A cacique, sometimes spelled as cazique (Latin American Spanish: [kaˈsike]; Portuguese: [kɐˈsikɨ, kaˈsiki]; feminine form: cacica), was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, who were the indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles at the time of European contact with those places. The term is a Spanish transliteration of the Taíno word kasike.
Cacique was initially translated as "king"[1] or "prince"[2][3] for the Spanish. In the colonial era, the conquistadors and the administrators who followed them used the word generically to refer to any leader of practically any indigenous group they encountered in the Western Hemisphere. In Hispanic and Lusophone countries, the term has also come to mean a political boss, similar to a caudillo, exercising power in a system of caciquism.[4]
- ^ Loven, Sven (2010-06-27). Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies. University of Alabama Press. p. 503. ISBN 978-0-8173-5637-8.
- ^ Bailey, Richard W. (2012-01-04). Speaking American: A History of English in the United States. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-991340-4.
- ^ Boissière, Prudence (1862). Dictionnaire analogique de la langue française: répertoire complet des mots par les idées et des idées par les mots (in French). Larousse.
- ^ Robert Kern, The caciques: oligarchical politics and the system of caciquismo in the Luso-Hispanic world. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press [1973]