“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Local Legal Practices and National Compromises in Salto
As the Uruguayan countryside recovered from the violence of the early 1870s,
courtrooms quickly reemerged places to articulate local relationships and the legalities
defining them. Equally important, however, these legalities began to provide a vehicle in
which increasingly assertive states could negotiate their relationship with local elites in order
to consolidate national allegiances. This did not mean stability. Political violence continually
threatened to undermine local and state authority. But steadily increasing centripetal forces
ensured that although nations remained unfinished projects, the center now possessed a
legitimate place in the constant struggles over borderlands legalities. Slowly, borderlands
legalities became an uneasy part of national legal systems. In the process, they ceased to be
“borderlands legalities” and instead became local legalities bounded by borders. But their
importance for defining the place of peripheral inhabitants in their local settings remained.
A series of cases from Salto again provides a glimpse into the important persistence
of local legal norms regarding personal reputation. They also demonstrate the continued
connections to the distribution of property and maintenance of commercial relationships in
the town. At the same time, they offer an example of how centralizing forces within the
Uruguayan state forged their own legitimacy in the borderlands by refereeing these
relationships. The first case began in late 1874. An article appeared in Salto’s newspaper La
Aspiración Nacional [The National Aspiration] regarding the local junta económico-admnistrativa’s
[JEA] actions in connection with the distribution of public lands. 2 The article itself consisted
mostly of the comments by Agustín Guarch, the eponymous son of the former salteño
2 La Aspiración Nacional, Año III, n. 244 (August 7, 1874). AGN. Sección
Administrativa. Salto: Junta Económico-Administrativa. Caja 1865-1874, 1. Guarch’s
original statements in front of the JEA appear to have occurred when the junta adjudicated
the dispute between the Falcon group and Raffo in April of 1874. The materials in the JEA
files appear to be a summary of the entire incident.
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