“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

coercive acts. The case was remanded to the Alegrete courts so that it could properly be
decided as a civil matter “in accordance with the law.” 151
Teixeira had secured his faction’s right to disentangle the cross-border property
dispute between Lima and da Silva in the Alegrete courts. Teixeira then constructed a
narrative designed to protect his own allies’ property claims. Much like he had done in his
prolonged struggle with Prado Lima, Teixeira immediately began to reframe Lima’s conduct
as an unlawful, coercive attempt to exploit borderlands political instability. In Teixeira’s
telling, shortly after Estolle and da Silva completed their negotiations, Francisco Pedro de
Abreu had launched a massive “california” raid across the border. Abreu had sought to seize
Brazilian cattle that the blanco government had allegedly confiscated. He had further aimed
to destabilize the borderlands by encouraging an imperial intervention to open the border
and remove the blancos from power. The raid itself was a failure. Diego Lamas, the blanco
military commander in the region, defeated Abreu’s forces.
Blanco officials immediately began retaliating against Brazilian ranchers suspected as
participating in Abreu’s incursion. According to Teixeira’s brief, Lima utilized his
connections with the blancos in Salto to “persuade Col. Diego Lamas . . . that [da Silva] had
taken part in this invasion.” 152 Fearing reprisals, da Silva had fled the country. Lima then
proceeded to use the settlement document as a launching point for asserting complete
dominion over the disputed property. Teixeira alleged that Lima went with the local teniente
alcalde to survey da Silva’s lands. This belied his claims to have rejected the Salto
settlement. 153 Teixeira alleged that over the next two years Lima regularly removed cattle
from the land “under the protection of the military commander and absolute authority of
151 Ibid., O Mercantil, Ano V, No. 35 (February 10, 1854), 3.
152 Ibid., 13bis-14.
153 Ibid., 103bis.
220