[ Once the European images were placed on top of the locals’ deities, the environment needed to be altered. Many churches and altars were built on the locations where these images apparently appeared. “…Just as the sanctuaries of these cult figures were often situated at the margins of cities, between urban and openly rural places, in places where people of all classes and conditions would come together, so the legends and the stories were inclusive, combining native elements with others of European origin.”[1] The purpose of building churches was to solidify the colonizers’ presence. These new landmarks functioned as factories and bunkers. They operated as a surveillance system to maintain control of the society and to produce more images. Their goal was to expand the colonizers’ territory to eradicate the locals’ past. As it happens today in the territory of Palestine, “many Palestinian villages that once existed in what is now Israel…have become parks, and other open spaces, erasing the existence of their prior inhabitants from public memory.”[2] Even though this is an indication of a direct form of colonization, it does not mean that a direct colonization is still practiced today as it was in the past.]
[1] Joseph J Rishel and Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt. 2006. The arts
in Latin America, 1492-1820. Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art.
331.
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