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Edited by Robert Kern
The Caciques Oligarchical Politics and the system of caciquismo in the Luso-Hispanic World University of New Mexico Alburquerque 1994

The Caciques

Preface The approach of this book. as the backgrounds of the contributors indicate. is interdisciplinary. The topic has been so little explored that a variety of view~ points is necessary. Thus. Chapter 1 examines the preconquest chiefdoms from archaeological and anthropological evidence and suggests that the areas that' witnessed the highest development of cacicazgos also felt the major impact of caciquismo in the modern period. Chapter 2 reveals the difficulties Spaniards had in fitting the Aztec aristocracy into the medieval European three-class framework and discusses the evolution of the cacique from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The author of the next chapter. the first of a three-part article on the cacique in literature, studies the origin of the terms cacique and Caciquismo and the linguistic confusion that surrounded them. Chapter 4 argues that Spain, with a socioeconomic background similar in some ways to Latin America. in the nineteenth century, became the model for integrating caciquismo with liberalism. The second part of the article on the cacique in literature continues this discussion in Chapter 5 by investigating the image of the cacique in Peninsular writings. Chapter 6 covers coronelismo in Brazil, while Chapte7, looks at gamonalismo in Peru-two important Latin American variants of caciquismo. Chapter 8 concludes the discussion of the cacique in literature with a comprehensive survey of Latin America. The last two chapters explore, in different ways the modern cacique and the role of caciquismo in the societies and governments of contemporary Latin America.
The book is organized chronologically to trace the evolution of the cacique and his peculiar political system. As time and place change, the reader should realize that the terms cacique and caciquismo are also altered, picking up or losing meanings. Likewise, each discipline tends to see a somewhat different aspect of these terms, so differences of perspective are inevitable in interdisciplinary works. Nevertheless, care has been taken to minimize these semantic and conceptual problems.
Acknowledgment should be made to France V. Scholes for his understanding of the topic and his aid. William Brisk and Marshall Nason also gave a good deal of their time in discussing various aspects of this study.













The Anthropological Antecedents: Caciques. Cazicazgos
and Caciquismo
KARL H. SCHWERIN University of New Mexico
The term cacique, originally encountered by Columbus on his first voyage of discovery to the New World, was a Taino Arawak word used in Hispaniola to indicate a ruler or chief.' It was common among all Arawakan-speaking tribes of the Greater Antilles, and the conquistadors adopted it in the Spanish conquest of the Americas until it came to replace the local native terms of leadership throughout the entire empire.2 In time the term cacique took on a whole range of definitions, as this study will show. Our concern here is to discuss the earliest concepts of chiefdom or cacicazgos, from which the word cacique came. For in these cacicazgos lay the origins of social and political attitudes and practices that still have a residual effect in some aspects of Latin American society today.
THE NATURE OF CACICAZGOS OR CHIEFDOMS
Cacique was not indigenous to the Cariban languages, and in fact the majority of Cariban tribes visited by the early Spanish voyagers in the Caribbean area had a much simpler social organization. This has caused an imprecise anthropological use of the tennis cacique, cacicazgo and caciquismo True chiefdoms. or cacicazgos became an important preconquest politico institution in many parts of Latin America. They have been defined by Kalervo Oberg as
tribal units... of multivillage territorial chiefdoms governed by a paramount chief under whose control are districts and villages governed by a hierarchy of subordinate chiefs. The distinguishing feature of this type of political organization is that the chiefs have judicial powers to settle disputes and to punish offenders... and, under the leadership of the paramount chief, to requisition men and supplies for war purposes. Unity is achieved by federation, the acceptance of political authority resting on common interests and ultimately on the recognition of common tribal descent.
Furthermore, class stratification, which does not occur on the simpler levels, was marked by elaborate distinction in social behavior
In general, then the chiefdom is defined as a type of society which is territorially based, possesses an incipient bureaucracy, and is ruled by a chief o, cacique who enjoy arbitrary but limited power. Factors behind the development of chiefdom include ecological diversity and population growth. Population growth particularly, since it stimulates more intensive exploitation of local resources, leads to an intensification of agricultural exploitation and elaboration of social, political, religious, and other cultural institutions. In this process, economic goods and services tend to be concentrated in a "permanent central agency of coordination." which performs a "redistribution" function. Tribute gifts or surplus production are used by caciques in fiestas, public works, and craft production as a way of manipulating the distribution of goods and services throughout the entire society.




