“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

olster the positions of important local allies in their internal disputes over the right to rule.
In a similar vein, the colorados in Uruguay consolidated their hold on national politics by
carefully arbitrating local disputes like the ones swirling around Salto’s courthouse. Gaúcho
Liberals equally found ways to articulate local rights, loyalty and order through their control
of the courts. Throughout the Río de la Plata’s rivertine interior, the dominant theme of
local legal politics became about establishing the terms of the relationship between local
elites and national governments. In the process, the “cross-border” aspects of borderlands
legalities faded into the background.
At the same time, the peripheral legal order persisted. It retained its power to define
personal allegiances, reputations and political associations – now within national
frameworks. Local elites zealously guarded their power to dictate legal norms. The enduring
power of peripheral coalitions meant that attempts to accelerate the centralization of
authority would be met with fierce opposition. The 1893 federalist revolution in Rio Grande
do Sul in the name of local autonomy made clear that relationships between the core and
periphery had to be continually and carefully recalibrated.
Yet, these breakdowns underscored the importance of the courts in providing a
mechanism within state structures to achieve the proper balance between core and periphery
and between local and national. Understood in this manner, rather than heralding the final
consolidation of nation-states, courts in national peripheries continued to stand as
testaments to the inchoate nature of state structures, the multiple legalities upon which they
rested and the constant negotiations over their forms. This ensured that for all the changes
occurring in the region’s economy, politics and society as the 19 th century progressed, would-
be national leaders continued to confront the deep persistence of borderlands conceptions
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