19th Century Caudillos

Introduction

The term caudillo originates from the Spanish word for head, cabeza, and describes the leader of a political faction, often linked to a band of armed men. Used in Spain since the time of the Reconquista, the term became increasingly common in Spanish America during the wars of independence. It initially had the positive connotation of a man fighting in defense of his land, but it gradually became linked to authoritarian rule by a strongman and was used pejoratively. Caudillos began their careers at the local level, and some garnered national support. Many took over the government of a country and were successful in maintaining it, while others faced strong opposition. In some areas they derived their power from the army, while in others they counted on their dependents. In his biographical essay Facundo, Argentine author and politician Domingo Faustino Sarmiento made a seminal characterization of a 19th century caudillo that is still relevant today. In the article, he describes the life and times of the leader of the pampas and makes reference to the authoritarian political system developed by the Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires Juan Manuel de Rosas, who controlled the Río de la Plata for nearly three decades with the support of his henchmen. One of the most enduring images of 19th century caudillos, particularly in the English-speaking world, is that of men on horseback who ruled vast swaths of the Spanish American hinterlands with the support of their makeshift militias. This was the view presented by authors such as Charles Chapman in the 1930s and Richard Morse in the 1950s. Subsequently, in the work of scholars such as John Lynch, Eric Wolf, and Eduard Hansen, caudillos have been understood as local Latin American variants of patrons, while others authors, such as Hugh Hamill, refer to them as dictators. However, most concur that the caudillos’ most salient characteristic was charisma, following Max Weber’s definition. Recent work has aimed to understand what made them charismatic and what their real sources of political power were. The literature on 19th century caudillismo is most abundant in Argentina, where it remains central to current historiographical debate. Caudillos are also regarded as significant in Bolivia and Peru, with new work appearing in the early 21st century. In the cases of Mexico and Venezuela, where caudillos were also noteworthy in the 19th century, the experience of the 20th century has overshadowed their former centrality.

General Overviews

19th century accounts of caudillos focus strongly on personality. Domingo Sarmiento attempts to come to terms with his contemporaries and make sense of the realities in which they lived. His book Facundo (Sarmiento 1978) is a commentary on the Argentine leader Juan Manuel de Rosas, who, according to Sarmiento, controlled the province of Buenos Aires through violent means and who eschewed the notion of becoming president of the whole of Argentina or of creating a constitution. One of the most influential early works on caudillos was Chapman 1932, which portrayed them as “men on horseback” who provided crucial backing to elites. Most scholars writing in English have interpreted 19th century caudillos as charismatic leaders who were able to attain power because they had a large following of clients. Charisma was understood, according to Max Weber, as the ability of one person to rule others by sheer strength of personality. It remains one of the most popular explanations of caudillismo, even though many of the leaders were not really that charismatic. Another widely accepted account, Morse 1954, correlates local Spanish-American culture and the legacy of the colonial period with the development of caudillos. A more structural analysis was put forward from the 1960s onwards in works such as Wolf and Hansen 1967, linking caudillismo with economic realities as well as the vacuum of power left over from the wars of independence. John Lynch is one of the most influential authors to have worked on caudillismo (Lynch 1992). He bases his interpretations on extensive archival material looking at the cases of Juan Manuel de Rosas from Buenos Aires, José Antonio Páez from Venezuela, Antonio López de Santa Anna from Mexico, and Rafael Carrera from Guatemala. He concludes that caudillos began as local heroes in the regions where they owned land. Hamill 1992 is a very useful collection of short texts on 19th and 20th century caudillos that collects some of the most classical writing on the topic by Sarmiento, Wolf, and Hansen, as well as Morse 1954 (albeit with a different title). More recent work, such as Sobrevilla Perea 2011 (cited under Bolivia and Peru), aims to understand the reasons why caudillos were powerful and charismatic, as well as to establish the differences between the caudillos that originated in the prairie areas of the pampas of Argentina and the llanos in Venezuela and those that came from the Andean regions of Peru and Bolivia. Scheina 2003 is a study of war and how caudillos took power; it will be very useful for those interested in understanding different areas.

