Abstract
This article seeks to understand the frontier as a state-building element by the performance of specific institutions - fiscal control and repression - on the southern border of the Brazilian Empire, in the second half of the 19th century. These reflections are based on the concept of “fiscal military state”. In this sense, given the focus on the boundaries of the territory, we want to understand how this process works “inwards”, but also how this State is demarcating itself in relation to another State, considering that there is no dichotomy between central power and local power, but a feedback relationship for the efficient exercise of both.
Keywords: Border - state building - tax control - coercion