Alcalde

For other uses, see Alcalde (disambiguation).

Maya alcaldes, holding their staffs of office, from Upper Guatemala circa 1891.

Alcalde (/ælˈkældi/; Spanish pronunciation: [alˈkalde]; from Portuguese Alcaide) is the Spanish and formerly Portuguese title of the traditional municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An alcalde was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the cabildo and judge of first instance of a town. Alcaldes were elected anually, without the right to reelection for three two years, by the members (regidores) of the municipal council. The office of the alcalde was signified by a staff of office, which they were to take with them when doing their business. Towns and villages with councils (villas and lugares in the Recompilación de las Leyes de Indias, 1680) had one alcalde. Cities (ciudades) had two, which was the maximum number anywhere. Adelantados had the right to appoint the alcaldes in the districts they settled, if they could attract the legally specified number of settlers to the area. This right could be inherited for one generation, after which the right to election went to the municipal council.

The Spanish title derives from the Andalusi Arabic al-qadi ( قاضي,), meaning "the judge." The similar-sounding Portuguese word—which also has a cognate in Spanish—comes from al caïd, Arabic word for "the chief" or "governor of a city or fort". The title was originally used for simple judges, as it was in Arabic. By the fifteenth century it came to be applied to municipal magistrates in Castile, eventually retaining only this secondary definition.

Since the word has also been used for other positions—such as the alcaldes del crimen in the overseas audiencias, the alcaldes mayores (a synonym for corregidor), and the alcaldes de barrio, roughly equivalent to the British parish constables—the office was often referred to as an alcalde ordinario.

Modern usage

In modern Spanish, it is just the equivalent to a mayor, and is used to mean the local, executive officer in municipalities throughout Spain and Latin America. In the autonomous Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, however, their alcaldes-presidentes have greater powers than their peninsular colleagues.

Because the United States incorporated former places of the Spanish empire, the office has had some influenced in local political developments of those areas or appeared in judicial cases. This title continued to be in use in the Southwest United States after the Mexican-American War until a permanent political and judicial system could be established. In nineteenth-century California, Stephen Johnson Field, later an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once served as alcalde of the town of Marysville, California. And in Texas, the position of county judge was based on that of the alcalde which had existed prior to the Texas Revolution. Like the alcaldes before them, county judges under the Texas Constitution wield both judicial and chief executive functions. Although in larger counties today the county judge usually functions solely as county chief executive, in smaller counties, the role of the county judge continues many of the combined administrative functions of the alcalde.

See also

• Presidente municipal
• Mayor
• Cabildo (council)
• Corregidor (position)

Sources

• Alcalde from the Handbook of Texas Online
• Alcalde in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española.
• Corominas, Joan and José A Pascual. Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 7 vols. Madrid, Editorial Gredos, 1981. ISBN 84-249-1362-0
• Harding, C. H., The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.