Chapman, Charles. “The Age of the Caudillos: A Chapter in Hispanic American History.” Hispanic American Historical Review 12.3 (August 1932): 281–310.
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Chapman describes caudillos as “men on horseback” who received support from the land-owning wealthy creoles if they could offer peace and security in exchange. He is convinced that even if they claimed to fight revolutions in the name of principles such as liberty, equality, or constitutionalism, the only substantive change that occurred under their tenure was in the person who governed and the ritual that was followed.
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Hamill, Hugh, ed. Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
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Hamill understands caudillos as the equivalent of dictators and an enduring characteristic of Latin America and Spain. Hamill’s introduction sets the texts into context and expands on his idea that caudillos are very particular to Latin America and part of the social fabric from the 19th century, and that their legacy continues today, after the intense experience of dictatorship during the 20th century.
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Lynch, John. Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Caudillos derived their authority from their land, living in agrarian societies where the relationship between landowner and peasants was that between a patron and a client. They owed obedience to no one and did not share their absolute power with any other person or institution. Caudillos emerged when there was an institutional vacuum, where formal rules were absent and political confrontation was resolved through conflict.
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Morse, Richard. “Toward a Theory of Spanish American Government.” Journal of the History of Ideas 15.1 (January 1954): 71–93.
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Richard Morse explains caudillos from a cultural perspective. He believes that the history and culture of the Hispanic people made them more prone to this kind of government. Although not dealing in detail with caudillos, this article is important because it reflects the kind of thinking on Spain and Latin America typical of the 1950s, which saw caudillos as cultural phenomena.
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Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Facundo. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Huemul, 1978.
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This political tract, directed against Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, describes the life and times of Facundo, a provincial leader who ruled through terror. Sarmiento argues that caudillismo developed because of the influence of geography over the people, race, and culture. He was the first author to use the term, linking it to the pampas that, inhabited by gauchos, could only be governed by caudillos. Originally published in 1845, it has been extensively reprinted, with English editions in 1998 and 2003.
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Scheina, Robert. Latin America’s Wars. Vol. 1, The Age of the Caudillo, 1791–1899. Dulles, VA: Potomac, 2003.
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This book studies war. Concentrating on a series of episodes in chapter-length essays that set a wide canvas in which to analyze caudillismo, Scheina concludes that these military men, the caudillos, often took power only to be revealed as corrupt leaders. This introduction to the topic will be particularly useful for those seeking to understand the trajectory of the term in different locations.
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Wolf, Eric, and Edward C. Hansen. “Caudillo Politics: A Structural Analysis.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 9.2 (January 1967): 168–179.
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Caudillismo began, in the 1960s, to be understood as a Latin American variant of patronage. Relationships were seen as structured around the exchange of benefits and protection. The patron provided for the client, who in return remained bound to the patron. For these authors, this explained the structure of power and the rise to power of caudillos, as well as their eventual fall and replacement by an ambitious former protégé.
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Argentina

Caudillos are at the center of historiographical debates in Argentina, not only due to the preeminence of Juan Manuel de Rosas, whose figure looms large in the academic and political understanding of the former Governor of the province of Buenos Aires, but also because of the proliferation of smaller leaders in the rest of the former viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The first years after independence were dominated by the confrontation between Unitarians, who wanted a centralist national government, and the Federalists, who vied for more provincial autonomy. The conflict raged for more than four decades, and the Argentine Nation only emerged in the 1850s and 1860s. Caudillos dominated the political scene and the tone of their analysis was set in Sarmiento 1978 (originally published in 1845). This seminal book in the Latin American literary canon opens on the tension between civilization and barbarism. Positivists followed this analysis, and it was not until the 1920s that a new revisionist school of history reassessed Rosas and cast him as a national hero. The confrontations over the importance of Rosas have never really abated, dividing those who think he was a great national ruler from those who see him as the main obstacle to a unified nation. Halperin Donghi 1965, written by undoubtedly the most important living historian of Argentina, sees caudillos as possible because of the militarization of society during the wars of independence. Halperin Donghi tried to breach the divide in the Argentine Academy and provide a more nuanced analysis. The most classic of the revisionists is the author of Luna 1966, who entered into dialogue with liberal historiography. The most important book in English remains Lynch 1981, and Chiaramonte 1986 is also very influential as it changes the prism of analysis from the national state to the provincial states in an attempt to lay to rest the controversies over whether caudillos were an obstacle to state formation or indeed their catalysts. Chiaramonte also emphasizes that, in spite of their despotic reputation, caudillos did pay attention to institutions and legality. Some of the most innovative work on caudillos carried out in recent years has focused on the cultural aspects that made the Rosas regime possible. See de la Fuente 2000, which rejects the idea that caudillos are specific to Hispanic culture and seeks to integrate the cultural with economic and political perspectives, and Salvatore 2003, which studies the sources of power available to caudillos such as Rosas by thoroughly investigating the way in which subalterns participated in the social and political system.

