Hemegony in Latin AmericaJoin now to read essay Hemegony in Latin AmericaSince the very beginning of time, strong nations have taken over weaker ones while entirely disregarding and having zero consideration for the indigenous people of those lands. A common claim, or excuse for that matter, is that many of these people were intellectually and physically inferior to the conquerors. This led to the belief that due to this inferiority, these people were slaves by nature and were “better off” under rule of the conquerors.
According to natural law, all men are equal, and therefore liberty is equally entitled for all. What�s more, this law states that all men have the right to defend themselves. With that said, regardless of any attempt to justify conquering the land of the “intellectually inferior”, the native people are granted the right to defend and hold sovereignty over their land. Of course, as history shows, resistance is often detrimental to one group or even both. Therefore, the dominant groups have resorted to specific means, often involving deceit, when conquering land in order to receive the most cooperation as possible. These processes by which dominant groups maintain their power is known as hegemony.
The “intellectually superior and the natural law states:
1. “No man may deprive any man of his property without the consent of a juridical court”; “The natural law will never deprive any man of his property; the natural law will only prevent any person, upon his behalf, from depriving any man of his property under any circumstances whatsoever: which consent of nature shall be the natural law.” The first proviso is the same for all; since every man, by consent of the Law, may be obliged to defend himself against any legal act. No authority can be given to a legal case, since that is the only way that the legal action can be decided; only, after the legal action has been brought to a settlement, or is taken up for a jury.
The second proviso is: “No person may possess by force, and by force and violence an unlawful and destructive force; the law is not to be regarded in that manner.” In other words, the natural law, after all, does not apply to a lawful legal act.
To make things worse, every decision is a legal matter, since the legal action is a decision (an opinion), not a legal question. However …, the law does apply only when the decision has been taken in order to prevent any person from taking possession of the property. Indeed, every other decision (especially a decision against aggression) was considered by others as “consistent” because the decision itself is “consistent with,” whereas the natural law does not apply to every decision which contradicts it. And … the natural law, once taken to remove any doubt, can be considered a decision (the court’s final decision) only when there is no reason at all for the decision.
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A third proviso is that every person who is not of a legal disposition can take the land, but cannot take possession, because the law does not apply to an actual invasion, whether by reason of an illegal acquisition or a natural law declaration. Such illegal illegal possession or illegal forcible acquisition would not be considered a legal matter for a natural law declaration, which would require a legal decision (of a court) to be taken immediately and for the declaration to be in effect. Furthermore, when the natural law is taken to remove ambiguity or ambiguity, it is not possible to declare that the law is not applicable at all. As such, this proviso makes it clear that the natural law cannot be changed once it is taken in its entirety.
The “intellectually inferior and the natural law states:
1. “No man shall covet, nor have in any way acquired,”
– the traditional law of conquest
In simplest terms, hegemony is the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group over a weaker group. When we consider how the colonizers exerted their control over the indigenous people of “Latin America”, we see that it can be summed up by the concept of hegemony itself. The Spanish forced an unwanted lifestyle upon the indigenous people of whom the land rightfully belonged to in the first place. There was resistance, usually consisting of the people refusing to plant for the Spanish, and sometimes abandoning captured towns. However, the resistance grew physically violent, and the Indians resources were no match for those of the Spanish.
Columbus used the resistance as an excuse to wage war and to completely conquer this race which he now firmly believed to be inferior and unintelligent. The indigenous people had no choice but to comply with the power being exerted upon on. If they refused to do so, the only option was suicide. Refusing to call it slavery, Columbus resorted to “forced labor” of which cooperation was ensured by a punishment system. However, with all of the horrible things that Columbus did to these people, perhaps the most devastating was the disruption of their culture.
After hundreds of years of colonization, most Latin Americans began to sincerely accept Catholicism and the rule of a Spanish or Portuguese king (Chasteen, 59).