This may be put another way. Trade and reciprocal exchange of goods occur at all levels of cultural development, but when people becomes sedentary the amount of such exchange tends to increase markedly. In reciprocal exchange it is advantageous to organize production to insure a surplus and to regulate the process of exchange and redistribution of goods for the community at large. Organization implies leadership and the growth of central authority, and as centers or caciques emerge, their base of control rests on these common interests, so that neighboring groups of similar culture are drawn into the chiefdom, making these societies larger than a simple tribe. An inevitable growth of centralized direction and control follows, along with an increase in foodstuff production, crafts, creation of a labor force for public works, and the development of larger military forces.
The center enjoys more authority than any other member of the society. and thus becomes politically preeminent. But the authority depends wholly on the common consent of the other members of the society, the general consensus on the rightness and legitimacy of the cacique's exercise of authority. This does not preclude others from the use of authority and/or force. No one in chiefdom enjoys a monopoly of force.
As these developments continues, the cacique gains in prestige in a variety of ways. The chiefdom can now support a priestly class to augment or supplant shamanistic practices and life-cycle rituals, and invariably the office of chief and priest are closely interrelated.9 Control of production and redistribution permit a siphoning off of goods and services for personal use. These special rights and privileges are further reinforced by sumptuary rules to insure separation of the chief from society. This tends to spread downward to create a pyramidal social organization, with local communities and kin groups designating their own lesser caciques who concentrate goods and labor to be passed up in tribute and who coordinate the local redistribution of goods which are passed down from the central cacique. This simple hierarchy is further accentuated by the designation of warriors and craftsmen as local prestige classes. Below them are the common farmers and enslaved war captives.
All of this, however, tends to be transitional. The very forces which bring chiefdoms into being encourage increasing centralization and the formation of primitive states where the cacique becomes a king, exercising a monopoly of force. On the other hand, warfare, succesional disputes, and other social problems may produce reversion to the tribal level of organization (as frequently happened in Latin America through Spanish and Portuguese manipulation).
In sum, chiefdom "is largely familistic but is not egalitarian: it has no government but does have authority and centralized direction: there is no private property in resources or entrepreneurial market commerce, yet there is unequal control over goods and production; there are rank differences but no clear socioeconomic or political classes."'
DISTR1BUTION OF CACICAZGOS
In Latin America most of the cacicazgos were distributed throughout the Circum-Caribbean area-the Greater Antilles, northern coastal South America the Northern Andes (Ecuador and Colombia), Central America and eastern Bolivia. A possible addition might be the Tupinamba of coastal Brazil, which has been described in tennis suggesting an incipient cacicazgo. In addition, there are indications that chiefdoms had a scattered distribution in Mesoamerica at the time of the Spanish conquest. Before the Aztec expansion, some of the smaller political entities in the Valley of Mexico may have been more like cacicazgos than states. Even Maya sociopolitical organization at the time of conquest reflected a cacicazgo level of organization, and recent studies tend to support this point of view. Their rather simple level of politico] integration and control has always been in striking contrast to their brilliant achievements in other fields. And although there are few firm ideas about Mayan sociopolitical] organization during the earlier Classic Period, few scholars believe they achieved an organization more complex than in the Post-Classic Period that preceded the conquest with its cacicazgo elements. However, the distinctness and intellectual superiority of Mayan art, architecture, astronomy, mathematics, religion, and philosophy indicate either extremely competent caciques and priests a most felicitous ideology or both
Using archaeological evidence to identify cacicazgos, there are good reasons to consider most if not all the Formative Era cultures of the Americas in this class. Thus in Mesoamerica the Olmec with their great artistic skill and evidence of ceremonial elaboration and Tlatilco, famous for its ceremonial figurines, might qualify. In Colombia, Reichel-Dolmatoff has discovered "intensive maize farming and sedentary village life; ancient fields with ridges and furrows . . . common to all of them; a well defined social order . . ., burial rites point[ing] to an emphasis on ceremonial." In Peru the periods described by Lanning as Pre-Ceramic Period Vl (2500-1500 B.C.) and the Initial (Ceramic) Period ( 1500~900 B.C.) may very wel1 represent the achievement of cacicazgos's Period V1 was characterized by rapid population growth, planned towns, rapid advances in agriculture, art, and technology. Foodstuffs were traded between coastal villages and those on the lower reaches of the rivers. Above all, there was a great proliferation of ceremonial centers of a size and scale to indicate the emergence of stratified societies with control and direction over the labor force. These trends continued in the succeeding Initial Period with further elaboration of village settlement patterns and construction of ceremonial sites. There was clear social stratification and occupational specialization for architects and religious functionaries, although full-time craft specialization seems to have been retarded.
