Caudillo

A caudillo (Spanish pronunciation: [kawˈdiʎo]; Old Spanish: cabdillo, from Latin capitellum, diminutive of caput "head") was a military-landowner who possessed political power and exercised it in a form considered authoritarian by its adversaries. The term can be translated into English as leader or chief, or more pejoratively as warlord, dictator or strongman and has been used to refer to charismatic populist leaders. In Hispanic America, another sense developed of the caudillo as a demagogic lawyer and politician, with the populist Jorge Eliécer Gaitán having been honored with the title "Caudillo of The Colombian People". Other uses of the term referred to leaders without state responsibilities like cacique in Spain and those wielding oligarchical– power.

The root of caudillismo lies in Spanish colonial policy of supplementing small cadres of professional, full-time soldiers with large militia forces recruited from local populations to maintain public order. Militiamen held civilian occupations but assembled at regular times for drill and inspection. Their salary from the Crown was a token; their reward was in prestige, primarily because of the fuero militar ("military privilege"), that exempted them from certain taxes and obligatory community work assignments (compare the feudal corvée), and more significantly, exempted them from criminal or civil prosecution. Away from colonial capitals, the militias were at the service of the criollo landowners.

The related caudillismo as a cultural phenomenon first appeared during the early 19th century in revolutionary Spanish America, as a type of militia leader with a charismatic personality and enough of a populist program of generic future reforms to gain broad sympathy, at least at the outset, among the common people. Effective caudillismo depends on a personality cult. Caudillos were very influential in the history of Hispanic America and have a legacy that has influenced political movements in the modern day.

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