“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Ríos in particular witnessed a dramatic rise in trade along the Uruguay River. 8 In their study
of exports from the Argentine Littoral, Roberto Schmit and Manuel Rosal examined the
increasing prominence of the Uruguay River trade. They argued that this rise reflected the
region’s overall success in negotiating the transition from a colonial economy based around
the export of silver to a “national” economy integrated by the export of agricultural
commodities to growing American and European markets. 9 Focusing on estimated values of
goods flowing from Entre Ríos to Buenos Aires between 1831 and 1850, Rosal and Schmit
found both an increase in the total value and the percentage of trade coming from eastern
Entre Ríos along the Uruguay’s southern reaches. According to Rosal’s and Schmit’s figures,
the average value of goods exported from Entre Ríos between 1831 and 1835 was
approximately 5,897,201 paper pesos. Correspondingly, for the period between 1845 and
1850, trade between Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires increased to an annual average of
9,134,032 paper pesos. 10 Moreover, the authors estimate that over the same period, the
portion of Entre Ríos’ trade along the Uruguay River increased from 41.5% to 73.1%. 11
8 Roberto Schmit, "Enlaces Conflictivos: Comercio, Fiscalidad y Medios de Pago en
Entre Ríos Durante la Primera Mitad del Siglo XIX," in La Desintegración de la Economia
Colonial: Comercio y Moneda en el Interior del Espacio Colonial (1800-1860), ed. María Alejandra
Irigoin and Robert Schmit (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos, 2003), 257-58.
9 Miguel Rosal and Roberto Schmit, Comercio, Mercados e Integración Económica en la
Argentina del Siglo XIX (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana Dr.
Emilio Ravignani, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1995), 98. I
use “national” here to indicate a post-colonial economy. I do not intend to imply that
national boundaries defined economic activities or commercial linkages. To the contrary,
the borderlands politics described in this chapter represented a rejection of putative national
limits on economic relationships.
10 The figures for the total trade from Entre Ríos to Buenos Aires for each year are:
1831: 927,865 1845: 7,596,773
1832: 1,265,946 1846: 102,649
1833: 1,408,194 1847: 1,363,755
1834: 1,933,181 1848: 11,066,856
1835: 1,810,078 1849: 17,034,872
67