Chiaramonte, José Carlos. “Legalidad constitucional o caudillismo: El problema del orden social en el surgimiento de los estados autónomos del litoral argentino en la primera mitad del siglo XIX.” Desarrollo Económico 26.102 (1986): 175–196.
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Chiaramonte is convinced that only a provincial view, in particular that of those provinces in the littoral area (Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Santa Fe), will provide a more nuanced view of the phenomenon. Given that these provinces were very similar and yet had very different experiences with caudillos, Chiaramonte considers each set of local economic, social, and political realities that underpin the different degree of success of particular caudillos.
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de la Fuente, Ariel. Children of Facundo: Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency During the Argentine State-Formation Process (La Rioja, 1853–1870). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.
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De la Fuente focuses on the cultural practices used by caudillos to hold on to power. Studying Chacho Peñaloza and, to a lesser extent, Facundo Quiroga, he pays attention to the close relationships between leaders and their followers and how this led to the identification of the “clients” with the caudillos, concluding that these were not class-based movements and that these leaders were not completely autonomous political actors.
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Goldman, Noemí, and Ricardo Salvatore, eds. Caudillismos rioplatenses: Nuevas miradas a un viejo problema. Buenos Aires, Argentina: University of Buenos Aires Press, 1998.
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This twelve-essay collection is the most complete recent work on caudillismo in the Río de la Plata. A very clear introduction details the historiographical debates and analyzes how Rosas and other caudillos held power. The collection includes political, sociological, cultural, and economic perspectives, all from the River Plate, looking at a whole range of issues including the connections between Indians and the caudillos.
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Halperin Donghi, Tulio. “El surgimiento de los caudillos en el marco de la sociedad rioplatense posrevolucionaria.” Estudios de Historia Social 1.1 (October 1965): 121–149.
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This essay on the emergence of caudillos in the Río de la Plata after the wars of independence remains important because it was one of the first attempts to move the study of the phenomenon away from the traditional positivist angle without falling into a vindication of Rosas. Halperin Donghi indicates that caudillos emerged in the vacuum of power where militias under the control of large landowners asserted their power.
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Luna, Félix. Los caudillos. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Jorge Alvarez, 1966.
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Luna attempts to bring together the best of the so-called liberal historiography as well as the best works of the revisionist school. He focuses on what he calls the “rostro del caudillo,” or the face of the leader. He then includes essays on five federalist caudillos: Artigas, Ramirez, Quiroga, Peñalosa, and Varela. Rosas is notably absent. This is a book recommended to anyone with an interest in Argentina and the historiographical debate there.
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Lynch, John. Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas, 1829–1852. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981.
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This book offers a reassessment of the controversial ruler and of the social milieu that made Rosas possible. It is a detailed and dispassionate assessment of the historical figure, without falling victim to debates that rage in Argentina. Lynch is also able to use this book to further expand on his theories of caudillismo, and in particular, that of the importance of patronage for this system of government.
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Power and Politics in the 19th Century River Plate: Books and Manuscripts from the O’Grady Collection at the University of Notre Dame.
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This is a manuscript collection that has been partially digitized and provides online availability of manuscript sources from the River Plate in the period from early independence to the rise of the caudillos and the rule of Juan Manuel de Rosas. Each section is contextualized, and there is a wealth of biographical information on the caudillos of present day Argentina.
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Salvatore, Ricardo D. Wandering Paysanos: State Order and Subaltern Experience in Buenos Aires during the Rosas Era. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
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Salvatore forcefully refutes the idea that Rosas was able to rule as a tyrant in service of the interests of the landowners such as himself because the uneducated masses knew no better. What he presents instead is a kaleidoscope of subaltern experience wherein individuals of all stripes negotiated with the Rosas government on issues ranging from how they would participate in the military to the acknowledgement they were to receive.
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Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Facundo. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Huemul, 1978.
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Sarmiento introduces the idea of the struggle between civilization and barbarism, which according to him characterized the Río de la Plata in the 19th century. The countryside and the caudillos epitomized barbarism, while cities and political institutions were at the center of civilization. Some argue that Sarmiento himself became a caudillo when, as president in the 1880s, he fought his political enemies in the pampas to consolidate Argentina.
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Bolivia

