1. For an expanded statement of these arguments, see Benton, Lauren, “Colonial Law and Cultural Difference: Jurisdictional Politics and the Formation of the Colonial State,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41 (1999): 565–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Adelman, Jeremy, Republic of Capital: Buenos Aires and the Legal Transformation of the Atlantic World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 146.Google Scholar I make a similar argument about the “orderly disorder” derived from jurisdictional tensions in colonial law in Benton, Lauren, “Making Order Out of Trouble: Jurisdictional Politics in the Spanish Colonial Borderlands,” Law and Social Inquiry 26.2 (2001): 373–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. The litigiousness of colonial Spanish America was linked to pervasive jurisdictional tensions carried over from Iberian law and exacerbated by conquest and colonization. For a discussion of the sources of jurisdictional tensions in Spanish colonial law, particularly church-state conflicts, see Benton, Lauren, “The Legal Regime of the South Atlantic World: Jurisdictional Politics as Institutional Order,” Journal of World History 11.1 (2000): 27–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the complications introduced by the legal status of Indians, see Borah, Woodrow, Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and Lauren Benton, “Making Order.” Jeremy Adelman describes the evolution of merchant law as a separate jurisdiction in Adelman, Republic of Capital, 145–50. For studies of legal conflict in the Andes that illustrate Indians' sophistication as legal actors and their focus on the law as a forum for complaints, see Serulnikov, Sergio, “Disputed Images of Colonialism: Spanish Rule and Indian Subversion in Northern Potosi, 1777–1780,” Hispanic American Historical Review 76 (1996): 189–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stern, Steve, “The Social Significance of Judicial Institutions in an Exploitative Society: Huamanga, Peru, 1570–1640,” in The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800: Anthropology and History, ed. Collier, George A., Rosaldo, Renato I., and Wirth, John D., (New York: Academic Press, 1982), 289–320.Google Scholar

4. Rodríguez calls the audiencias “the most enduring territorial units” of Spanish America. Most of the territories became nations after independence. But the overlay was imperfect. New Spain had two audiencias, as did the territory that was to form Peru on the eve of independence. Some smaller republics were created in areas without audiencias, as occurred in Central America outside Guatemala and in the Republic of Uruguay, the subject of this article. Rodriguez, Jaime E., The Independence of Spanish America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 7.Google Scholar Law clearly constituted one of the aspects of colonial society that found surprising continuity in postindependent Latin America, despite efforts to distance the new republics from colonial institutions. For a broader treatment of the debate about continuities, see Adelman, Jeremy, ed., Colonial Legacies: The Problem of Persistence in Latin America (New York and London: Routledge, 1999).Google Scholar

5. Legal personnel were themselves forced to contend with the new distinctions of citizenship. Law schools did not exist in every capital in the aftermath of independence. Narrow restrictions reserving judgeships for citizens with legal training and experience were in some places desirable but impractical. Even elite groups of lawyers, especially in the smaller republics, included noncitizens.

6. See especially Adelman, Republic of Capital; Flory, Thomas, Judge and Jury in Imperial Brazil, 1808–1871: Social Control and Political Stability in the New State (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Uribe Uran, Victor M., Honorable Lives: Lawyers, Families, and Politics in Columbia, 1780–1850 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. See Mirow, Mathew, “The Power of Codification in Latin America: Simon Bolívar and the Code Napoleon,” Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 8 (2000): 83–116.Google Scholar Mirow details Bolivar's backing for codification in Gran Colombia and argues that it represented a (failed) strategy for political consolidation in the region.

8. Of this array of outside agents, some mattered more than others. The increasing economic importance of English merchants, and the threat of military intervention by England and France, gave the legal pronouncements of these countries' consulates added weight. Brazil, too, represented a “foreign” influence of no small importance in the region. With the relocation of the Portuguese crown, Brazil could claim a level of institutional stability and a degree of international prestige that the new Spanish republics could not match.

9. European struggles to erect extraterritoriality in China and Japan were contemporaneous with the construction of national legal systems in Latin America, and the rhetoric of European responses was, not surprisingly, similar. In these quite different settings, Europeans suggested that extraterritoriality was made necessary by the deficiencies of indigenous law. See Jones, Francis C., Extraterritoriality in Japan and the Diplomatic Relations Resulting in Its Abolition, 1853–1899 (1931; New York: AMS Press, 1970)Google Scholar; and Fishel, Wesley R., The End of Extraterritoriality in China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1952), 27.Google Scholar I do not know of a study that traces direct links among imperial legal strategies in the mid-nineteenth century, though we do know that British legal personnel circulated across different colonial and imperial postings, transporting models of legal administration across disparate parts of the empire.

