Француз және испан әкімшілік жүйесіндегі "интендант" лауазымы

Term for public official in non English speaking countries
public officials especially in non English speaking countries called "intendants" in English

An intendant (ɛ̃tɑ̃dɑ̃; intendente ĩtẽˈdẽtɨ; lang es intenˈdente) was, and sometimes still is, a public official, especially in France, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. The intendancy system was a centralizing administrative system developed in France. In the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701 to 1714 the French royal House of Bourbon secured its hold on the throne of Spain; it extended a French style intendancy system to Spain and Portugal and subsequently worldwide through the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire. Regions were divided into districts, each administered by an intendant. The title continues in use in Spain and in parts of Spanish America for particular government officials.

As early as the 15th century, the French kings sent commissioners to the provinces to report on royal and administrative issues and to undertake any necessary action. These agents of the king were recruited from among the masters of requests, the Councillors of State and members of the Parlements or the Court of Accounts. Their mission was always for a specific mandate and lasted for a limited period. Along with these, there were also commissioners sent to the army, in charge of provisioning the army, policing and finances; they would supervise accountants, providers, merchants, and generals, and attend war councils and tribunals for military crimes. Such commissioners are found in Corsica as early as 1553, in Bourges in 1592, in Troyes in 1594, and in Limoges in 1596. When Henry IV ascended the throne in 1589, one of his prime focuses was to reduce the privileges of the provincial governors who, in theory, represented "the presence of the king in his province" but had, during the civil wars of the early modern period, proven themselves to be highly intractable; these positions had long been held by only the highest ranked noble families in the realm. The Intendants to the provinces — the term "Intendant" appears around 1620 during the reign of Louis XIII – became an effective tool of regional control. Under Louis XIII's minister Cardinal Richelieu, with France's entry into the Thirty Years' War in 1635, the Intendants became a permanent institution in France. No longer mere inspectors, their role became one of government administrators. During the Fronde in 1648, the members of Parlement of the Chambre Saint Louis demanded that the Intendants be suppressed; Mazarin and Anne of Austria gave in to these demands except in the case of border provinces threatened by Spanish or Imperial attack. At the end of the Fronde, the Intendants were reinstated. When Louis XIV (1643–1715) was in power, the Marquis of Louvois, War Secretary between 1677 and 1691, further expanded the power of the provincial intendants. They monitored Louis's refinements of the French military, including the institution of a merit promotion system and a policy of enlistment limited to single men for periods of four years. After 1680, Intendants in France had a permanent position in a fixed region (or "généralité"); their official titles being intendant de justice, police et finances, commissaires départis dans les généralités du royaume pour l'exécution des ordres du roi (or de Sa Majesté). The position of Intendant remained in existence until the French Revolution. The title was maintained thereafter for military officers with responsibility for financial auditing at regimental level and above. A 2021 study, which used a dataset of 430 intendants from 1640 to 1789, found that less than half of these officials went through the legally specified training path. The study raised questions about the impersonal nature of these bureaucrats, with evidence indicating that familial and marital ties were factors in appointments, and that appointment duration had wide variability. An intendente was in charge of a Spanish administrative unit, called an intendencia, which could include one or more provinces. The intendente was appointed directly by the Crown and had responsibility to oversee the treasury, the collection of taxes, and corruption practices and to promote agriculture and economic growth in general. With fiscal powers that gave them a say in almost all administrative, ecclesiastical and military matters, intendentes were conceived by the Bourbon kings to be a check on other local officials (who in the past couple of centuries had come to gain their position through the sale of offices or inheritance), just as the intendants had been in France a century earlier. Throughout the 18th century the Bourbons experimented with the powers and duties of the intendants, both in Spain and overseas, so what follows is only a general description of the Spanish intendancy. In any given area at any given time, the duties of the intendant would have been specified by the laws that established that particular intendancy. The first intendencias were established in Spain after 1711, during the War of the Spanish Succession on the advice of Jean Orry, who had been sent by Louis XIV of France to help his young grandson Philip V set up his new government. The first intendants (superintendentes generales del ejército) oversaw the finances of the army and of the territories conquered by the Bourbons, and after the war, they were made permanent (intendentes de ejército y provincia). (After 1724, most intendancies lost their military character except in areas with a captaincy general and in Navarre.) In 1749 an intendancy was established in every province, with the intendant also holding the office of corregidor of the capital city. (The offices were separated again in 1766). District alcaldes mayores or coregidores were subordinated to the provincial intendente corregidor and assisted him in managing the province and implementing reforms. As a result of the Seven Years' War an intendancy was set up in Cuba in 1764. The Cuban intendant had oversight of the army's and the royal treasury's finances. (Two new intendancies with oversight only over the treasury were established in 1786 in Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba.) After a two years of experimentation with the new office, an intendancy was introduced in Louisiana (1764). That same year Visitador General José de Gálvez created a plan to set up intendancies in New Spain (Mexico). The first one was set up in central Mexico in 1786, followed in 1787 by Veracruz, Puebla, Valladolid in Michoacan, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Durango, Sonora, and in 1789 Mérida, the main city in Yucatán. These administrative changes codified existing regional divisions of Center (Mexico, Veracruz, Puebla, Michoacan), South (Oaxaca, Mérida), and North (Zacatecas, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Durango, and Sonora). In 1776 Gálvez, now Minister of the Indies, established an intendancy (superintendencia) for all of Venezuela in 1776, and several in the Río de la Plata in 1783. Most of the overseas intendants were assisted by officials (subdelegados) who replaced the old corregidores or alcaldes mayores. Initially intendancies were held by a separate person from the viceroy or the governor, but eventually in many places the offices were granted to one person due to conflicts that emerged between these two. More intendancies were established in Quito, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico (1784), Guatemala, more areas of New Spain, Chile (1786) and Cuenca (1786). The Revolt of the Comuneros prevented their installation in New Granada.

