This study tries to examine aspects of rural violence, analyzing both conceptual and historical elements of clientelism (patronage) and "caudillism" (autocratic leadership), significant in the social and political practices of the Uruguayan and Brazilian societies in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It also studies the absence or permanence of these phenomena at the Brazilian-Uruguayan frontier space during the last decade of the 20th century. Furthermore, it investigates the criminalized practices, such as cattle-theft (rustling) and smuggling, verifying in what measure they contribute to the maintenance of a field of power mediated by conflicting social relations in which different kinds of violence are present.
clientelism; caudillism; rural violence; cattle-theft; smuggling