Blog #4: Colonial Visions in Oaxaca City

Our visit to the church of Santo Domingo was a standing example of the colonization period in Mexico; it is built on the remains of an Indigenous temple. This idea of colonial merging on top of the remains of the indigenous temple falls perfectly into our discussion of hegemony, where higher technology and power forces itself onto others through cultural assimilation.  The shift from indigenous religions to the Catholicism of the Spaniards is exemplified in full by the Church of Santo Domingo (which is shown to the left). Although not as strong an example in the sense of being built on the remains of the temple of the indigenous people, the runs of Mitla were an example of the forcing of Spanish religious beliefs on a community that was unprepared to handle them.  The church is built with stones from the temples of the indigenous people, and most of the buildings in the city are destroyed to make room for the Spanish invaders. Although Mitla is an interesting case, the churches of Oaxaca offer “one of the clearest examples of cultural hegemony. When enslaved African and the indigenous people accepted the Europeans ‘true religion,’ they accepted, by the same token, their own status as newcomers to the truth.” (Born in Blood and Fire: Colonial Crucible pg. 69)  This acceptance transformed Mexico into a more centralized unit around the church.  Through this movement of the indigenous people of Mexico to the Catholic Church the Spaniards were able to slowly integrate the natives into a new culture that was being developed inside the communities. These growing and evolving communities developed a class system which, “sorted people into fixed, legal categories called castes, as in India, more or less according to race.” (Born in Blood and Fire: Colonial Crucible pg. 85)  This fell into our discussion while sitting on the walls surrounding what had now become a museum inside the church; we discussed the competition between the classes in colonial Mexico and their different roles within the society.  The city reflects this class structure through the churches and their prevalence. Each church representing a different section of the population through structure and wealth with Santo Domingo being the church for the most affluent and wealthy of the people. Although in the United States it is less pronounced than it is in Oaxaca City, there still is a sense of class structure in the religious communities.  There are churches, which portray the richest designs and gold work, and then there are those which seem to focus more on a sense of humble nature.  The churches in Oaxaca never convey the sense of being poor or anywhere near it because there are all architecturally beautiful, but there is still a designation as to which church is for what class, income level or social status.  

Brandon Hubbard