Bolivian caudillos controlled the government for most of the 19th century. In contrast to the Río de la Plata caudillos, who were landowners who armed their dependents to create makeshift militias, in Bolivia, most of the caudillos were army officers who began their careers either during the wars of independence or in the civil wars that subsequently engulfed the country. After the traumatic loss of territory to Chile following the defeat in the War of the Pacific, a generation of writers known as “la generación de la amargura” or “the generation of sorrow” wrote novels in which they dealt negatively with caudillos. Arguedas 1922 was the first important historical work to note how, in the case of Bolivia, the caudillos had gone from being literate to being barbarous. This, in itself, was a commentary on Sarmiento 1978 (cited under Argentina). Arguedas divided his book into four sections: “Los Caudillos Letrados” (1825–1848) who established the nation; “La Plebe en Acción” (1847–1857), when popular participation and revolts were at their height; “La Dictadura y la Anarquía” (1858–1864); and “Los Caudillos Bárbaros” (1864–1872), a tragedy which eventually led to defeat in the War of the Pacific. The first work to appear in English on the topic was Dunkerley 1981, which combines archival sources with an in-depth engagement with the literature produced in Bolivia. The author is aware that to really understand caudillo politics in the period, more studies of the economy, society, and politics of the time are needed. Irurozqui Victoriano 1998 enters the debate on caudillismo in Bolivia from the literary perspective and inquires about anticholo prejudice in the novels produced by the “generación de la amargura” and, in particular, Nataniel Aguirre’s Juan de la Rosa. The author’s work with Peralta Ruiz tackles the issue of caudillismo in Bolivia and its relationship with the state; tackling the question of empleomania, which dominated the discourse, they look at the economy that made it possible, the importance of the church, and the question of citizenship. Sobrevilla Perea 2011 seeks to deepen this understanding of the sources of power of the caudillos and the way in which they organized the country using constitutions and elections, as well as how they became the biggest players in the political system in 19th century Bolivia. The author reassesses the term caudillo by focusing on Andrés de Santa Cruz and the social milieu that made his ascent to power possible.

Arguedas, Alcides. Historia general de Bolivia (El proceso de la nacionalidad) 1809–1921. La Paz, Bolivia: Arnó Hermanos, 1922.
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This book deals with the historical experience of Bolivia from a positivist point of view and uses caudillos to explain the process of building the Bolivian nation. The author’s work was very much in dialogue with that of Sarmiento, dividing as he did the caudillos between the “lettered” and the “barbarous.” He considered the first caudillos positive, whereas he thought those at the end of the 19th century were a disaster.
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Dunkerley, James. “Reassessing Caudillismo in Bolivia, 1825–79.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 1.1 (October 1981): 13–25.
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Dunkerley considers the struggle for the control of land as crucial in Bolivia. Just as people expected that the government would provide them with jobs, the so-called empleomania saw the state as “an arena for plunder.” This was accompanied by the need to control the lower classes, which were mobilized in the fight against colonialism, as well as the growing conflict over protectionism and free trade.
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Irurozqui Victoriano, Marta. “Sobre caudillos, demagogos y otros males étnicos: La narrativa anti-chola en las novelas bolivianas, 1900–1940.” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 35 (1998): 189–218.
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Irurozqui Victoriano is interested in the different proposals for citizenship and how elites sought to restrict and control popular political participation. This text engages with the earliest works in Bolivia that dealt with the issue of caudillos and is therefore very relevant to this discussion, even if it is not primarily interested in the caudillos themselves.
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Peralta Ruiz, Víctor, and Marta Irurozqui Victoriano. Por la concordia, la fusión y el unitarismo: Estado y caudillismo en Bolivia, 1825–1880. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2000.
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This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive text of its kind, and it engages with the wider literature on caudillos with great success, showing the differences and similarities of the Bolivian experience with that of other Latin American countries. The book is very interested in the question of how Bolivians participated in politics during these times and the linkages between the ideas of citizenship and caudillos.
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Sobrevilla Perea, Natalia. The Caudillo of the Andes: Andrés de Santa Cruz. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511976230Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book considers the tradition of caudillos in the Andes different from that of the pampas and other prairie lands because of the importance of the colonial militias and the effect of war. Caudillos such as Santa Cruz were interested in constitutional structures and maintaining institutions. The book assesses the participation of caudillos in the building of the republic and the Peru-Bolivian Confederation.
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Mexico

