Protector, sometimes spelled protecter, is used as a title or part of various historical titles of heads of state and others in authority. The word literally means one who protects.
Political and administrative
Heads of state
Iran
Wakil ar-Ra`aya was the title of the Persian imperial Monarch under the Zand dynasty - those rulers refused the style Shahanshah. The founding ruler adopted the style; it appears that his successors used the same style, although documentation is obscure
In Iceland, one Sovereign was styled Alls Íslands Verndari og Hæstráðandi til Sjós og Lands 25 June - 22 August 1809 : Jørgen Jørgensen.
In Estonia, State-protector is a common rendering of Riigihoidja, a single Head of state and Head of government of that Baltic republic, 24 January 1934 - 24 April 1938, Konstantin Päts, earlier five times State Elder, thereafter the first and only President before the Soviet takeover.
In Finland, State Protector is a common rendering, besides Regent, of two Finnish Heads of State 18 May 1918 - 27 July 1919, the first incumbent being also the last of the previous — untitled — acting heads of state.
In the elective kingdom called "Commonwealth" of Poland & Lithuania, King Karl X Gustaf , in Polish Karol X Gustaw, was styled Protektor Rzeczypospolitej'' as challenger to the duly elected king Jan II Kazimierz during the middle part of his reign.
Americas
in the Dominican Republic: 4 August 1865 - 15 November 1865, his first non-consecutive presidential term: José María Cabral y de Luna
in Haiti: Sylvain Salnave, one of the three members of the previous Provisional Government, was President 4 May 1867 - 27 December 1869 and Protector of the Republic to 16 June 1867
in present Nicaragua: on 20 April 1823 general José Anacleto Ordóñez was proclaimed General en Jefe del Ejército, Protector y Libertador de Granada; he acted as head of state, but set up a Governing Junta which continued to govern after Granada's accession to the Central American Federation on July 2
in Brazil, 12 October 1822 - 15 November 1889, the imperial style was Imperador Constitucional e Defensor Perpétuo
Foreign hegemons
Napoleonic France
in most of Germany, east of the Rhine, except Prussia, from 25 July 1806 to 19 October 1813, the French Emperor, Napoleon I, bore the additional title of protecteur de la Confédération du Rhin, i.e. Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, generally known as Rheinbund, uniting the German princes that had bowed to the conqueror. The actual presidency of its diet and council of Kings was held by a German prince, the Fürstprimas.
Bonaparte had a similar position in Switzerland under French occupation, but there his style was Médiateur de la Confédération Helvétique, while the chairmanship of the Diet, the acting Head of the Confederation, with the title Landammann der Schweiz /Landamman de la Suisse /Landamano della Svizzera, fell simply to the chief magistrate of the canton hosting it.
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany was represented by a Reichsprotektor in the Czech puppet-state it installed on 16 March 1939 under the explicit name Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia". The Reichsprotektor held the real executive power, not the native President and Prime Minister. The German incumbents, after a month under a Military Governor, were:
In Spanish America, a Protector of the Indians was to restrain the abuses of the conquistadores at the expense of the indigenousIndios, e.g. granted to the first missionary bishop of Cusco.
In the British Empire, a colonial official responsible for administering the Chinese Protectorates, entities charged with the well-being of ethnic Chinese residents of the British-held Straits Settlements—which included current-day Singapore—during that territory's colonial period.
In the French empire, the Protecteur des Indigènes 'Protector of the Natives' was a colonial official charged with the protection of an indigenous community; ironically, such 'native' status was also awarded to the immigrants -thus officially named- on the island of La Réunion.
Religious
Catholic
Since the thirteenth century it has been customary at Rome to confide to some particular Cardinal a special solicitude in the Roman Curia for the interests of a given religious order or institute, confraternity, church, college, city, nation, etc. Such a person is known as a Cardinal Protector.