Interestingly, there was a later era in Peru, Lanning's late Intermediate Period (ca A.D. 1000-1476), when a general regression from more highly organized societies to the cacicazgo also occurred, at least in central and southern Peru. "The country was again divided into small regional states [cacicazgos] that were engaged in feuding warfare without, for the most part, consolidating their conquests."' At the same time, they had "high technological competence and extensive interregional commerce."" Eventually, however, their inherent instability led to the emergence of more complex organization in the south with states developed among the Chanca and Quechua in the Apurimac Basin, the Lupaca and Colla in the Titicaca Basin, and the Inca of Cuzco, who of course went on to form the various states into a single empire.'
Less developed were the half-dozen societies of eastern Bolivia which achieved the cacicazgo level of organization. Some, in fact, may not have reached this level until influenced by certain factors introduced by the Spanish. Among the groups were the Modo, Bauré, Paressí, Manasí, Mbaya and Guaná, the majority Arawakan-speaking. Leading characteristics of this group included large local settlements, an intervillage road system, grid-pattern fields and canals-all evidence of organization. Crafts such as basketry, featherwork, weaving, pottery, and wood carving were also well developed. However, class structure was less complex than in the Circum-Caribbean, with a large commoner class and a nobility limited to the families of caciques. Only among the Manasí was there a somewhat more developed structure of chiefs, priests, shamans and commoners, although the Maya did produce a warrior class in response to Spanish pressures and the introduction of the horse.
Elsewhere in Latin America excavations on Marajo Island at the mouth of Amazon stow that the Marajoara culture, originating off the island, was highly elaborated and artistically superior to the preceding and neighboring cultures of the area. It may have been a cacicazgo, although unfortunately data on most of the Amazon cultures in the sixteenth century are either extremely sparse or nonexistent, and so there is no sure knowledge. Early Spanish expeditions on the Amazon and the Rio Negro by Orellana and Ursúa-Aguirre did report large settlements and high population densities. Perhaps many more of these Tropical Forest cultures achieved a cacicazgo level, only to disintegrate under pressure of Portuguese and Dutch colonization and slaving activities.
The focal region for Latin American cacicazgos was the Circum-Caribbean, which had been an important source of cultural innovation from the fourth millennium B.C. on. There is strong evidence, for example, that the earliest domestication of plants and pottery-making in South America took place here. Most likely, the Circum-Caribbean was the first region of Latin America to experience major population growth, and this led to the spread of its discoveries south and east into the Orinoco-Amazonian lowlands, largely by the movement of Arawakam- speaking peoples along the major rivers of this area, most probably reaching into Peru from this direction. At this time all of these cultures had achieved no more than a simple tribal level of organization, but in the Central Andes, these stimuli from the tropical forest set in motion a long chain of development leading to the cacicazgo level and beyond. Conditions were no1 so favorable in the Amazonian lowlands, but to the north in the Circum-Caribbean proper the variety of ecological resources and a greater geographical circumscription stimulated a rapid emergence of cacicazgos, which spread throughout the area due to competition and threats of war. A variety of internal contradictions kept development from reaching the levels of the Central Andes, but the influence of this area nevertheless reached out to affect Mesoamerica also. What is interesting to note is that all of these regions are the ones which have experienced modem versions of cacicazgo organization in their contemporary life, although this has differed enormously from the ancient patterns.
LATIN AMERICAN CACICAZGOS AT TAME OF CONTACT
At the time of European discovery or shortly thereafter, many of the cacicazgos had either collapsed or progressed to more complex levels of socio-cultural organization, which makes reconstruction difficult for the anthropologist. The discussion here will be limited to greater South America since there has been very little attempt to identify and analyze cacicazgos in Mesoamerica. It should also be emphasized that these were highly variable societies with many local variations and exceptions.
