“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...
“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ... “MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...
of legal rights. They did so even as the borderlands slowly became “bordered lands.” 78 After four years of embarking on aggressive legal and political reforms in Uruguay, Lorenzo Latorre expressed his fatigue and deep frustration in seeing the real limits peripheral authorities had placed on his measures. Leaving office in 1880, he declared: “upon retiring to private life, I am so disheartened as to believe that our country is ungovernable.” 79 Manoel Ferreira Bica, the old Brazilian rancher and staunch colorado ally, in many ways embodied the types of peripheral figures Latorre ultimately found so difficult to control. He moved between jurisdictions. He drew upon local connections that transcended national boundaries and identities in order to preserve his commercial operations and good name. Even after he permanently settled in Salto after the Paraguayan War, he remained keenly aware of his personal standing in the town. In doing so, he expressed the persistence of older forms of borderlands legalities even as the nation around him developed the trappings of modern state authority and institutions. When Bica appeared at the criminal trial of one of his ranch hands in 1871, he flew into a rage when the judge in the case demanded that he post a bond to ensure his peon would not flee the jurisdiction. Upon hearing the request, Bica had “raised his cane into the air and said to the judge that he was a shit [carajo] and those present were thieves used to robbing the poor, and that he had come to smash [the judge’s] head to teach him how to treat an honorable vecino.” 80 78 Adelman, "From Borderlands to Borders." 79 Abadie, Coronel Lorenzo Latorre, 169. 80 Emilio E. Thivenet denuncia contra Manuel F. Vica, AGN-SJ. Salto. Penales. s/n (1871). 364
CONCLUSION IN 1887, THE GREAT URUGUAYAN HISTORIAN AND DIPLOMAT FRANCISCO BAUZÁ published Estudios constitucionales. 1 Gazing upon more than a half-century of disorder in the small republic, Bauzá sought to understand why the 1830 Constitution had failed to channel conflicts into state institutions. Bauzá identified many causes, but in one passage he focused particularly on the suppression of local cabildos by the Estado Oriental’s founders. He argued that through this action, the country’s founders effectively “disinherited those pueblos from control [tutelar] over their primordial interests.” He asked: “Who can believe that we, the vecinos of Montevideo, possess the understanding to appreciate what Cerro’s vecinos require, whose streets we do not go on, whose schools we do not see, whose sanitation does not affect us directly?” 2 He concluded that the drafters of the 1830 Constitution had simply failed to appreciate “the importance of the municipio.” By suppressing local governments, the country’s elites had created a vacuum of authority that they could not properly fill. 3 Bauzá’s brief vignette about the suppression of cabildos echoed the 1828 statements by Juan Manuel Ferrer from the beginning of this dissertation. Writing nearly sixty years apart, each man ultimately saw the country’s interior as a lawless space. Looking out into the borderlands, they certainly had good reason to take such a position. Weak and fragmented governments had consistently failed to gain permanent control over the contested ground between them. Clashes between rival sovereigns, as well as between factions in the borderlands itself, had produced seemingly endless cycles of violence and instability. The 1 Francisco Bauzá, Estudios Constitucionales, vol. 11, Colección de Clásicos Uruguayos (Montevideo: Biblioteca Artigas, 1953). 2 Ibid., 57. 3 Ibid., 59. 365
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CONCLUSION<br />
IN 1887, THE GREAT URUGUAYAN HISTORIAN <strong>AND</strong> DIPLOMAT FRANCISCO BAUZÁ<br />
published Estudios constitucionales. 1 Gazing upon more than a half-century of disorder in the<br />
small republic, Bauzá sought to understand why the 1830 Constitution had failed to channel<br />
conflicts into state institutions. Bauzá identified many causes, but in one passage he focused<br />
particularly on the suppression of local cabildos by the Estado Oriental’s founders. He argued<br />
that through this action, the country’s founders effectively “disinherited those pueblos from<br />
control [tutelar] over their primordial interests.” He asked: “Who can believe that we, the<br />
vecinos of Montevideo, possess the understanding to appreciate what Cerro’s vecinos require,<br />
whose streets we do not go on, whose schools we do not see, whose sanitation does not<br />
affect us directly?” 2 He concluded that the drafters of the 1830 Constitution had simply<br />
failed to appreciate “the importance of the municipio.” By suppressing local governments, the<br />
country’s elites had created a vacuum of authority that they could not properly fill. 3<br />
Bauzá’s brief vignette about the suppression of cabildos echoed the 1828 statements<br />
by Juan Manuel Ferrer from the beginning of this dissertation. Writing nearly sixty years<br />
apart, each man ultimately saw the country’s interior as a lawless space. Looking out into the<br />
borderlands, they certainly had good reason to take such a position. Weak and fragmented<br />
governments had consistently failed to gain permanent control over the contested ground<br />
between them. Clashes between rival sovereigns, as well as between factions in the<br />
borderlands itself, had produced seemingly endless cycles of violence and instability. The<br />
<br />
1 Francisco Bauzá, Estudios Constitucionales, vol. 11, Colección de Clásicos Uruguayos<br />
(Montevideo: Biblioteca Artigas, 1953).<br />
2 Ibid., 57.<br />
3 Ibid., 59.<br />
365 <br />
<br />