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“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

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and elites now supported Urquiza’s confederation. Along the Uruguay River, however,<br />

prominent local ranchers resented the political dominance of the merchant community in<br />

the capital. Departmental military leaders in the province’s southern and eastern borderlands<br />

around Curuzú-Cuatiá, Mercedes and Monte Caseros opposed attempts by the provincial<br />

government to control their local territories.<br />

Nicanor Cáceres was the most politically prominent of these local correntino<br />

chieftains. Cáceres had allied with Urquiza throughout the 1840s in opposition to the<br />

provincial government in the city of Corrientes. With Pujol now backing Urquiza’s national<br />

government, Mitre reached out to Cáceres. Mitre utilized Buenos Aires’ greatest asset – its<br />

wealth – to support Cáceres and other local commanders in their opposition to the correntino<br />

government. With Mitre’s logistical support, Cáceres launched an uprising against Pujol’s<br />

government in 1854. Pujol, with the assistance of the Confederation government in Paraná,<br />

quickly suppressed the revolt. However, Cáceres managed to retain his grip on the<br />

province’s southern departments. 187 Through his support for Cáceres, Mitre succeeded in<br />

ensuring a “permanent disequilibrium” in Corrientes that precluded the complete<br />

consolidation of the Confederation’s authority. 188<br />

Throughout the 1850s, Mitre continued to encourage these types of low-level<br />

skirmishes between local leaders like Cáceres and Pujol. Cáceres and other commanders in<br />

the correntino borderlands along the Uruguay in turn continued to use their connections to the<br />

porteños to secure their own autonomy within the province. A particularly prickly subject for<br />

























































<br />

187 Urquiza engaged in similar activities, using his personal wealth and power to secure<br />

allies. Cáceres appeared to play both sides strategically (although ultimately unsuccessfully).<br />

Urquiza renewed his ties to Cáceres in 1855 in order to use the local caudillo to pressure Pujol<br />

into maintaining his support for the Confederation. Ibid., 122, n. 12.<br />

188 Pablo Buchbinder, Caudillos de Pluma y Hombres de Acción: Estado y Política en Corrientes<br />

en Tiempos de la Organización Nacional (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de General<br />

Sarmiento: Prometeo Libros, 2004), 89.<br />


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