Demography. Population densities ran from two to nearly seven persons per square mile. Community size ranged from 500 to about 3,000 inhabitants. Territorial control went from a minimum expanse of 2.700 square miles (Aruacay) to a maximum of 15,000 square miles (Chibcha).
Subsistence. Intensification of agricultural exploitation among the cacicazgos is indicated by such features as a shortening of fallow periods, male assumption of most agricultural labor, and a scattered distribution of terracing, irrigation and grid-pattern fields. Agricultural production was supplemented by hunting, fishing, and small domestic animals.
Trade and Technology. Trade was oriented to the exchange of luxury items rather than utilitarian goods or foodstuffs. Trade seems to have been carried on mostly through contacts between caciques and/or trading partners belonging to different cacicazgos. Market exchange was rare.
The superior craft skills of the cacicazgos is evidence for full-time specialization and for a preoccupation with producing fine nonutilitarian luxury goods in metallurgy, lapidary, woodworking, pottery, and textiles principally for consumption by the higher prestige classes and for ritual use.
Class Structure. This was the most uniform aspect. At the top were caciques and their families, followed by the nobles, who were the lesser chiefs, rulers of outlying districts and villages (as among the Chibcha or the Taino Arawak). Priests or outstanding warriors enjoyed a rank approximately equivalent to the nobles.
Both caciques and nobles enjoyed considerable privileges. Polygyny was common, with some caciques having a hundred or more wives. Some of the chiefs were carried on elaborate litters when they traveled; others were shaded from the sun by parasols or sat on large carved stools as a token of their rank. Privileges of special consumption of goods attested to their importance as economic organizers, and they were honored in death by worshipful funerals and burial in large tombs along with quantities of mortuary goods. It was no' uncommon to bury the living (wives and retainers) with a deceased cacique so that they might continue to serve him in death.
The warrior class rose mainly from ranks of the commoners. Their prestige was gained from outstanding exploits in war such as killing enemy warriors taking captives, and leading their own troops to victory. In reward they were often permitted to officiate at the sacrifice of male captives and to keep captive women and children in their own households. Booty was another reward, as were certain consumption privileges, though these never equalled those of the caciques.
The commoners comprised the productive element of the society, particularly the farmers, but also the artisans and craftsmen. There is little evidence to indicate that in South America the artisans were accorded any marked privileges over the farmers, although they may have enjoyed slightly greater prestige because of their closer association with and dependence upon the caciques and nobles. In any case they cannot have represented a very large group. The farmers alone constituted ninety to ninety-five percent of the population. Slaves, since they wore never given an economic role, usually were of slight statistical importance.
From this it can be seen that marked class differences were not as important as prestige in the cacicazgos. Opportunities for social mobility, up o, down, remained relatively open, with the exception of the cacique himself. The chiefdoms are sometimes described as rank societies, in that the divisions between social classes were extremely hard to identify, while on the other hand clear prestige and rank distinctions usually existed between any two individuals in these societies. There was a continuum of social gradations which stood in place of social classes. Much of this was based on matrilineal descent. Family ties were traced through the mother and her female ancestors, so that a man had as much or more authority over his sister's children as his own. Inheritance also passed through the female line. Many of these characteristics are still present today in areas where caciquismo has remained common, and as some of the other essays will show, the more recent cacique systems have possessed a strong sense of social gradation.
Political Organization. The duties of a cacique were many and varied. In his own self-interest, he had to see that tribute was collected and properly redistributed, much like a modern political boss However, in some cases, as among the Taino Arawak, there was no regular payment of tribute, but rather an assessment of crops and/or men whenever the need arose. In fact, throughout most cacicazgos labor assessments seem to have been made on this basis: for warfare, to work the fields of the cacique or to build his houses, or for the construction of public works. Where temples were lacking, the home of the cacique might also serve as the sanctuary for public gods and a sort of ad hoc temple. This was because it was not uncommon for a cacique to serve as both civil ruler and priestly leader. Another of his functions was that of judging disputes between subordinate officials and among commoners.