10. On British and French interventions in the region, see McLean, David, War, Diplomacy and Informal Empire: Britain and the Republics of La Plata, 1836–1853 (London and New York: British Academic Press, 1995).Google Scholar

11. Baretta, Silvio Rogélio Duncan and Markoff, John, “Civilization and Barbarism: Cattle Frontiers in Latin America,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (1978): 587–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Barrán, José Pedro and Nahum, Benjamin, Historia rural del Uruguay moderno, vol. 1, 1851–1885 (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1967), 60.Google Scholar

13. Barrán and Nahum calculate that the price per hectare increased by 248 percent between the five-year period from 1852 to 1856, and the period from 1857 to 1861, and by another 66 percent in the following five-year period. Ibid., 71.

14. A debate over legislation in 1858 that would have temporarily halted seizures of government-owned land after its occupants were denounced by land-hungry speculators revealed fears that new, foreign-backed interests were shaking up the countryside. One delegate complained that “gangs with lawyers in their inner circle” and legions of notaries and law-trained clerks “throw themselves on the countryside to disturb property, to loot property owners.” Ibid., 78.

15. On the rivalry between Buenos Aires and Montevideo to control the region's trade, see Curtin, Philip, “Location in History: Argentina and South Africa in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of World History 10 (1999): 41–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

16. Barrán, José Pedro, Apogeo y crisis del Uruguay pastoril y caudellesco, 1838–1875 (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1974), 61.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 45.

18. A portrait of Rio Grandense economy and society in this period can be found in Bell, Stephen, Campanha Gaúcha: A Brazilian Ranching System, 1850–1920 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

19. Barrán and Nahum, Historia rural del Uruguay, 320–30.

20. Barrán argues forcefully that the establishment of a separate process for adjudicating war claims by the French, English, and Brazilians constituted a form of extraterritoriality that was an abdication of sovereignty rather than merely an administrative concession. See Barran, Apogeo y crisis, 89.

21. The supreme court was not established until 1907. Postponing the court's founding no doubt helped to keep the judiciary subordinate to political controls, but the dearth of law-trained citizens with sufficient experience was a perpetual constraint. See Nicoliello, Nelson and Vázquez Praderi, Luis A., Crónicas de la justicia en el Uruguay (Montevideo: Suprema Corte de Justicia, 1997).Google Scholar

22. The “Reglamento Provisorio para la Administración de Justicia” passed by the Uruguayan legislature in 1829 established the different competencies for tenientes alcaldes, jueces de paz, and alcaldes ordinarios. The alcaldes ordinarios were to preside over disputes involving more than two hundred and less than three thousand pesos. These judges ruled in civil cases with the help of two colleagues selected randomly from a list of thirty citizens appointed by local officials. Two judicial posts were created in the capital to preside over appeals, one for criminal and one for civil cases. In civil cases involving sums greater than 3,000 pesos, this civil forum would also be the court of first instance. As the volume of litigation increased and pressures for legal administrative reform also grew, the appellate structure was modified. See below.

23. Caudillos did not simply administer a rough justice but were attentive to their need to act as patrons. Barrán describes the judicial style of the caudillo Máximo Pérez as typical: “He considered the office of police chief as part of his patrimony and acted in this role like a father, demanding but humane. Acting as judge in private matters, he solved protracted suits in brief minutes with summary rulings based on caring and coercion” (Barran, Apogeo y crisis, 112).

24. Fracturing caudillo power was the main purpose of reforms under the presidency of Berro in 1860 that separated the appointments of military commanders and police chiefs. See Barrán, Apogeo y crisis, 75.

25. Hudson, W. H., The Purple Land: Being the Narrative of one Richard Lamb's Adventures in the Banda Orientál, in South America, As Told by Himself (New York: Three Sirens Press, 1904), 69.Google Scholar Hudson suggests that the relative statelessness of the Uruguayan countryside is refreshing, part of its native charm.

26. Letter from Nicolas Zoa Fernandes to the Juez de Paz, segunda sección, 12 April 1852, Cerro Largo, Legajo 7. Archivo General de la Nación, Sección Judicial, Montevideo (hereafter AGN-SJ). The teniente alcade could preside over petty cases (those involving sums less than twenty pesos) but mainly served to carry out the orders of the magistrates, for example apprehending suspects and serving legal notices.

27. Letter from Eduardo Abreu to the Alcalde Ordinario, 5 September 1852, Cerro Largo, Legajo 7. AGN-SJ.

28. Letter from the Teniente Alcalde Juan Lopes to the Juez de Paz de la 2a sección Eduardo Abreu, 5 September 1852, Cerro Largo, Legajo 7. AGN-SJ.