Caudillos were central to the Mexican experience of the 19th century. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the most important caudillo, governed on and off for more than two decades. Constant experience of war, from independence to the civil wars between centralists and federalists that ensued, as well as two foreign invasions, from the United States in the 1840s and from France in the 1860s, ensured that there was a steady stream of caudillos contesting power throughout the whole century. Although Porfirio Diaz controlled Mexico for more than thirty years in the latter part of the century and into 20th, he was not central to the narrative of caudillismo in Mexico. In fact, to some authors such as Enrique Krauze, he has been seen as a liberal caudillo. This is because the even bloodier experience of the Mexican Revolution and the importance that the term caudillo acquired in that context have overshadowed some of the attention on the topic during the 20th century. Lynch 1992 supports Krauze’s views of caudillismo as a Latin American variant of patronage. Katz 1988 provides a panoramic view of Mexican history focusing on social mobilization of all kinds, from the smallest riot, to medium sized rebellions and larger revolutions, with the chapters on the 19th century shedding light on caudillos. Stevens 1991 studies the social aspects of the uprisings in the early republic, asking who the participants were, the reasons for the unrest, whether there was any continuity between the revolts, what impact they had in wider society, and if this level of mobilization was a particularly Mexican experience. Krauze 1994 is a collective biography of Mexican caudillos who shaped the country during its convulsed first century. Krauze 1997 expands the period of study of the author’s English version well into the 20th century in an attempt to use biography to summarize the whole contemporary history of Mexico. Krauze also expands backwards, including a whole section on what came before independence and including the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods, which, according to Krauze, helps to set the cultural heritage that made caudillismo possible into context. Fowler 2007, a biography of Santa Anna, provides one of the most detailed accounts of the life and politics of this Mexican caudillo. This author considers that his power originated from his position as a landowner who could count on the backing of his peons and the popular sectors in his region of Veracruz.

Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
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Fowler aims to understand the first years of Mexican independence, a period long forgotten, and to examine Santa Anna as well as the society and the particular political circumstances that produced him. The question of region and the local sources of power in the rural areas are, according to Fowler, what made him who he was and therefore need to be better brought to our attention.
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Katz, Friedrich, ed. Riot, Rebellion, and Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in Mexico. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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Although not engaging directly with the phenomenon of caudillismo, this book provides important clues to understanding it, showing the specificities of Mexico that made it possible. The essays that delve into the 19th century experience are especially illuminating as they provide both regional analyses and detailed studies of the participation of subalterns and the social and economic sources of power of the caudillos.
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Krauze, Enrique. Siglo de caudillos: Biografía política de México, 1810–1910. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1994.
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Krauze aims to dispel some of the dark legends that have shrouded some of the nation’s most prominent men, who in his view have been relegated to the “hell” of oblivion. He also wants to confront the myths that have grown around the “saints” “beatified” by historiography. Krauze, following in the footsteps of Carlyle, attempts to understand the history of the country through its main political figures.
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Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power: A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
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The second section of this book is dedicated to caudillos, focusing first on the priests, secondly on the creole leaders, third on what the author terms the Indian shepherd and the Austrian Archduke, and finally on what he declares to be the triumph of Mexico. In contrast to these nameless caudillos of the 19th century, all of the men of the 20th century that occupy the next two sections have their name as the title of the chapter.
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Lynch, John. Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Lynch traces Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to his origins as a royalist officer and concentrates on the bases of his power in the area surrounding Jalapa in the highlands close to the port city of Veracruz, concluding that even though he came from the provinces, he seemed unaware that the biggest risk to central government came from possible rebellion in the provinces and military dissidence.
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Stevens, Donald F. Origins of Instability in Early Republican Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.
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This book concentrates on the financing of caudillos in 19th century Mexico, and it concludes that by looking at the sources of funding and the conflicts that ensued, it is hard to distinguish whether economic difficulties led to caudillismo or vice versa. Particularly illuminating is chapter 2, “Accounting for Caudillos,” as it uses financial documentation to understand the way in which their politics were financed. Stevens sheds light on who gained what and when in the years of caudillo politics.
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Peru

Although 19th century Peru was dominated by caudillos, the concept was used as a descriptive category, in contrast to Argentina and Bolivia, where it took hold very early on. So even if these military leaders who held power from independence in 1821 until 1871 were often described as caudillos, not much was done in terms of analyzing them in that light. In large part, this was because the pattern of caudillismo in Peru was quite different from the one found in the former viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, now Argentina and Venezuela. Even in the cases that bore more similarities as the army played a much greater role, as in Mexico and Bolivia, studies of the phenomenon did not materialize. It was not until the 1990s that caudillismo was tackled as such in historiography, first in the work of North American historians such as Paul Gootenberg. Gootenberg 1989 is mainly concerned with the conflict over trade policy and the influence it had over the caudillos that were either protectionists or advocates of free trade. Gootenberg 1991 focuses on the issue of regionalism and its connections to the caudillo struggles. Just as he did in Gootenberg 1989, the author stresses the importance of trade policies in the understanding of the different positions taken by not only the political leaders and elites, but also whole regions. Following Stevens 1991 (cited under Mexico), Gootenberg 1996 turns its attention to how caudillos were financed. He concludes that it is very difficult to tell if economic hardship led to caudillismo or vice versa. Walker 1999 studies the politics of Cuzco from the late 18th century to the first half of the 19th century and deals with many of the important issues on caudillismo through the experiences of Agustin Gamarra. A new generation of Peruvian historians has emerged since 2000. This includes the author of Aljovín de Losada 2000, which expands on the notion that caudillos in Peru were linked to constitutional history as they attempted to write new charters once in power. Aljovín de Losada moves away from the regional analysis and looks at the dynamics of the whole country. Méndez 2005 does not directly deal with the issue of caudillismo, but engages with the concept from a regional perspective, showing how peasants were involved in the process of “state-making.” Sobrevilla Perea 2011 considers the colonial legacy of the militias and the development of the army to understand the particular brand of Andean caudillismo.