The authority of the cacique rested upon mutual consent of the governed far more than upon the exercise of arbitrary political power. His position may have been defended through political astuteness, religious ideology, or even guile, but fundamentally it was his economic and organizational functions that provided authority for him to extract tribute and corvée labor and claim exclusive consumption of prestige luxury goods.
The lesser caciques or nobility served as rulers of regional subdivisions and villages. In some cases, at least, their authority could not have been very great. Among the Cuna they seem to have been responsible for only an average of 150 persons, while among the Taino Arawak there were only 500-600 persons for each territory under a subcacique. These lesser administrators represented an incipient bureaucracy which served to implement the orders of the principal cacique with respect to tribute collection and redistribution, labor assessments, and the administration of justice. They also may have served as leaders of their respective groups in time of war.
However, there is evidence that these lesser caciques sometimes engaged in political maneuvers and even open conflict in a never ending jockeying for power and favor. This was especially true among the Cuna, lirajara, Chibcha, and presumably many others. Although data are sketchy, it is also apparent that caciques rarely if ever mixed in interfamily or individual disputes such as theft or murder, which most often were settled through feud or bleed revenge.
Both conflict among lesser caciques and the persistence of feud and blood revenge are indicative of the actual limitation of authority placed upon the principal caciques. Nowhere was there a monopoly of power in the cacicazgos, not even among the Chibcha. To have achieved this would have transformed a cacique into the king of a primitive state. Caciques accustomed themselves to an intermediate type of power, and this quality was what allowed them to be incorporated so rapidly into the Spanish system of politics.
Warfare. Warfare was a key force among the early chiefdoms used to establish and maintain boundaries, to rally the cacicazgos and maintain social integration as a means of individual social mobility, and for the sacrificial aspects of religious practice. Yet there were important exceptions to the organization of the chiefdoms for war. "Theocratic cacicazgos," as Julian Steward calls them existed in the Colombian Cordillera Oriental (the Lathe, Chitarera, and Arhuaco) and in the adjacent Venezuelan Andes (Timotean speakers). While somewhat warlike, these groups do not appear to have taken captives or practiced human sacrifice, cannibalism, or trophy taking They maintained a civil importance to cacicazgo that would permit its adaptation to postconquest times when the Spaniards held a monopoly of military warfare.
Religion. The religious aspect of the chiefdoms has been called a "priest temple-idol complex."Priests were trained for their duties in leading public worship and in interceding' with the group deities, seeking to influence but not control the supernatural This was an important task, second only to the cacique in terms of authority Not infrequently the same individual exercised both roles which strengthened the power of the cacique immeasurably. Even when the priest and the cacique were not the same person, they were often close kinsmen, brothers, perhaps, or cousins. There was a strong tendency for both positions to become hereditary. In this way, the long history of religious and cacique structures began, and this factor again proved useful for survival of chiefly attributes.
FAILURE OF THE CACICAZGOS TO EVOLVE
Despite the impressive strides taken by the South American chiefdoms, it is puzzling that more of the cacicazgos did not form into states or expand into great empires, which did occur in the Central Andean region. The Tropical Forest region no doubt had major environmental obstacles, but the Circum-Caribbean area was actually similar to the Andean region in its potential for development yet failed to move in the same direction. Warfare was endemic in both regions and a major factor in Central Andean expansion, so the explanation that warfare in the Circum-Caribbean was a major impediment to development does not satisfactorily answer the question.
A better explanation for the Circum-Caribbean failure is the lack of a servile class in its societal growth. Auguste Comte observed the importance of slavery for human progress, in that the moment one takes a slave and puts him to work at some productive activity there has been a profound change not only in human social relationships, but also in nature of economic patterns. A slave can be forced to produce far more than a free man, and he can be supported on far less. Of even more importance, a slave has no obligations to kinsmen, lineage members, or clansmen. There are no taxes or tribute obligations, which means that all surplus production can be absorbed by the master, making the slave a very efficient economic device, an analog to the modem industrial machine. Servile production can be utilized to produce more and greater variety of goods and services, and for a time, at least, this serves as a stimulus to continued innovation, extension of trade relations, elaboration of political authority, and. until it becomes conservative and thus a retarding factor, the basis for the development of more sophisticated ideologies.
