A Fight For Power Dbq

A Fight For Power
“Death to the bad government! Death to the gachupines [Peninsulares]!” (doc E). Father Miguel Hidalgo, a priest from the Mexican revolution, shouts these words as he fights for his independence. The Spanish conquest in the Americas slowly started to break apart between 1810 and 1826 as the colonies were tired of Spain’s arbitrary ruling. Throughout Latin America, many revolutions broke out because of the rivalry between social groups. The main root of these issues was between the Creoles( people who were born in America but had purely Spanish blood) and the Peninsulares (Spanish born people who migrated to the colonies). Both groups were motivated to achieve the highest position of power, yet the Creoles were the ones who

Being the second highest class, a rivalry grew between them and the top ranking group, the Peninsulares. The peninsulares were mostly wealthy and worked in more prestigious jobs such as the government, military, and church, whereas the Creoles “had growing economic and social influence but the peninsulares monopolized all administrative positions.” (Doc B). The Creoles made up a bigger percentage of the populations than Creoles, but Peninsulares took up a majority of the seats in authority. This was very infuriating for the Creoles because they were fairly educated as well, and felt as though invaders were taking over their land. Creoles strongly believed that receiving independence would give them a chance to rise their position to one of higher power. In The Independence of Latin America, Leslie Bethell explains how the Creoles “had on eye on their masters, they kept the other on their servants.” The Creoles were well aware and conscious of their social position and did not want to share their political power with people of color such as the Indians or Africans. After Spain got involved with an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Creoles could no longer count on their government to control social unrest. Aside all else, the Creoles main focus was to have power over all the social classes. They did not only wanted to fight for an increase in political power, they also wanted to maintain their status over the