“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Brigadier Don David Canavarro . . . that he has then recognized based solely on the simple
word of his compatriots.” 165 Azambuya noted that his own actions against many of the
Brazilian landowners “had been affected in response to orders authorized and sent by the
superior tribunals in [Montevideo].” He labored only to follow “judicial orders” and ensure
“public order” in the countryside. Canabarro’s repeated interventions threatened the
“degeneration of justice on the part of the courts” in the Republic. 166
Blanco officials were equally alarmed by the potential for these interventions to
produce violent factional clashes between themselves and their colorado rivals. The dispute
between Manuel Vicente Ylla and Bernardino Alves Nogueira Jubim offers a good example
of how Canabarro’s efforts to secure property for his allies across the border produced
spasms of violence throughout the Uruguayan borderlands. The initial conflict began in
1857 when Jubim took title to a tract of land located near the Brazilian border around
Santana do Livramento. Jubim originally received the land from Manuel Ferreira Bica. Bica
was one of Jubim’s commercial partners. 167 Bica in turn possessed close personal and
commercial ties not only to the Ribeiros, but prominent members of the colorado faction in
and around Salto. Bica and Canabarro also harbored deep personal animosities against one
another dating to the Farrapos War when Bica effectively refused to serve under Canabarro’s
command. 168
165
Uruguay, Documentos Oficiales, 33-34.
166
Ibid.
167
AGPC. Fondo Mantilla. Archivo Valdéz, v. 18, Antonio Luis al Joaquin Madariaga
(October 14, 1847); Testimonio del Testamento de D. Manuel Fereira Bica, AGN-SJ. Salto.
Letrados Civil, No. 11 (1876), 8bis.
168
In 1844, Canabarro stopped just short of accusing Bica of treason when he requested
a discharge from the army as a result of his ill-health. Canabarro wrote that he had “to
observe that those officials seeking a discharge during the current crisis lack the patriotism
necessary to animate them, such as Tenente Manuel Ferreira Bica, a boy, with illnesses, that
could continue to serve.” CV-3385 (March 23, 1844).
225