Aljovín de Losada, Cristóbal. Caudillos y constituciones: Perú, 1821–1845. Lima, Peru: Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú, 2000.
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Aljovín is more interested in finding general trends that led to particular behaviors than in identifying the way in which individuals garnered their support. Aljovín argues that Indians in Peru participated in the army from the end of the colonial period and makes a case for how after independence, caudillos eagerly sought their backing. He also analyzes the way in which caudillos built their coalitions to gain and maintain power.
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Gootenberg, Paul. Between Silver and Guano: Commercial Policy and the State in Postindependence Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
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This book is able to make the confusing and often contradictory choices made by the military leaders and elites clear as the author shows how they responded to different approaches to trade policy. This work engages directly with the question of the sources of power of caudillos and seeks to understand not only their choices but also the social and economic underpinning that made their ascent to power possible.
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Gootenberg, Paul. “North-South: Trade Policy, Regionalism and Caudillismo in Post-Independence Peru.” Journal of Latin American Studies 23.2 (May 1991): 273–308.
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Gootenberg sheds light on a period that he describes as “a dark ages amongst the Latin American dark ages” by explaining how the divisions in Peru could be summarized as between a protectionist north and a free-trading south. His contribution has been to bring to the fore the importance of regionalism and trade policy as well as to show how these were interconnected during this period.
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Gootenberg, Paul. “Paying for Caudillos: The Politics of Emergency Finance in Peru, 1820–1845.” In Liberals, Politics and Power: State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Edited by Vincent Peloso and Barbara Tenenbaum, 134–165. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996.
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Caudillos aimed to keep their financial backers happy. This led to very pragmatic choices when deciding on their commercial policy. Gootenberg identifies a series of elements that played an important role in these dynamics: the permanent war deficit and the role of merchants in bankrolling political leaders; how the mint and the custom houses were seen as elements that could be mortgaged; and how forced loans were centralized.
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Méndez, Cecilia. The Plebeian Republic: The Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State, 1820–1850. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
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New clues on how caudillismo worked in a particular region emerge in Méndez’s work. She asserts that peasants related better to liberals and chose to support them because the state proposed by their caudillos allowed them “a greater degree of political autonomy and legitimacy.” Her book also sheds light on the world of the subalterns that followed the caudillos.
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Sobrevilla Perea, Natalia. The Caudillo of the Andes: Andrés de Santa Cruz. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511976230Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book looks at caudillos from the point of view of one particular experience, that of Andrés de Santa Cruz. It considers both his social milieu and the circumstances that took him to power. One of its main interests is to establish how the caudillos that emerged in the Andes and the ways they built their power differed from the colonial militias from which the army emerged.
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Walker, Charles. Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
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Walker focuses on what he calls the real mechanics of politics, criticizing those who reduce the issue of caudillismo to the relationship between patrons and clients, the so-called “political vacuum” interpretation, which rests on the assumption that, because there were no able governing classes but an abundance of military men in the aftermath of independence, caudillos came to control the governments.
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Venezuela

Venezuela is undoubtedly one of the most important places for the study of caudillismo in the 19th century, due to the experience not only of José Antonio Páez, but also of the many military leaders and strongmen who controlled the government of Venezuela throughout the period. In spite of this, the historiographical production on the topic has not been as important, possibly because their greatest national hero, Simón Bolívar, is not usually considered a caudillo. Another reason is the importance of Juan Vicente Gomez, the dictator who controlled the country from 1908 to 1935, and the manner in which Vallenilla Lanz 1919, written by a journalist and intellectual, used the author’s study of caudillismo and José Antonio Páez as a place from which to defend the Gomez regime. Vallenilla Lanz first put forward his theory of the “necessary gendarme” in 1911, when he was the director of the National Archives. In this essay, which he finally published as a book in 1919, he argues that Venezuela needed a strong leader to move forward. In 1915 he became the director of the pro-Gomez newspaper El Nuevo Diario; from there he supported his regime until 1931, using history as his weapon. El cesarismo democratico remains an important text today in Venezuela, and although there has been much engagement with it, there is no text that comes close to its importance in the literature, looming large as it does. The recurrence of dictators in the 20th century in Venezuela, as well as the appearance of charismatic leaders such as Hugo Chavez, have complicated the understanding of 19th century caudillos in Venezuela, and much remains to be done. The most useful texts on the topic in English are Lynch 1992 on Páez and Wise 1951 on Antonio Guzmán Blanco.

