“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

lands in question in 1833. The court then declared all prior judicial actions in the case to be
the products of unlawful force. In discussing the contract between Leão and Prado Lima,
the court made its reasoning particularly clear:
The coercion in which the respondents presented their titles, and the
alternative to sign the agreement or be constrained to vacate within twentyfour
hours that the aforementioned respondents subjected [Leão]
demonstrates the lack of his own judgment, invalidating the act for not
possessing within it the spontaneity and mutual exchange of real or
presumed rights that is the basis of all agreements. 136
The court equally declared the 1833 and 1837 judgments against Leão to be “against clear
law and in distain for all procedures.” 137 It found them invalid because of Prado Lima’s
personal connections to the judges. Taken together, the court concluded that Prado Lima’s
numerous legal proceedings and documents, “[b]eing based upon patently void and
ludicrous acts, the means by which the respondents ejected the claimants from their
legitimate possession of the lands in question,” failed support any legally cognizable property
right. 138
The judgment represented a triumph for Teixeira and his political allies. Teixeira’s
decade-long series of cases against Prado Lima was not so much about gaining control over
property. Rather, the litigation was about obtaining the right to determine what constituted
property rights in Alegrete’s courthouse. For this reason, it was not enough to eject Prado
Lima from his land. Teixeira’s goal was to manifest publicly his faction’s power to convey
property rights to their political allies. Through the case, Teixeira had managed to redraw
the locally defined boundaries between legal insider – the honorable vizinho – and the lawless
outsider to his faction’s advantage. Conversely, the legal proceedings served as a warning to
allies and enemies alike: born out of political connections, property rights depended on the
136 Ibid. (the judgment was not paginated).
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid.
213