“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

The correntino merchants responded by writing to Gregorio Valdés, Gelabert’s uncle,
for aid. They requested that he compel Abendaño to at least permit an investigation that
could recover their capital and clear their names. As the proceeding drug on, Gelabert in
particular appeared to grow more desperate. He demanded a meeting with Abendaño, only
to be told that he “must be tired after coming to see [the judge] some twenty times
before.” 196 Frustrated, Gelabert declared to his uncle in another letter that “all [Abendaño]
wants is that all matters end up swept under his desk.” He continued, “I have nothing more
to add except that we cannot do anything because what can we do when the judge is
sympathetic [apadecinado] toward the accused? And when he can only make himself believe
that we are the thieves.” Gelabert concluded, frustration dripping off the page, that “the
matter will continue for who knows how long.” 197
Abendaño’s unwillingness to protect Gelabert’s property, as well as his thinly veiled
assaults on the merchant’s personal reputation, reflected local political divisions. Gelabert
and Madariaga possessed close ties with Pujol’s government in Corrientes capital. They
wrote to Valdés, Pujol’s interior minister, requesting aid in the litigation. Abendaño in
contrast was associated with the departmental military commanders in the southeastern
sections of the province that opposed Pujol’s government. Mitre had courted these local
commanders throughout the 1850s in an effort to undermine correntino support for Urquiza
and the Confederation. Gelabert’s personal and commercial crisis in Mercedes appeared to
flow directly from these much broader factional divisions. 198
196 AGPC. Fondo Mantilla. Archivo Valdéz, v. 18, Miguel Victorin Gelabert al Sor. D.
Gregorio Valdés (February 7, 1857).
197 Ibid.
198 Buchbinder, Caudillos de Pluma, 88-100.
241