Lynch, John. Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198211358.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Lynch analyzes how José Antonio de Páez rose to power after the wars of independence from his base in the eastern Llanos. He studies the complex legacy of the long war and the politics of the disintegration of the so-called “greater” Colombia into Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia, as well as how Páez became a “super caudillo,” bringing together smaller regional chieftains that made him more powerful.
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Vallenilla Lanz, Laureano. Cesarismo democrático: Estudios sobre las bases sociológicas de la Constitución efectiva de Venezuela. Caracas, Venezuela: Empresa el Cojo, 1919.
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Vallenilla Lanz analyzes Venezuela using positivist sociology and concludes that the only way to have an effective constitution in these conditions is by the rule of a strong man. He also believed that the wars of independence had indeed been civil wars that left much instability in their wake. He therefore concludes that the only way to achieve stability is to have a strong leader.
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Wise, George S. Caudillo, a Portrait of Antonio Guzmán Blanco. New York: Columbia University Press, 1951.
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Antonio Guzmán Blanco governed the country as a military caudillo and was known for his autocratic tendencies. Some modernizing ideas were nevertheless present as he sought to improve the country by stabilizing the currency, reforming law, and laying out railroads. Wise provides a standard narrative of the deeds carried out by this man, following on the idea that caudillos are manifestations of Latin American culture.
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Key Figures

Biography is undoubtedly the genre most suited to the study of caudillos. Most of the leaders that dominated their countries for a long period of time have had their biographies written, while others have been included in more generic studies that have devoted sections to them. See Lynch 1992, cited under General Overviews. Although some of the works included in this section are quite old, they remain the most recent biographies of these leaders. In some cases the approach has been almost hagiographic, and the caudillos are presented as national leaders in charge of the formation of the nation. Other pieces, including Sarmiento 1978 (cited under Juan Manuel de Rosas), are more critical of the leader discussed as well as of caudillismo in general. The key figures included in this section have been chosen not only for their importance, but because they have had work written on them.

Juan Manuel de Rosas

The governor of Buenos Aires between 1829 and 1852 is by far the most famous and paradigmatic of caudillos. Born in 1793 to a family of landowners, he had an unremarkable career as a rancher until the 1820s, when he became involved in the civil wars that raged in the Río de la Plata. He organized his forces from the men who worked for him in his estancia and became the leader of the federal faction, which propelled him to the position of governor of Buenos Aires. Rosas oversaw the creation of the Argentine Confederation and remained in charge of the Province of Buenos Aires, allowing other provincial leaders to retain control over their territories in a loose federal agreement. Rosas pushed toward the conquest of the southern territories of the province of Buenos Aires, known as the first campaign of the desert. He defended the port against the French and opposed the Peru-Bolivian Confederation. Rosas was finally challenged by another provincial caudillo, Juan José de Urquisa, and after his defeat in the battle of Caseros in 1852, he was exiled to Great Britain, where he lived until his death in Southampton in 1877. The literature on caudillos begins with Sarmiento 1978. It is this study of Facundo Quiroga and the world in which Rosas lived that created the category as one of study. The best works to understand Rosas, however, are Lynch 1981 and Lynch 1992, the former as a detailed biography of the man and the latter as a study of the phenomenon of caudillismo that sets his experience in comparative perspective. O’Donnell 2009 provides a background for the main debates on Rosas and an updated general biography.

Lynch, John. Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas, 1829–1852. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981.
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This is the most detailed recent study of Rosas in English. Those who wish to understand him as a political figure, as well as the whole world he inhabited, should consult this book.
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Lynch, John. Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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The biographical essay included in this collection is short and to the point, presenting the main events of Rosas’s life. It is useful for those concerned with the phenomenon of caudillismo and those interested in the comparative angle.
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O’Donnell, Pacho Mario. Juan Manuel de Rosas: El maldito de la historia oficial. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2009.
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Novelist and popular historian O’Donnell approaches Rosas, aiming to present a balanced view that is not directly linked to the traditional portrayals of the caudillo as either evil or as a hero. This is an accessible and informative book.
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Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Facundo. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Huemul, 1978.
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Sarmiento deals with Rosas in the introduction, and in addition to a biography, he provides an analysis of his social milieu and the politics that made it possible for him to attain and maintain power for nearly three decades. Sarmiento describes Rosas as a tyrant and sets him as the epitome of barbarism.
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José Antonio Páez

