Cacique

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A cacique (Iberian Spanish:  [kaˈθike] ; Latin American Spanish:  [kaˈsike] ; Portuguese:  [kɐˈsikɨ, kaˈsiki] ; feminine form: cacica) translates to "king" [1] or "prince" [2] [3] of an indigenous group, derived from the Taíno word kasike for the pre-Columbian tribal chiefs in the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. In the colonial era, Spaniards extended the word as a title for the leaders of practically all indigenous groups that they encountered in the Western Hemisphere. In Hispanic and Lusophone countries, the term also has come to mean a political boss or leader who exercises significant power in the political system known as caciquismo. [4]

Contents

Spanish colonial-era caciques

Cacique comes from the Taíno word kassiquan, meaning "to keep house". [5] In 1555 the word entered the English language as "prince". [6] In Taíno culture, the cacique rank was hereditary [7] and sometimes established through democratic means. His importance in the tribe was determined by the size of his tribe rather than his skills in warfare since the Taínos were mostly a peaceable culture. They also enjoyed several privileges for their standing: they lived in a larger rectangular hut in the centre of the village, rather than the circular huts of other villagers, and they had a special sitting place for the areytos (ceremonial dances) and the ceremonial ball game. [8] Similar to other rulers their word was the law and they oversaw a sophisticated level of governance. [9]

Hatuey monument plaque. Tarja en la base de la estatua de Hatuey.jpg
Hatuey monument plaque.
Tupac Amaru II, Andean kuraka or cacique who led a massive rebellion in 1781. TupacAmaruII.jpg
Tupac Amaru II, Andean kuraka or cacique who led a massive rebellion in 1781.

Spaniards extended the usage of cacique to refer to leaders at the town or village level in virtually all indigenous groups in Spanish America. [10] Caribbean caciques who did not initially oppose the Spanish were co-opted into being intermediaries between the Spanish and their communities, but their cooperation was transitional and most revolted, resulting in their deaths in battle or by execution. [11] Two famous early colonial-era caciques are Hatuey (Cuba) and Enriquillo (Hispaniola) [12] who are now national heroes in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. At the base of the monument to Hatuey the historical plaque reads: "To the memory of Chief Hatuey, unforgettable native, precursor of the Cuban fight for freedom, he offered his life, glorifying his ideals while tormented by the flames on 2/2/1512. Monuments Delegation of Yara, 1999". Hatuey was a historical character in the 2010 film Even the Rain .

In central Mexico in the colonial era, the Spanish more successfully utilized the leaders of the much more hierarchically organized indigenous peoples to function as intermediaries in the system of colonial rule. The hierarchy and nomenclature of indigenous leadership there might survive internally within communities, but the Spaniards' designation of caciques did not necessarily correspond to the hereditary indigenous system of leadership.

Elite indigenous men willing to cooperate with the colonial rule replaced those with hereditary and traditional claims to leadership. [13] The Spanish recognized the indigenous nobility as nobles within newly established colonial system, and caciques' status along with their families was reinforced by their being allowed to hold the Spanish noble honorific don and doña. Caciques were among the first to introduce European material culture into Indigenous communities: they built Spanish-style houses, acquired Spanish furnishings, and wore Spanish clothes. They engaged in such Spanish-style commercial enterprises as sheep and cattle ranching and the raising of silkworms. Many even owned Black slaves. They also acquired certain new privileges, such as the right to carry swords or firearms and to ride horses or mules. [14] Some caciques had entailed estates called cacicazgos . The records of many of these Mexican estates are held in the Mexican national archives in a section Vínculos ("entails"). [15] [16] [17] The establishment of Spanish-style town government [cabildos] was used as a mechanism to replace traditional rule. Spanish manipulation of cabildo elections. [18] In some areas the traditional, members hereditary lineages became office holders on the town councils. [19]

By the late colonial era in central Mexico, the term cacique had lost its dynastic meaning in many areas; "cacique status could in some degree buttress a family's prestige, but it could no longer in itself be regarded as a rank of major authority." [20] In a 1769 appeal to the Viceroy of New Spain by a cacique family for restoration of its privileges, they were enumerated: that the cacique should be seated separately from commoners at public functions; he was excused from serving in town government; he was exempted from tribute and other exactions; he was excused from Sunday worship and payments of the half real; his servants were not liable for community labor; he was exempt from incarceration for debt and his property from sequestration; he could be imprisoned for serious crime but not jailed in the public jail; the caciques' names were to be listed among the nobles in official registers; and "all these privileges are to apply equally to the caciques' wives and widows." With Mexican independence in 1821, the special privileges of colonial-era caciques were abolished. [21]

