ABSTRACT
Interestingly, the accusation of dictatorship is rarely made by contemporaries. Rosas’ enemies describe him mostly as Felix Frias did: “He was more than a despot; he was a tyrant”. The general narrative of tyrannical dictators therefore needs to be broadened in a meaningful way. Therefore, this chapter take a closer look at the accusation that the caudillos were dictators by analysing the narratives which semantically shaped the idea of the sole decider, much in the way also demanded by Moises Prieto. This chapter analyses how Lopez and Rosas depicted their decisions to exercise violence and the significance of formal decision-making processes in their own statements, since both these aspects directly address core elements of the accusation of dictatorship: that it is violent and arbitrary. The idea of the conscientious sole decider is more explicitly and therefore more clearly expressed in the narratives of their followers and apologists.