In Portugal, historically, the title "intendant" (intendente in Portuguese) has been mainly associated with police roles. From 1760 to 1832, the head of the Police of the Kingdom of Portugal had the title of "Intendant General of the Police of the Court and of the Kingdom". A similar title that of "Intendant General of the Public Security" was used from 1928 to 1932 to designate the head of the Portuguese Civil Police.

Presently, intendant is a rank of officer in the Public Security Police, roughly equivalent to the military rank of lieutenant colonel. Analogously, the police rank of sub intendant corresponds to the rank of major, while the police rank of superintendent corresponds to the rank of colonel. The rank insignia of an intendant consists of a dark blue epaulet with two crossed horsewhips inside a laurel wreath and two PSP stars. Each PSP star consists in a six points silver star with the "SP" monogram in the center. The rank insignia of a sub intendant is similar but with only a single PSP star.

Nowadays in the Spanish armed forces, the title Intendant refers to a Colonel in the Supply Branch either in the Navy, Army or Air Force. It is also used in some branches of the administration such as the Catalan Police, (Mossos d'Esquadra in Catalan) or in some Autonomous Communities (Comunidades Autónomas in Spanish).

In Argentina, intendente (m) or intendenta (f) refers to city mayors – heads of government of municipalities (or partidos in Buenos Aires Province). This meaning is not at all connected to the usage in other countries. Spanish language media in countries other than Argentina tend to refer to Argentine city mayors as alcaldes, which is the most common Spanish word for mayor. In the Argentine Army, "Intendencia" is the Spanish name of the Quartermaster Corps, and its members are informally called "intendentes". In some organizations, such as clubs, gated communities, large companies, etc., "intendente" is the name given to the person in charge of general maintenance of common spaces.

Chile is administratively divided in 16 regions. Between 1976 (1974 in some regions) and 2021, each region was headed by an intendant, appointed by the president.

In Cuba, the intendant was introduced by the Constitution of the Republic (2019) to head the Administrative Councils subordinate to the Municipal Assemblies of People's Power (town halls) and with strictly executive administrative functions. As the highest local authority is the President of the Municipal Assembly (mayor), it is up to him to designate and remove the intendant, after agreement with the majority of the Delegates of People's Power (councilors).

The Republic of Paraguay is administratively divided into 17 departamentos (departments), each of which is headed by an gobernador departamental (departmental governor). These departamentos are divided into 261 distritos (districts) (plus the capital district), districts are headed by an intendente municipal (municipal intendant), these intendants are popularly elected, and serve a term of five years.

Uruguay is divided administratively into 19 departamentos (departments). The executive power of each department is the intendencia (intendancy), headed by an intendente departamental (departmental intendant). The intendants are popularly elected, and serve a term of five years.

A daikan was an intendant or magistrate in historical Japan. The office he held was called the Daikansho. The daikan was responsible for overseeing a range of governmental functions, including infrastructure, tax collection, and judicial matters.

In Scotland intendant is an archaic title meaning "supervisor" or "curator". The senior officer of the City of Glasgow Police was called an Intendant in the document establishing the force in 1800.

For much of its history, the chief magistrate of the city of Charleston, South Carolina was the Intendant of the City, roughly corresponding to a mayor. The title Intendant was also used in other Lowcountry towns, where the office was assisted by "wardens," a system which may have derived from earlier ecclesiastical administration under colonial rule.

It is also commonly found today in many theaters and opera houses in Europe, where it is the equivalent to the title of general director, given to an individual in a managerial position, generally having control over all aspects of the company. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Intendant was a title in the mirror universe. The mirror universe version of Kira Nerys held the position of Intendant of Bajor.