“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

for Brazilian ranchers. In the best of times, maintaining a functional labor force required
constant negotiations between master and slave over the terms of their relationship. 5 

The
persistent sovereign frictions in the borderlands further complicated these already fraught
relationships. Throughout the colonial period, Brazilian slaves had used the proximity of the
Spanish frontier as a resource against their masters. The collapse of the Spanish empire
further opened up spaces for persons of color to advance their social standing. Artigas’
radical borderlands revolution had drawn significant strength from slaves, former slaves and
other subaltern groups. Brazilian fears that Artigas’ movement might infect their own slave
societies played an important part in their counterrevolutionary invasions. Yet, the failure by
the Brazilians and their rivals to create stable sovereign structures throughout the 1810s and
1820s ensured that ample spaces remained for persons of color – slave or free – to challenge
the existing social order.
of slavery in Southern Brazil tended to emphasize not only its secondary importance,
particularly for the ranching economy, but also the relative docility of the system. For an
example of this literature see Jorge Salis Goulart, A Formação do Rio Grande do Sul ... (Geografia
Social, Geografia da Historia, Psicologia Social e Sociologia), 2. ed. (Porto Alegre: Livraria do Globo,
Barcellos, Bertaso & cia., 1933), Walter Spalding, Gênese do Brasil-Sul (Porto Alegre: Livraria
Sulina, 1953). Beginning with Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s now classic work Capitalismo e
escravidão no Brasil Meridional, historians have increasing recognized the centrality of slave
labor to the borderlands economy. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Capitalismo e Escravidão no
Brasil Meridional: O Negro na Sociedade Escravocrata do Rio Grande do Sul, 2. ed. (Rio de Janeiro:
Paz e Terra, 1977). For a discussion of the role of slavery in the frontier economy during
the late colonial period along these same lines, see Helen Osório, O Império Português no Sul da
América: Estancieiros, Lavradores e Comerciantes (Porto Alegre: Editora de UFRGS, 2007), 146-
60.
There are significantly fewer works on the slave economy from the Uruguayan
perspective. The best work on the subject of slave labor along the Uruguayan frontier is
Alex Borucki, Karla Chagas, and Natalia Stalla, Esclavitud y Trabajo: Un Estudio Sobre Los
Afrodescendientes en la Frontera Uruguaya (1835-1855) (Montevideo: Pulmón Ediciones, 2004).
5 João José Reis and Eduardo da Silva, Negociação e Conflito: A Resistência Negra no Brasil
Escravista (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1989).
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