Hegemony, Resistance, Revolt

The conquest of Latin America was a fairly quick process in which the theme of hegemony was vastly prominent. The cultures of colonialism and competitive nature to obtain wealth through exploitation were the main driving force of hegemony. It is natural to exploit the people of lower class or societal rank for one's own advantage, and that is what happened. As the pressure of power and control became overbearing toward the people, resistance was sure to follow.

Looking at today's society, there is a lot of exploitation and hegemony among certain groups. Major global conglomerates exploit the people of many poorer countries for cheap labor. To the people overseas, they are receiving wages that are fairly high for their standards. As for the companies, they are making a lot of money due to cheap labor cost.

Similarly, we can look at the colonization of Latin America as a "business." Each country is like a global conglomerate, looking to make their "company" as wealthy as possible. This wealth and power was obtained through the exploitation of the people. For instance, if Spain decided to be legitimate in relation to the indigenous people, another country such as Portugal would end up being more powerful through power and control. In the same way, if a company decided to "play by the book", they would know another company would eventually be more powerful and wealthier than them in the future due to exploitation. A kind of "If we don't do it, they will" mindset. In a sense, the desire for power over other countries leads to the exploitation of the indigenous people either way. Stern explains that free labor was used to gain power and money. "Free labor, cut off from access to the means of production, has no al...

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...r, he engaged an apoderado, a legal representative in Spain, to keep him informed of developments and to facilitate the movements of his case through bureaucratic channels." (Avarza 197) Many used the legal system to their advantage. This was the civil way to deal with hegemony among the different societal classes.

Hegemony was a prominent theme within the conquest of Latin America, which then led to the independence of the oppressed citizens. Thought the conquest was a fairly quick process, independence was not. It took a lot of revolts and acts of rebellion to get their points across. Hegemony will always be around wherever there are two groups or more with a large class difference. In the case of Latin America, the whole hegemonic process consisted of different classes and races which ultimately led to racial tension and conflicts among social groups.