29. See Acosta y Lara, Eduardo F., La Guerra de los Charrúas en la Banda Oriental (Montevideo: Talleres de Loreto Editores, 1998), 2: pt. 2, chaps. 1–3.Google Scholar Because the Charrúas were virtually eliminated by this campaign, there has been a tendency in some historical treatments of the north to downplay indigenous influences in this region. But, as Acosta y Lara points out, an infusion of Guaraní migrants in the region both before and after independence had a profound, if subtle, influence on local culture.

30. The devastation of the Guerra Grande is covered extensively in Barrán, Apogeo y crisis.

31. In this sense the postindependence legal culture showed the influence of the well-documented litigiousness of colonial subjects in South America. See, for example, Stern, Steve J., Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Cutter, Charles, The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700–1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1995)Google Scholar: and note 3 above.

32. Letrados, Cerro Largo, 1830, Legajo No. 7. AGN-SJ.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid. Uruguayan judges appear to have been willing on many occasions to rely on the testimony of slaves. See below for the discussion of tensions on the border regarding the treatment of, and traffic in, Brazilian slaves. 35. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. “Indagación sobre la muerte del Moreno Miguel,” Letrados, Cerro Largo, 1850. AGN-SJ.

37. “Doña Joaquina Rodriguez en queja contra el Juez de Paz de la 5a sección,” ibid.

38. “Inventario de las causas civiles existentes en este Juzgado Ordinario,” Letrados, Tacuarembó 1855/59. AGN-SJ.

39. “Doña Juana Fernandez Pintos contra Don Paulino dos Santos sobre desalojo de campos,” Letrados, Cerro Largo, 1867. AGN-SJ.

40. “Celestino Dorrego con el Defensor de Esclavos sobre propiedad de uno,” Letrados, Tacuarembó, Legajo No, 1, 1823–55. AGN-SJ. In another case from 1862, a contract laborer named Francisco, learning of the new law requiring both parties to approve and register such contracts in Uruguay, ran away before his contract could be registered. His master complained to the alcalde ordinario that surely the incentive to flee was an unintended consequence of the law and that Francisco should be treated as a fugitive.

41. “Simeon Fagundez de Olivera con Francisca Escolla reclamandola como esclava,” Letrados, Tacuarembó, Legajo No. 12, 1869/1872. AGN-SJ.

42. “Juan Pedro de los Reyes con Joaquín Manuel Texeira cobro de pesos,” 1857, R-No. 3, Letrados, Tacuarembó, Legajo No. 3, 1855/59. AGN-SJ.

43. Two years later, Reis appeared with witnesses before a juez de paz inside Uruguay to register the contract, which had been written on “plain paper” and without the required seals.

44. This was also a requirement in the revised Brazilian court system. See Flory, Judge and Jury.

45. A new alcalde ordinario took over. In March 1859, a teniente alcalde was ordered to carry out the formality of notifying Texeira's son of the order to appear in court. It is interesting to note that this rural official's report was written half in Portuguese; this subaltern official could not even manage to produce formal Spanish for court correspondence.

46. “Juan Pacheco da Silva con Ana Joaquina de Azambuya cobro de honorarios,” 1867, P-No. 11, Letrados, Tacuarembó, Legajo No. 10, 1866/67. AGN-SJ.

47. If this argument seemed acceptable here, it was perhaps because it was coupled with a critique of the handling of the case in the rural courts. Both Lagastirábels earlier brief and the defense lawyers' arguments to the appellate judge also imply disdain for the lower-court proceeding. See below for a discussion of legal policy movements in the capital.

48. Restos Antiguos, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Legación de Brasil, Caja 1, Carpeta 2, Archivo de Relaciones Exteriores, Montevideo (hereafter ARE).

49. Legación de Brasil, Carpeta 60, Archivo General de la Nación, Montevideo (hereafter AGN).

50. Legación de Brasil, Carpeta 35, AGN.

51. Restos Antiguos, Legación de Brasil, Caja 1, Carpeta 2, ARE.

52. Perhaps the inclination to pursue these cases is explained in part by the arrival in 1856 of James St. John Munro as vice consul; in this post and later, as chargé d'affaires, Munro displayed a great passion on the subject of the law.

53. Restos Antiguos, Legación de Gran Bretaña, Caja 1, Carpeta 2, ARE.

54. Ibid., Carpeta 4, ARE.

55. Ibid., Carpeta 8, ARE.

56. The Uruguayans almost always referred to the British as ingleses, and the British Legation also often used the term “English” when referring to British subjects, even though many, if not most, British residents in Uruguay were from outside England. I have preserved the term “English” in describing this incident because both sides argued specifically over the validity of claims to “English jurisdiction.”

