“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Republic over issues of rivertine trade and national boundaries had grown increasingly
acrimonious. The two sides particularly clashed over a number of settlements in the Mato
Grosso region in the empire’s far western reaches. These Brazilian outposts were thousands
of miles from the empire’s coastal core. Brazilian officials had sought access to the Paraguay
River in order to promote commerce with their far-flung possessions. For its part, Paraguay
remained suspicious of Brazilian incursions along its borders. The two sides nearly went to
war over the issue in the mid-1850s. In 1856, the Paraguayans reversed course and entered
into a treaty granting the Brazilians free navigation.
The Paraguayans continued, however, to contest the Brazilian occupation of a large
portion of Mato Grosso. 75 As the 1860s dawned, the two sides continued to eye each other
warily. Talks over the border question in Mato Grosso had not clarified the issue. By 1864,
the imperial government already was planning its campaign against Paraguay in order to
ensure rivertine access to the empire’s vast interior. Imperial belligerence also flowed from
an increasing assertiveness on the part of Brazil’s coastal elites. With export revenues
surging, officials in Rio de Janeiro reveled in the growing power of their “American empire.”
The old dreams of extending its boundaries to the mouth of the Río de la Plata remained
ever present in imperial discourse. 76 Appeals from riograndense ranchers connected with this
expansionist sentiment. Men like Antonio Netto argued that Brazil should aggressively
extend its borders into the Río de la Plata. Persistent narratives of abuses by Uruguayan
officials (particularly blancos) against the borderlands ranching community fed once again into
imperial desires to control the borderlands. 77
75
Thomas Whigham, The Paraguayan War (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press,
2002), 86-92.
76
Bandeira, La Formación.
77
Whigham, The Paraguayan War, 144-51.
291