“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

extraordinary powers and reconfirm his connection to the popular masses. Through this
form of “soft dictatorship,” Rosas possessed absolute authority over the province for the
next seventeen years. 5
While the federalist regime in Buenos Aires gradually evolved into an authoritarian
government over the course of the 1830s, Rosas adopted a very different strategy in his
relations with the interior provinces in the Argentine Confederation. Rather than impose his
power directly, Rosas turned to a series of inter-provincial pacts. The most significant of
these established a union between Buenos Aires and the three littoral provinces, Santa Fe,
Entre Ríos and Corrientes, in 1831. In true federalist fashion, the pact “presumed an
association of sovereign and truly equal provinces.” 6 At the same time, however, Rosas
ensured that Buenos Aires remained the primer entre pares, particularly in terms of rivertine
commerce. He tightened the capital’s grip on overseas trade, funneling customs revenues
into provincial coffers in order to sustain his regime.
Porteño control over commerce along the Río de la Plata’s river networks chaffed
provincial elites. However, the economic boom that quickly spread into the borderlands
following the consolidation of political authority under Rosas in Buenos Aires temporarily
reduced tensions within the loose federalist coalition. Exports of staples to Europe
combined with growing demand for the region’s traditional products of jerked beef and
hides to ensure a dramatic expansion of commercial activity along the river networks linking
the Río de la Plata to the Atlantic World. 7 Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, eastern Entre
5 Adelman, Republic of Capital, 116.
6 Ibid., 120.
7 Ibid., 121-23.
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