57. Restos Antiguos, Legación de Gran Bretaña, Caja 1, Carpeta 15, ARE. Munro argued that “under the unfortunate circumstances of the Civil War prevailing in the Republic and disorganizing the whole machinery of the state, there was no chance of the course of justice with regard to these men being properly carried through in this country.”

58. This is Munro paraphrasing the president. Ibid.

59. The translation is from the Spanish version of the letter. Restos Antiguos, Legación de Gran Bretaña, Caja 1, Carpeta 6, ARE.

60. Ibid.

61. Pivel Devoto, Juan E. and Devoto, Alcira Ranieri de Pivel, Uruguay a fines del siglo XIX (Montevideo: Editorial Medina, 1973), 29.Google Scholar

62. Acevedo, Eduardo, Eduardo Acevedo, Años 1815–1863: Su obra como codificador, ministro, legislador y periodista (Montevideo: Imprenta el Siglo Illustrado, 1908), 114.Google Scholar

63. For example, Acevedo argued against allowing foreigners to vote for judges: “It is clear that if foreigners are given the right to vote in the elections for Judges, it would not be possible to deny them the right to vote for representatives.” Ibid., 173.

64. Ibid., 172.

65. His administration pursued measures to contain the power of jefes políticos in the countryside and, in 1861, forced the Church to change its policy when it prohibited burial of a German mason in a public cemetery.

66. Pivel Devoto, Juan E. and Devoto, Alcira Ranieri de Pivel, Intentos de consolidación nacional, 1860–1875 (Montevideo: Editorial Medina, 1973), 6–7.Google Scholar In another note to the Brazilians, Acevedo was quite clear about his opposition to any form of extraterritoriality. He argued that “when an individual sets foot in the territory of a foreign nation, he contracts the obligation of being subject to the laws and as a consequence to the established rules for the administration of justice.” Those rules required following appellate procedures rather than recurring to the consulate after an undesirable result in a lower court. See Acevedo, Eduardo Acevedo, 315.

67. Ibid., 316–17.

68. During six years of political exile in Buenos Aires, Acevedo also played a key role in writing the Argentine Commercial Code.

69. On the repressive nature of the Rural Code in Uruguay and also in Argentina, see Bell, Campanha Gaucha.

70. The connection emerged clearly in a hemispheric conference hosted by Uruguay in 1888 and 1889 on international private law. Delegates from Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia signed treaties establishing, among other provisions, “a foundation for international relations [through] … the application of the principal of terri-toriality and the exclusion of foreign laws applying to persons and goods.” The treaties explicitly sought to end extraterritoriality in the region. Pivel Devoto and Ranieri de Pivel Devoto, Uruguay a fines del siglo XIX, 33–34.

71. Pivel Devoto and Ranieri de Pivel Devoto, Intentos de consolidación, 57–58. It is interesting to go back further and find Lamas, serving early in his career as a magistrate dealing mainly with the settlement of intestate cases, reacting with special vehemence to the death of a Spanish captain and the potential for jurisdictional claims by the Spanish government. The issue merited a strident four-page letter by Lamas to the superior tribunal in 1846 arguing that the practice of ceding such cases to the authority or intervention of foreign consulates contradicted the authority of the state over all residents. Even in this borderline case, in which legal residence had not been established, it was important, Lamas argued, to defend the state's jurisdiction. Catá;logo del Ex Archivo y Museo Histórico Nacional, Caja 120, Carpeta 2, AGN.

72. In fact, the politicization of these elections was made painfully clear in 1875, when a protest focusing on the election of judges in the capital turned violent and sparked the collapse of the democratically elected government.

73. They also revealed that rural magistrates with little or no legal training were presiding over a surge of litigation. The report from Salto, for example, from the beginning of 1862, listed approximately eighty-seven civil and criminal cases, and fifty-four cases still under review in the first half of February. “Tribunal de Apelaciones 2a Sección, Despacho Tomo lo, 1862,” AGN-SJ. The activities of the appeals courts of this period, including the tribunal superior de justicia, have been studied very little; documentation for the higher courts in this period is uncatalogued and mostly inaccessible to researchers. It lies in the Archivo General de la Nación, Sección Judicial but is under the control of officials of the Supreme Court, a situation giving rise to its own jurisdictional tensions.

74. Chasteen, John Charles, Heroes on Horseback: A Life and Times of the Last Gaucho Caudillos (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995).Google Scholar

75. Adelman, for example, sees merchants at mid-century as making a discursive shift to a new kind of “property talk” well before state institutions were in place that could support a new regime of private property. See Adelman, Republic of Capital.