The natural chief: power and authority in the Patía Valley, 1810-1850

• Main Author: Luis Ervin Prado Arellano
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Medellín 2012-07-01
• Series: Historia y Sociedad
• Subjects: natural leader; cultural mediator; mediator
• Online Access: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/hisysoc/article/view/37341/39699

The paper describes how certain individuals became notables or principales in the Patía Valley between the Eighteenth and Twentieth centuries. It scrutinizes the features and values characteristic to them, which gave them legitimacy in their communities. I have chosen to refer to them as natural leaders, a metaphor aiming to encompass the sense of authority they embodied. Thus, I go beyond the conceptualizations hitherto made on local authority and without regard to sociocultural context. I argue that the Republic resorted to them for taking care of public office posts and exercising control over their home parishes and places. These men performed as cultural mediators betweenthe government and its regions and institutionalized its power.