In the Andean region the local term kuraka was used as an alternative to cacique, in contrast to the rest of the Spanish Colonial Americas. After conquering the Inca Empire the Spaniards in the Peruvian viceroyalty had allowed the kurakas or caciques to maintain their titles of nobility and perquisites of local rule so long as they were loyal to the Spanish monarch. [22] In the late eighteenth century, a massive uprising, the Tupac Amaru rebellion (1781), often called the "Great Rebellion", was led by Tupac Amaru II, a kuraka who claimed to be a descendant of the Inca royal line, namely to the last Emperor Thupaq Amaru. At independence in 1825, Simón Bolívar abolished noble titles, but the power and prestige of the kurakas was already in decline following the Great Rebellion. [23] Kuraka rebellions were made since the beginning of the Spanish colonial rule, kurakas from different backgrounds and places of the Andes led uprisings on multiple occasions, being the Tupac Amaru II rebellion, which came after 250 years of colonial rule, the largest of them and the major rebellion in the history of Spain's American empire, [24] nevertheless kuraka revolts would continue years and decades after Tupac Amaru II's uprising such as the Tupac Katari uprising or the Mateo Pumakawa insurrection made during the South American Wars of Independence.

Caciquismo and Caudillismo

An extension of the term cacique, caciquismo ("boss rule") can refer to a political system dominated by the power of local political bosses, the caciques. In the post-independence period in Mexico, the term retained its meaning of "indigenous" leaders, but also took on a more general usage of a "local" or "regional" leader as well. [25] [26] Some scholars make a distinction between caudillos (political strongmen) and their rule, caudillismo, and caciques and caciquismo. [27] One Argentine intellectual, Carlos Octavio Bunge viewed caciquismo as emerging from anarchy and political disruption and then evolving into a "pacific" form of "civilized caciquismo", such as Mexico's Porfirio Díaz (r. 1876-1911). [28] Argentine writer Fernando N.A. Cuevillas views caciquismo as being "nothing more than a special brand of tyrant". [29]

In Spain, caciquismo appeared in late 19th-century Spain and early 20th-century. [30] Writer Ramón Akal González views Galicia in northwest of Spain, as having remained in a continual state of strangulated growth over centuries as a result of caciquismo and nepotism. "Galicia still suffers from this anachronistic caste of caciques." [31] Spanish strongman El Caudillo Francisco Franco (1892-1975) was born in Ferrol in Galicia.

In the Philippines, the term cacique democracy was coined by Benedict Anderson. [32] It has been used to describe the political system where in many parts of the country local leaders remain very strong, with almost warlord-type powers. [33] The Philippines was a colony of Spain from the late sixteenth century until the Spanish–American War of 1898, when the United States assumed control. The U.S. administration subsequently introduced many commercial, political and administrative reforms. They were sometimes quite progressive and directed towards the modernization of government and commerce in the Philippines. However, the local traditional Filipino elites, being better educated and better connected than much of the local population, were often able to take advantage of the changes to bolster their positions.

There is no consensus in the scholarly literature about the origins of caciquismo. Murdo J. MacLeod suggests that the terms cacique and caudillo "either require further scrutiny or, perhaps, they have become so stretched by the diversity of explanations and processes packed into them that they have become somewhat empty generalizations". [34]

Taino dynasty

Notable native caciques of the Americas

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

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Agüeybaná II Taíno tribal leader and military chief

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Chiefdoms of Hispaniola

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The Spanish and Taíno War of San Juan–Borikén, also known as the Taíno Rebellion of 1511, was the first major conflict to take place in modern-day Puerto Rico after the arrival of the Spaniards on November 19, 1493.

<i>Agüeybaná El Bravo</i> (statue) Stone statue to the memory of Agüeybaná II, the last Taíno cacique in Puerto Rico

Agüeybaná El Bravo is a stone statue to the memory of Agüeybaná II, the last Taíno cacique in Puerto Rico, for his bravery in fighting the Spanish invaders during the sixteenth century. It is located at Plaza Agüeybaná El Bravo in Barrio Playa, just south of sector Caracoles in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Tomasa Tito Condemayta Hurtado de Mendoza was a leading force in the indigenous uprising against the Spanish colonial rulers under Tupac Amaru II in the 18th century in Peru. She was cacica of her people in the 1770s, the most powerful such ruler in her region. During the uprising, she served as both a strategist and a military officer. She was executed for her role in the rebellion alongside Tupac Amaru II, his wife Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua, and their son Hipólito Condorcanqui Bastidas.

