Cabildo, Cabildo Abierto

Cabildo and abierto cabildo, town or city council and its "open" meeting. The cabildo or ayuntamiento was created at the founding of a municipality. Each cabildo had four or more aldermen (regidores) and one or two magistrates (alcaldes ordinarios). Other municipal officials, such as the standard-bearer (alférez real), chief constable (alguacil mayor), and inspector of weights and measures (fiel ejecutor), were subordinate to the council.

The cornerstone of Spanish rule and settlement, the cabildo distributed town lots and nearby garden plots, supervised the construction and maintenance of roads and public works, provided protection against fraud in the markets and against criminal activities in general, regulated holidays and processions, and performed a variety of other duties essential to a settled, civilized existence. For revenue, the cabildos relied on the rent or lease of town property, judicial fines, and other modest sources.

The authority and responsibility of the cabildo gave its members power, prestige, and (in some cases) income. As a result, particularly in the sixteenth century, there was substantial interest in securing cabildo positions. The crown responded by selling many of those posts of life and, in 1606, confirming that they could be bequeathed upon payment of specified taxes. The result was the solid entrenchment of local families in local offices for generations.

The substantial authority cabildos enjoyed in the sixteenth century declined in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the late eighteenth century, intendants reinvigorated many councils and increased their ability to meet their responsibilities. As representatives of local interests, the cabildos were well positioned to take the initiative in response to the abdications of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII in 1808, and many advocated greater local and regional autonomy.

In times of local crisis, eminent citizens were convoked to meet and deliberate with the cabildo in a cabildo abierto. In Buenos Aires, for example, a cabildo abierto convoked in 1810 set the course that ultimately led to independence.

See alsoColonialism; Spanish Empire.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clarence H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (1947).

John Preston Moore, The Cabildo in Peru Under the Hapsburgs (1954), and The Cabildo in Peru Under the Bourbons (1966).

Peter Marzahl, Town in the Empire: Government, Politics, and Society in Seventeenth-Century Popayán (1978).

Additional Bibliography

Aguilar Gaxiola, Víctor Hugo. Las familias poderosas del cabildo de Culiacán, 1872–1910. Culiacán, Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa: H. Ayuntamiento de Culiacán, 2004.

Díaz-Cosuelo, José María. El Cabildo de Buenos Aires y el otorgamiento de las cartas de ciudadanía. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad del Desarrollo, 2005.

Din, Gilbert C., and Jon E. Harkins. The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana's First City Government, 1769–1803. Baton Rouge: Louisana State University Press, 1996.

                                   Mark A. Burkholder