“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

local legal norms and practices in his home province of La Rioja. 17 Similarly, Ana Frega has
explored the shared notions of popular sovereignty and local autonomy underpinning the
political programs of caudillos like José Artigas in Uruguay. 18 Scholars have also looked
closely at the federalist political ideologies forged during and after the Rosas years. For
example, careful studies by Ricardo Salvatore in Buenos Aires and Ariel de la Fuente in La
Rioja have shown that federalist ideologies grew out of the lived-experiences of oppression,
political violence and economic conflicts. 19 What has emerged through these detailed studies
is a more complex picture of the Río de la Plata’s interior as it evolved from viceroyalty to
regional state system. These narratives incorporate alternative strands of constitutionalism,
economic interests and social experiences.
Brazilian historiography has traditionally approached the 19 th century from a sharply
different perspective than the scholarship on the former Spanish colonies. In lieu of violent
ruptures and lawlessness, the dominant theme of imperial literature has been persistence. 20
Much like the scholarship on the former Spanish territories within the Río de la Plata,
however, Brazilian historiography focusing on the 19 th century has increasingly found
17 Noemí Goldman, “Legalidad y legitimidad en el caudillismo: Juan Facundo Quiroga
y La Rioja en el interior rioplatense (1810-1835),” in Noemí Goldman and Ricardo Salvatore,
ed. Caudillismos Rioplatenses: Nuevas Miradas a un Viejo Problema, 2. ed. (Buenos Aires: Eudeba,
Universdad de Buenos Aires, 2005). See also Noemí Goldman and Sonia Tedeschi, “Los
tejidos formales del poder: Caudillos en el interior y el litoral rioplatense durnate la primera
mitad del siglo XIX,” in Salvatore, ed. Caudillismos Rioplatenses.
18 Ana Frega, Pueblos y Soberanía en la Revolución Artiguista: La Región de Santo Domingo
Soriano Desde Fines de la Colonia a la Ocupación Portuguesa, 1a ed. (Montevideo, Uruguay:
Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 2007).
19 Ricardo Donato Salvatore, Wandering Paysanos: State Order and Subaltern Experience in
Buenos Aires During the Rosas Era (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), Ariel De la Fuente,
Children of Facundo: Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency During the Argentine State-Formation Process (La
Rioja, 1853-1870) (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000).
20 See, e.g., Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Raízes do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: J. Olympio,
1936), José Honório Rodrígues, Conciliação e Reforma no Brasil: Um Desafio Histórico-Cultural
(Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1982).
13