References

  1. ↑ Loven, Sven (2010-06-27). Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies. University of Alabama Press. p. 503. ISBN   978-0-8173-5637-8.
  2. ↑ Bailey, Richard W. (2012-01-04). Speaking American: A History of English in the United States. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-991340-4.
  3. ↑ Boissière, Prudence (1862). Dictionnaire analogique de la langue française: répertoire complet des mots par les idées et des idées par les mots (in French). Larousse.
  4. ↑ Robert Kern, The caciques: oligarchical politics and the system of caciquismo in the Luso-Hispanic world. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press [1973]
  5. ↑ The Catastrophe of Modernity: Tragedy and the Nation in Latin American Literature. Bucknell University Press. 2004. pp. 136–. ISBN   978-0-8387-5561-7 . Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  6. ↑ Bailey, Richard W. (2012-01-04). Speaking American: A History of English in the United States. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-991340-4.
  7. ↑ Loven, Sven (2010-06-27). Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies. University of Alabama Press. p. 503. ISBN   978-0-8173-5637-8.
  8. ↑ "Taíno Indians Culture". Topuertorico.org. Retrieved 2012-06-19.
  9. ↑ Loven, Sven (2010-06-27). Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies. University of Alabama Press. p. 503. ISBN   978-0-8173-5637-8.
  10. ↑ Murdo J. MacLeod, "Cacique, Caciquismo" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Vol. 1, p. 505. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1996.
  11. ↑ MacLeod, "Caciques, Caciquismo", p. 505.
  12. ↑ Ida Altman, "The Revolt of Enriquillo and the Historiography of Early Spanish America," The Americas vol. 63(4)2007, 587-614.
  13. ↑ Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519-1810, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1964, p. 36.
  14. ↑ Horn, Rebecca. "Caciques." In Davíd Carrasco (ed). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. Vol 1. New York : Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN   9780195108156 , 9780195188431
  15. ↑ Guillermo S. Fernández de Recas, Cacicazgos y Nobiliario Indígena de la Nueva España, Mexico: Biblioteca Nacional de México, 1961.
  16. ↑ S.L. Cline, "A Cacicazgo in the seventeenth century: The case of Xochimilco" in Land and Politics in the Valley of Mexico: A two-thousand-year perspective. Ed. H.R. Harvey. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1991.
  17. ↑ Guido Münch, El cacicazgo de San Juan Teotihuacan durante la colonia, 1521-1821. Mexico City: SEP, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Centro de Investigaciones Superiores 1976.
  18. ↑ Robert Haskett, Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1991.
  19. ↑ MacLeod, "Cacique, Caciquismo", p. 505.
  20. ↑ Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule, p. 163.
  21. ↑ Gibson, "The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule," pp. 164-65.
  22. ↑ Andagoya, Pascual de. "Narrative of the Proceedings of Pedrarias Davila". The Hakluyt Society. Retrieved 21 June 2019– via Wikisource.
  23. ↑ Cecilia Méndez, The Plebeian Republic: The Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State. Durham: Duke University Press 2005, pp. 102-05.
  24. ↑ Walker, Charles F. (2015). La rebelión de Tupac Amaru (in Spanish). IEP. ISBN   9789972515408.
  25. ↑ John Lynch, Caudillos in Spanish America: 1800-1850. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1992, p.6.
  26. ↑ Mark Wasserman, Capitalists, caciques, and revolution: the native elite and foreign enterprise in Chihuahua, Mexico, 1854-1911. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
  27. ↑ Fernando Díaz Díaz, Caudillos y caciques: Antonio López de Santa Anna y Juan Álvarez. Mexico, 1972, 3-5.
  28. ↑ Carlos Octavio Bunge, "Caciquismo in Our America" (1918), in Hugh M. Hamill, ed. Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1992, p. 172.
  29. ↑ Fernando N.A. Cuevillas, "A Case for Caudillaje and Juan Perón" in Hugh M. Hamill, ed. Caudillos, p. 287.
  30. ↑ Varela Ortega, José (2001). El poder de la influencia: Geografía del caciquismo en España: (1875–1923). Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales. ISBN   978-84-259-1152-1.
  31. ↑ Ramón Akal González, Obra Completa II, 1977, p. 111.
  32. ↑ Benedict Anderson, 'Cacique Democracy in the Philippines: Origins and Dreams', New Left Review, I (169), May–June 1988
  33. ↑ Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Cacique Democracy'
  34. ↑ MacLeod, "Cacique, Caciquismo", p. 506
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