Law and Crime in Latin America: 19th
Century
The development of national legal systems in the newly independent republics of
Latin America was heavily influenced by the general lawlessness and political
oppression that flowed from the wars of independence. Consisting mainly of the
decrees and pronouncements on colonial affairs issued by the Crown over the
centuries, Spanish colonial law was based on Roman civil law and on Christian
traditions of justice and morality. Colonial law tended to focus on the protection of
property, a principle that remained important to the political and social elites who
governed Latin America for most of the 19th century and to the growing middle
class that developed in the urban centers of the region in the last decades of the
century. However, until national governments could gain control of their newly
won territories, ongoing warfare and the collapse of colonial authority led to a rise
in assaults, thefts, murders, and political violence in much of the region and forced
emerging national legal systems to place a new emphasis on the protection of
individual rights.
Before 1850, criminal activity in many areas of Latin America was widespread and
serious. In the 1830s, thieves and bandits were so common in many parts of
Mexico that European visitors were obliged to arm themselves if they wished to
travel about the country. Government authority was so weak that criminals robbed
and murdered with impunity, terrifying the unprotected populace. Even as late as
1872, when Mexico was emerging from a period of civil war and foreign
occupation, Tiburcio Montiel, the governor of one federal district, reported that
criminal activity in his jurisdiction was truly alarming. Montiel informed the
government that he had 20,813 persons under arrest, 13,034 men and 7,779 women.
This unusually high number of arrests was a consequence both of the social and
political disorder of recent decades and of the inability of the national government
to maintain a stable and functioning court system.
During the 1850s and 1860s, Mexico was plagued by a host of colorful criminal
characters. Jesús Arriaga, known popularly as Chucho el Roto (Chucho the Broken
One), operated in the area around Mexico City. This famous delinquent was the
Mexican Robin Hood, combining his robberies with acts of violence ostensibly
directed at those who oppressed the poor. Another famous delinquent was Agustín
Lorenzo, known for the rapidity of his crimes and the way he would vanish after he
had committed them. Other famous Mexican bandits of the mid-19th century
included Ojos de Vidrio, who operated in Nuevo León, and a gang known as the
Sinaloenses, because they were mainly active in Sinaloa. Members of this bandit
group included Heraclio Bernal, Juan Soldado, and Malverde, whose exploits have
made him a sort of patron saint of modern Mexican delinquents.
Nineteenth-century Argentina also had its share of famous bandits with flamboyant
nicknames, including El Petizo Orejudo (Big-eared Shorty), La Hormiga Negra
(Black Ant), El Pibe Cabeza (Kid Cabeza), Mate Cocido (Weak Tea), and El Loco
Prieto (Crazy Blackie). Although many of these figures achieved popular acclaim
for their adventures, they were hardened criminals who committed many violent
acts against the local population. Argentina also suffered from the criminalization
of the gauchos, the cowboys of the pampas, large numbers of whom were driven
by economic hardship in the countryside to the cities, where they fell into a life of
crime. Robbery, homicide, domestic violence, street fights, and conflicts over land
were the most common criminal events.
Social conflict in Colombia was caused by unresolved agrarian problems. High
land prices, the displacement of small farmers, and the political and economic
power of large landholders caused much unrest and violence in the countryside.
Another significant cause of Colombian crime was the rise in partisan political
violence and electoral fraud, as the Liberal and Conservative Parties fought each
other for control of the national government. Such political conflict continued for
most of the century. In 1839, conservatives committed acts of violence against the
liberal government then in power, while liberals launched attacks against the
conservative governments of Rafael Nuñez in the 1880s and Miguel Antonio Caro
in the 1890s. Fought mainly in Panama, which was then a province of Colombia,
the Thousand Days War, a civil war fought between 1899 and 1902, led to further
political instability and to the loss of Panama, which became an independent state
under the auspices of the United States, which was itself interested in constructing
a canal across the narrow isthmus.
Brazil was a Portuguese colony until 1822, when Pedro, the son of the king of
Portugal, proclaimed himself emperor of Brazil, which he and his son ruled until
the establishment of a republic in 1889. Crime in 19th-century Brazil was
characterized by bitter disputes over the control of land, ownership of which was
concentrated in relatively few hands, and the continued existence of slavery, which
by its very nature bred violence and injustice. Over its colonial history, Brazil
imported huge numbers of slave laborers from Africa to work the country's
plantations and mines. Although Emperor Pedro II freed his personal slaves in
1840, and some northern districts ended slavery in the early 1880s, the institution
was not finally abolished throughout Brazil until 1888. Because the act freeing
Brazilian slaves did not compensate slave owners for the loss of their property, the
institution's abrupt abolition caused further unrest and disorder. By the turn of the
century, the new Brazilian republic, like most other states of Latin America, was
just beginning to achieve the political and economic stability required to combat
crime and create a strong and effective legal system.
Angela Maria Gonzalez Echeverry
Further Reading
Aguirre, C. A., and R. D. Salvatore, eds. The Birth of the Penitentiary in Latin America: Essays on
Criminology, Prison Reform, and Social Control, 1830-1940. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996;
Aguirre, C. A., R. Buffington, and C. M. MacLachlan, eds. Reconstructing Criminality in Latin America.
Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2000; Rico, J. M. Crimen y justicia en América Latina. México:
Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1977; Salvatore, R. D., A. Carlos, and G. M. Joseph, eds. Crime and
Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society since Late Colonial Times. Durham, N.C.: Duke
University Press, 2001.
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Echeverry, Angela Maria Gonzalez. "Law and Crime in Latin America: 19th Century." Daily Life
through History. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
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Echeverry, Angela Maria Gonzalez. (2014). Law and Crime in Latin America: 19th Century. In Daily
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Echeverry, Angela Maria Gonzalez. "Law and Crime in Latin America: 19th Century." In Daily Life
through History. ABC-CLIO, 2010-. Accessed October 29, 2014. http://dailylife.abc-clio.com/.
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Echeverry, Angela Maria Gonzalez. "Law and Crime in Latin America: 19th Century." Daily Life
through History. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
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