Caudillo

A caudillo (; Old Spanish: cabdillo, from Latin capitellum, diminutive of caput "head") was a military-landowner that possessed political power and exercised it in a form considered authoritarian by detractors. 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. Caudillos were very influential in the history of Hispanic America and have a legacy that has influenced political movements in the modern day. The term originally described leaders possessing military power, such as Indibilis and Mandonius, Viriathus, Almanzor (sometimes in the modern historiography), Don Pelayo and other fighters of the Reconquista, and others such as Simón Bolivar, Francisco Franco and Juan Perón. 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–plutocratic power.