“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

CHAPTER 6
SLAVES AND THE LEGAL POLITICS OF CITIZENSHIP *
CÁNDIDO XAVIER AZAMBUJA APPEARED BEFORE OFFICIALS IN SALTO IN 1859. HE
demanded the return of an alleged fugitive slave, Pedro, pursuant to the terms of the 1851
Extradition Treaty between Brazil and Uruguay. 1 According to his testimony, Pedro had fled
from his brother Geronimo’s estancia located near the Brazilian town of Bagé close to the
Uruguayan border. Upon questioning, Cándido admitted that Pedro and Geronimo had
been in the Estado Oriental briefly in 1851 in order to drive several herds of cattle back into
Brazil. They argued, however, that Pedro returned with his master and had never been to
the Uruguayan Republic before or since. In response, Pedro argued that he was not a
fugitive Brazilian slave, but rather a “natural of this republic.” 2 Pedro claimed that he was
born in Tacuarembó. He promptly produced the baptismal records to prove it. Pedro went
on to note that his entire family consisted of free Uruguayans like himself. He then claimed
that Cándido had repeatedly attempted “to make him a slave.” 3 He had gone so far as to
remove him forcibly from his home and carry him across the border into Brazil. He
requested protection from these continued threats to his and his family’s basic rights under
Uruguayan law.
Pedro’s invocation of Uruguayan citizenship in his family’s struggle against his
purported master and Cándido’s assertion of his rights under the 1851 Extradition Treaty
* A version of this chapter entitled “‘Naturals of This Republic’: Slave Law,
Sovereignty and the Legal Politics of Citizenship in the Río de la Plata Borderlands, 1845-
1864” will appear in a forthcoming edition of Law & History Review.
1 Información relativa al negro Pedro, reclamando como esclavo, AGN. Salto. Jefatura (1859);
República Oriental del Uruguay. Tratados y Convenios Internacionales: Suscritos por el Uruguay en el
Periodo Mayo de 1830 a Diciembre de 1870 (Montevideo: Secretario del Senado, 1993), 34-7.
2 Ibid., 2bis-3bis.
3 Ibid.
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