Through doing the readings in dawson’s Latin America since independance, I found out a little about the Caudillos which previously I knew nothing about. After reading this piece of text it seems that the Caudillos are intrinsincly tied to the history of central americas independence from mexico. From my understanding of the texts, it appears that the Caudillos were former military leaders who rose to power by discrediting and undermining corrupt goverments- taking advantage of vunerablities to gain control. The clear choice of action by these individuals was violence (which makes sense when looking at their military backgrounds) which in turn caused a lot of pain for those under their tyranny. It also seems from the texts that the power the Caudillos seeked was not for the benefit of the nations but for their own personal gains.