies in
their efforts to build national coalitions. The final section then looks at how these efforts to
use local disputes over borderlands legalities to lay the foundations for political power all
began to converge in northern Uruguay. The numerous connections criss-crossing this
extremely contested ground ensured that almost every litigation over property rights could
potentially alter the balance of power between factions in other parts of the borderlands.
The very pervasiveness of law and the importance of securing legal rights for political allies
increasingly acted as a catalyst for renewed violence.
Factional Conflicts and Property Rights.
Within the framework of borderlands legalities, the act of litigating property rights
was a critical moment in shaping personal power and political associations. The conflicts in
and around the Alegrete courts from the previous chapter provide a window into the
connections between factional politics and property rights. They particularly reveal how the
ability to declare nebulous property rights within the system of borderlands legalities offered
a powerful mechanism to reward allies and punish rivals. Numerous cross-border
commercial connections ensured that local conflicts over property rights intertwined with
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