Páez presided over Venezuela, the republic he helped create, on three occasions: 1830–1835, 1839–1843, and 1861–1863. Born to a poor family of immigrants from the Canary Islands, in 1790 he rose to prominence during the wars of independence as the leader of the forces of the lowlands known as the Llanos. Bolívar depended on him to govern the region of Venezuela during the years when it was part of a greater Colombia, but Páez soon made his ambition to be president of an independent republic known. He was the first constitutional president of Venezuela and he completed his first term. He was elected for a second term, but in 1843 he was deposed by the liberal opposition, and he spent most of the 1850s in exile. His travels include Mexico, where he was received by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. He returned to Venezuela in the midst of the Federal War and was installed as dictator for his third period in power. After three convulsed years, he was deposed and returned to exile in New York, where he died in 1873. One of the most interesting sources is Páez 1867, the autobiography cited in this section. Lynch 1992 provides a more dispassionate assessment of Páez as a caudillo.

Lynch, John. Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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The section devoted to Páez in this book is extremely informative and should be the first port of call for anyone interested in understanding both him and his sources of power. As with the other caudillos, the author sets Páez in a comparative perspective.
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Páez, José Antonio. Autobiografia. 2 vols. New York: Hallet and Breen, 1867.
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In this volume, Páez himself presents his life to the tribunal of history. Critical of the way historians have presented him, he believes that only through a firsthand account will the real truth of the events emerge. This book is to a great extent a political defense.
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Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

One of the most powerful leaders to emerge in Mexico in the process of independence, Santa Anna dominated the political arena for more than three decades. Born in the provincial city of Xalapa in 1794 to a notary, he distinguished himself from a young age in the colonial militias. Santa Anna supported the Plan of Iguala in 1821, which declared Mexico’s independence, and emerged as one of its most successful generals. Although he did not hold power for long periods of time, he did preside over Mexico on many occasions: between 1833 and 1835, several times in 1839, for a year between 1841 and 1842, for some months in 1843 and 1844, and finally for most of 1847. Santa Anna was reluctant to govern and was prone to leave the presidency to take residency in his hacienda. On other occasions his political enemies deposed him. His mismanagement of the crisis that followed the secession of Texas, which eventually led to war with the United States and the loss of half of Mexico’s territory, led to his ultimate defeat. Although Santa Anna spent some of his life in exile, he died in Mexico City in 1876. Lynch 1992 provides a useful contextualization, while Fowler 2007 is the most complete biography of Santa Anna.

Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
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This is by far the most complete biography of Santa Anna, and it provides a rich and detailed analysis both of him as a person and of the politics that made it possible for him to rise to become a ubiquitous leader in post-independence Mexico.
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Lynch, John. Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198211358.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
As with the other caudillos he studies, Lynch presents a detailed yet concise description of Santa Anna’s career as well as his sources of power and the way he carried out his political career. Once again, the interest in mainly in understanding him as a caudillo.
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Andrés de Santa Cruz

The creator of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation (1836–1839) was born in La Paz in 1792. He was the son of a creole militia captain from Peru and the grandson of a powerful cacique from the area around Lake Titicaca. Santa Cruz was educated in Cuzco and joined the Spanish militia in 1809. After a decade fighting to defend the king, he changed sides and became a hero of independence. He came under the influence of Simón Bolívar and was president of Peru in 1827. Seen as a foreigner there, he became president of Bolivia in 1829 and from there made the union of Peru and Bolivia a reality. He was a very different kind of caudillo than the ones studied in Lynch 1992 (cited under General Overviews) because of his dedication to institutions. His defeat by Chile and the Peruvian émigrés that opposed the Confederation led to his exile, first in Ecuador, then to Chile and ultimately France, where he died in 1865. The most traditional biography of Santa Cruz is Crespo 1944, although it approaches the topic as a novel. Sobrevilla Perea 2011, on the other hand, is the first biography of Santa Cruz in English where he is studied as a caudillo.

Crespo, Alfonso. Santa Cruz: El Condor Indio. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1944.
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Until recently this was the only biography of Santa Cruz, and it has been often reprinted, although it was more of a novel than a history book. In this text, Crespo presents the man and his milieu with much flair for the period.
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Sobrevilla Perea, Natalia. The Caudillo of the Andes: Andrés de Santa Cruz. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511976230Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book aims to understand not only the man, but also the place and time that made his story possible. It is a biography that aims to set his experience in context and to discuss to what extent Santa Cruz was a caudillo.
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