“Law is for those who are at the top”: The coronelism of O tronco

ABSTRACT

This article investigates regional specificities of coronelism in the First Republic based on the historical experience of Goiás. A significant part of Brazilian legal and political historiography adhered to Victor Nunes Leal’s thesis, according to which the republican coronelism, more than an expression of the private power of the coronels, would signify their weakness in a context of increasing state institutionality. The coronels would fight, with all means, to take over the public machine, starting to distribute its benefits to friends and its rigors to enemies. However, investigating the case of Goiás, based on the novel O tronco, by Bernardo Élis, with other documents from the period, Leal’s thesis cannot explain the hypertrophy of the private power of the coronels in northern Goiás, that ignored or forcibly subjugated state power, with its laws, judges, police, etc. In conclusion, coronelism had different expressions in Brazil, which requires the differentiation of its specificities.

Keywords:
Brazilian political thought; Bernardo Élis; coronelism; patriarchalism; O tronco; legal history