“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

esource to challenge those outcomes. For Salto’s colorados, establishing connections with
prominent Brazilian elites across the border offered a mechanism to bolster their position in
the clashes to control their local courthouse. The peripheral legal relationships critical to
securing property claims in local fora on either side of the border were again setting the stage
for renewed violence across the borderlands.
Canabarro again provides a good example of the ebb and flow of these legal
struggles over private law rights on both sides of the border. As his personal conflicts with
the Ribeiros heated up in Alegrete in the early 1860s, Canabarro began to intervene
aggressively in property disputes in Uruguay. The Brazilian commander offered assistance to
a number of merchants based in Alegrete throughout the early 1860s in property and
commercial disputes across the border. For example, Canabarro aided José Gonçalves
Vianna, a merchant in Alegrete, in securing several contested tracts of land around the
Uruguayan city of Tacuarembó. 156 Vianna represented precisely the type of ally Canabarro
needed in his struggle with the Ribeiros in Alegrete. Although born in Portugal, Vianna had
lived most of his life in Alegrete. He had operated a commercial house in the town since the
1830s. He further possessed trading ties to merchants up and down the Uruguay River
through a partnership with another Alegrete merchant, Manuel Manjardim. 157 In connection
with his commercial operations, Vianna had also provided testimony as an “honorable
156 Uruguay, Documentos Oficiales Justicativos de la Conducta de las Autoridades Departamentales
de la República Oriental del Uruguay Contra las Acusaciones de la Camaras Brasileiras (Montevideo:
Imprenta de El Pais, 1864), 33-34.
157 These ties included cities like Gualeguaychú in Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires,
Montevideo, as well as nearby Uruguaiana and Salto. APRGS. Alegrete. Tabelionato.
Registros Diversos, Lançamento de uma carta de Antonio Cabrera dirigida a José Gonçalves Vianna
(July 5, 1853), 24-24bis; APRGS. Alegrete. Tabelionato. Registros Diversos, Lançamento de um
Recibo passado por Antonio Manjardim a José Gonçalves Vianna (July 5, 1853), 24bis-25bis;
APRGS. Alegrete. Tabelionato. Registros Diversos, Lançamento de huma convenção e quitação
extrajudicial passada por Manuel Lopes Manjardim a José Gonçalves Vianna (July 5, 1853), 25bis.
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