The great weakness of the Circum-Caribbean cacicazgos was their lack of a servile class. Spanish descriptions of slaves in this area at time of conquest usually referred to a low prestige class which was not servile or put to economic ends as a producing class. In many chiefdoms, slavery had no economic importance. Male captives were invariably sacrificed or eaten ceremonially, and other captives who managed to escape this fate were incorporated into their captor's family as secondary wives, concubines, or adopted children, obtaining personal affective ties to their captor as kinsmen who had the same range of claims and obligations as natural members of the family. Even Inca society had no slave class per se, but rather an organized, productive class of commoners producing a sizable surplus for use by the state. The system functioned well because it was rigidly controlled, making up for its lower economic efficiency by the lesser overt force needed to maintain it. It permitted the Incas to expand their domain and survive up to the time of the Spaniards, while the Circum-Caribbean chiefdoms were constantly fragmented by lower economic productivity and a shifting balance of internal power.
The implications of this for later times are difficult to assess although it might be said that cacicazgo was not primarily economic at heart. Its social qualities in organizing society were always much more important than its economic function. Even redistribution had a basic social connotation. The modern experience with caciquismo likewise was dominated by social hierarchy and other noneconomic motives to a much greater extent than the economic purposes it served.
CACICAZGO TO CACIQUISMO: CHANGE UNDER THE COLONIAL REGIME
Initial impact of the European Conquest. It is worth noting that the cacicazgos of the Caribbean area were the first native cultures to be affected by European expansion One of the basic effects of Spanish and Portuguese activity was rapid population decline, almost to the point of extinction, since less than five percent of the original population of the cacicazgos was left 150 years later. Slavery, disease, physical abuse, and use of native labor in gold and silver mining or in the production of foodstuffs were so severe that the Circum-Caribbean region declined most rapidly of all the areas. Another immediate factor was mestization, which took place between European males and native women as part of the privileges of conquest. In many areas the mestizo population grew rapidly and identified with its European patrilineage. Perhaps the decline of native population first noticed by Las Casas in the Greater Antilles was more a case of rapid mestization than actual extinction, but there is no question that the culture of the cacicazgos did expire within a few short decades
This was due in great part to the weakness of chiefdom organization, which depended less upon force than on mutual agreement as to what constituted the common good. It offered little protection against a superior force, as the Spanish found out, since on the whole cacicazgos were even easier to conquer than the empires of Mesoamerica and Peru. Native culture completely disappeared in such diverse areas as the northern Colombian lowlands, the Chibcha, the Ecuadorian coast, or the Taino Arawak by the end of the sixteenth century. In other instances, where colonial controls were not so strong, a kind of cultural "decapitation" occurred in which the native rulers and local aristocracy were destroyed or absorbed into the dominant Spanish group. The common people, no longer called upon to produce a surplus for the support of the caciques, reverted to a simple subsistence level of productivity and village political organization. Such peoples have survived to the present day in the lowland swamps and rain forests of Central America, the broken uplands of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria, and the Sierra de Perijá.
Extinction or decapitation, as the fate of the cacicazgos, had only one exception. This was in the region of the Gran Chaco and eastern Bolivia, where direct confrontation between Europeans and natives either did not occur or was short-lived. Yet introduction of horses and cattle and the demand for slaves were factors which stimulated the Maya and Paressi, among others, to organize cacicazgos for the first time. Towns grew larger, social and political ties were extended among neighboring communities, and warfare appeared on an organized basis. At the same time, their survival and evolution to a higher level was precisely because Europeans did not try to conquer them or control their territory, and in fact encouraged their activities and traded with them.
Spread of the Cacique Concept. The term cacique, as one of the first words encountered by the Spaniards in their contact with the Taino Arawak during the conquest of the Antilles, was frequently applied during the subsequent period to local kings, rulers, chiefs, headmen, leaders wherever they went. Its use was often inappropriate; but, because the Spaniards had a well-developed sense of the innate superiority of nobility, cacique came to refer to the innate natural qualities of noble status among native leaders. There was a paradox here, for even while the native Americans were considered a weak race, it was assumed that the caciques occupied their positions because they had the same nobility which had brought the European aristocracy to a place of unrivaled status. As a matter of course, then wherever native groups succumbed with little resistance or were quickly overpowered by military action, local rulers were reconfirmed in their rank, titles, privilege and to a certain extent authority.
