“Cacique.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cacique. Retrieved 6 October 2022. The natives now call the cacique Juan de Esquibel and the Spanish commander Cotabanama. Although they are so scattered, they are not completely independent, for each tribe is subordinated to a chief called cacike, whose abode is conveniently below them to summon them more quickly for important matters. These sample phrases are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word “cacique.” The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. In Spain, caciquism appeared in Spain at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. [29] The writer Ramón Akal González considers that Galicia in northwestern Spain is in a continuous state of strangled growth for centuries due to caciquism and nepotism. “Galicia still suffers from this anachronistic caste of caciques.” [30] Spanish strongman El Caudillo Francisco Franco (1892-1975) was born in Ferrol, Galicia. An extension of the term cacique, caciquismo (“rule of the boss”) can refer to a political system dominated by the power of local political bosses, the caciques. In the period following Mexico`s independence, the term retained its meaning of “indigenous” leaders, but also adopted a more general use of a “local” or “regional” leader.
[24] [25] Some scholars distinguish between caudillos (strong politicians) and their domination, the caudillismo, and the caciques and caciquismo. [26] An Argentine intellectual, Carlos Octavio Bunge, considered that caciquism emerged from anarchy and political turmoil and then evolved into a “peaceful” form of “civilized caciquism,” like Mexico`s Porfirio Díaz (r. 1876-1911). [27] The Argentine writer Fernando N.A. Cuevillas considers caciquism as “nothing more than a special mark of tyrants.” [28] Cacique was originally translated as “king”[1] or “prince”[2][3] for the Spaniards. In colonial times, the conquistadors and the administrators who followed them used the generic word to refer to all the leaders of virtually every indigenous group they encountered in the Western Hemisphere. In Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking countries, the term also means a political leader, similar to the caudillo, exercising power in a system of caciquism. [4] When the general asked him if cacike was Montezuma`s subject, he replied, “And what other leader could I serve?” Earlier in 729, each city or province was ruled by a hereditary cacique who administered justice with four nobles as advisors.
The Spanish transcribed kasike and used the term (cacique) to refer to the local chief of virtually all indigenous groups in Spanish America. [10] The caciques of the Caribbean, who initially did not oppose the Spanish, became intermediaries and served as an interface between their communities and the Spaniards. Their collaboration was often temporary. Most of the first caciques eventually revolted, resulting in their death in battle or by execution. [11] Two of the most famous of these caciques of the early colonial period are Hatuey de Cuba and Enriquillo on the island of Hispaniola. [12] Both are now national heroes in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. As a result, indigenous elites eager to cooperate with colonial masters replaced rivals who had better hereditary or traditional claims to leadership. [13] The Spanish recognized the native nobles as a European aristocratic style in the newly established colonial system, and the status of cacique among the colonizers (as well as that of his family) was strengthened by granting them the Spanish nobility fees don and doña. A cacike (Latin American: [kaˈsike]; Portuguese: [kɐˈsikɨ, kaˈsiki]; Caccica was a tribal leader of the Taíno people, the indigenous people in European contact with the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spanish transliteration of the Taíno word kasike. The word taíno kasike is derived from the word taíno kassiquan, which means “to hold the house”.
[5] In 1555, the word first entered the English language, defined as “prince.” [6] In Taíno culture, the Kasike rank was hereditary[7] and sometimes established by democratic means. As the Taínos were largely a peaceful culture, the importance of the Kasike in the tribe was determined by the size of their clan rather than their war skills. The Taíno-Kasikes also enjoyed several privileges that distinguished them as an elite class in Taíno society: they lived in a larger rectangular hut in the center of the village rather than in the circular outlying huts of other villagers, and they had reserved places to watch areytos (ceremonial dances) and ceremonial ball play. [8] Most importantly, Kasike`s word was law and they exercised this power to oversee a highly developed government that was finely involved in all aspects of social existence. [9] One of the leaders is the son of a cacique chamula. 30 years later, in 1989, Junguitud had a dispute with another president, Carlos Salinas, who appointed Elba Esther as the “cacique” (political boss) of the SNTE. But the cacike was a businessman and stood firm. There is no consensus in the scientific literature on the origins of caciquism. Murdo J. MacLeod suggests that the terms cacique and caudillo “require further investigation or may have been stretched by the variety of explanations and processes presented in them to such an extent that they have become somewhat empty generalizations.” [33] The Spanish were more successful in hiring leaders of the much more hierarchical indigenous civilizations of central Mexico.