“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Teixeira claimed that Prado Lima had utilized his political position to seize Lisboa’s land and
to ensure his continued occupation for the next decade. Teixeira spoke from experience. In
1847, the Ribeiros had appealed to the provincial president, Manuel Antonio Galvão, to look
into Lisboa’s land claim. When the president requested information from the local town
council in the matter, the members replied in support of Prado Lima. 127 With Prado Lima’s
faction now weakened after the rise of the Contra-Liga in the 1852 elections, however, the
time was right to attack his property rights through judicial channels. Teixeira argued that
the courts now had to return the land to its “rightful” owners.
Prado Lima asserted a novel defense to Teixeira’s allegations against him. He
insisted that he did not own the lands in dispute. He rather argued that the terms of the
original sesmaria grant established that Lisboa’s tract in fact belonged to a neighbor, José
Alves Gavião. Prado Lima drew upon his own web of local connections in order to bolster
his case. He produced thirteen witnesses in support of his claim that his lands had never
belonged to the Lisboa family. The testimony echoed familiar themes within the language of
borderlands legalities. Multiple vizinhos testified that it was “public and notorious” that
Gavião, and not Prado Lima, actually controlled the lands Lisboa was now claiming. 128 It is
important remember that such claims were often all courts had to go on. The vague terms
in typical sesmaria grants could not definitively settle boundary disputes. 129 Prado Lima’s legal
strategy transformed the case into a confrontation over which litigant could muster the most
testimonial support for his or her property claims. The personal knowledge and reputations
127 AHRGS, Câmara de Alegrete: Correspondência Expedida, Câmara de Alegrete al
Manoel Antonio Galvão, No. 490 (May 7, 1847).
128 Doña Francisca Oliveira Lisboa c. Joaquim dos Santos Prado Lima, 26-32.
129 Paulo Afonso Zarth, Do Arcaico Ao Moderno: O Rio Grande do Sul Agrário do Século XIX
(Ijuí, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil: Editora UNIJUI, 2002).
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