Within decades, however the conquest brought great social and political disruption. Some leaders were killed in battle: others fled were executed for treason, idolatry, and resistance, or died in the epidemics of European disease~ These conditions provided numerous opportunities for c]ever native impostors to assert their claims to empty positions of leadership. Sometimes their presumptuousness was pointed up by resistance, but often they were able to convince the Spaniards of a legitimate right to the position. Spanish respect for the concept of innate nobility lent credence to their doubtful claims, and in Mexico and Peru a significant number of new "caciques" came to power in this way.
The Spaniards themselves made it an official colonial policy for the Crown to respect "the birth and nature] right" that caciques "had over their Reign … that all the Caciques and Lords would be maintained in their Dominions, for his Majesty well knew that he could not remove them from the Dominion which nature had given them without serious cause." These rulers were permitted by the Crown to use the title of cacique, to maintain their patrimonial lands, and to assess tribute in kind, labor and cash from those Indians recognized as their subjects after all, native leaders were becoming an essential if minor cog in the colonial administrative system, which stressed indirect rule as a consequence of the lack of sufficient Spaniards to administer the empire. The linguistic problem was another administrative obstacle, and in any case official policy, encouraged by the missionaries, sought to keep the Spaniards and Indians apart. Native rulers thus were important as a liaison between the two.
Other roles played by the caciques during the colonial period included, in the early years especially, that of slave dealer. Since they had been permitted to keep their own slaves after slavery was forbidden, the caciques constituted one source of servile labor, sometimes under intimidation by unscrupulous Spaniards. Under the encomienda and corregimiento systems, the caciques were made directly responsible to the encomendero or corregidor for payment of tribute. Later in the sixteenth century when population decline and economic setbacks caused these payments to fall into arrears, caciques and councilmen were imprisoned and fined on this account. They also had responsibility for providing the labor called for in the repartimiento and mita drafts.
However, at the same time these functions were being assigned, attempts were also being made to limit the power of the caciques in order to prevent any threat to Spanish dominion. Encomenderos and corregidores sometimes named their own caciques, which is evidenced by the numerous legal complaints found in colonial archives in which native rulers requested the return of inherited titles, rights, privileges, and authority. There was also a tendency to restrict the territory over which a cacique had control. Towns which had been formerly subordinate to an important lord were placed under the independent administration of a local cacique, subject only to an encomendero or corregidor and no longer answerable to his former native superior. The latter occasionally found that his authority had been restricted only to the town where he had his residence. The effect of this policy was to set up innumerable pseudo-cacicazgos even in areas like central Mexico or Peru where the cacicazgo had been unimportant in preconquest times.
There was another and subtler way in which the conquistadors exploited the native nobility In reward for their efforts at exploration and conquest, many assumed noble status themselves and sought Crown confirmation of that status. Lesser soldiers and colonists had little chance of success without marrying a woman of native nobility. Sometimes the heirs of these unions were able to assume cacique status, particularly when assisted by their European fathers and friendly colonial administrators. It was also possible for a full-blooded Spaniard to assume the cacique function in cases where his Indian wife could assert a strong claim to the position through inheritance. With his aid this could often be confirmed, and then with the noble Indian wife as de jure cocica, her husband acted as de facto administrator. Even in such important areas as Tlexcala this is what happened in two of the four ruling lines during the sixteenth century.
Whatever their descent, colonial caciques were important not only to the colonial administrative system, but also to native society. They served as a buffer in dealings with Europeans and prevented a considerable amount of exploitation and cultural disorganization from occurring. In anthropological terms, they were cultural brokers who represented Indian interests before the larger society by serving as spokesmen in complaints or requests directed to higher functionaries, or in assuming leadership in some legal dispute. At the same time, due to their Spanish associations, they were a channel for the introduction of new ideas and concepts.
They also exploited the people they governed for tribute, sexual services, or labor assessments. In this sense they were petty local bosses exercising their prerogatives of office, although increasingly what they exploited most was their influence in the courts of the Spanish bureaucracy. This brought them such respect that they tended to restrain their other avenues of exploitation. Persona] and affective ties among their own people was another restraint. so that corruption and genuine service balanced one another out. The cacique found a settled, functional and remunerative position in society and so made the transition from preconquest to postconquest life.