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according to Christianity. However, the message was not only the need to understand the

colonizer's religion but also the notion that Christianity was a superior religion since it

entailed a form of divine salvation that was framed within the western tradition. Then,

religious colonial discourses through translation embedded the power and knowledge of

The development of Spanish language policies also portrayed the relationship between language, power and knowledge. The institutionalization and legitimation of Spanish language was the beginning of a new stage during colonial process. This new colonial law sought to disseminate the Spanish language through different educational avenues such as the emergence of schools and religious sites that worked as forms of educational institutions. However, due to the establishment of colonial institutions such as repartimiento, which allowed the segregation of indigenous people, access to

education was restricted to those who lived in the city. Education became elitist; it was reserved for those who were part of the mainstream society, usually Spaniards. Therefore, the need to both speak and write in Spanish became a source of power because not all people, especially indigenous, were able to communicate in Spanish. In other words,

Spanish language became powerful and sophisticated because it was the medium to learn western knowledge and culture, and the opportunity to become a better Spaniard.

Spanish language was also used to name and rename native towns, people and geographical areas as forms of control and imposition. One evident example is the use of the term "New Spain" to name the new colony and to make evident both the decadence of previous civilizations and the imposition of Spanish power. This means that "the act of naming and renaming geographical features... also constituted an act of power and

appropriation" (Young, 2003, p. 141). Therefore, Spanish language became powerful and dominant, while devaluing native languages because the Spanish power was embedded within the process of writing and translation. Thus, writing became a way to maintain and perpetuate the dominance of Spanish language.

better understanding of how indigenous people became the Other'. However, this process of colonization was not only a form of marginalization and misrepresentation of

indigenous people, but also it meant the deterioration of indigenous knowledge and the disappearance of many indigenous languages. In other words, "colonist production of knowledge was not a simple process. It included a clash with and a marginalization of the knowledge and belief systems of those who were conquered" (Loomba, 2005, p. 60). Thus, colonialism created the scenario where the social and ideological construction of colonial subjects emerged. Nevertheless, it also crucial to explore the forms in which indigenous people resisted Spanish colonialism, allowing them to survive as indigenous people and to preserve their knowledge and culture.

Indigenous Resistance

It has been argued that there were many different ways in which the Spanish colonial project exploited and inferiorized native people through institutional and ideological mechanisms of power. However, despite the Spanish efforts to impose their culture, knowledge, religion and language, the Spanish colonial project did not totally work as expected. This means that the power of colonialism was not total and

homogenous but rather it involved a diversity of contradictions and complexities in the relationship between colonists.and colonized subjects. Loomba (2005) states that "dominant ideologies are never total or monolithic, never totally successful in

incorporating all individuals or subjects into their structures" ( p. 60). This is a crucial insight because it means that colonial authority embedded itself a site for resistance. In other words, even though colonialism developed a dichotomy between colonized and colonizer through the development of colonial discourses, forms of social organization

and institutional practices, the process of colonialism involved fractures, allowing

colonial subjects to resist dominant discourses and ideologies. Subsequently, the colonial scenario became dynamic and diverse.

It has been argued that the goals of knowledge and power are interwoven, but it is the kind of knowledge that defined the forms in which power is exercised. However, the dissemination of power is not homogeneous, rather it is unequal and contradictory. Although it is accepted by people to some extent, it depends on local situations. In other words, the different forms of imposition of power and authority create gaps since people themselves interpret and deal with that power according to their personal and local conditions where authority takes place. Then, those gaps can be used as sites for resistance, providing the opportunity to challenge authority. Equally important is the notion that knowledge embeds resistance since it can be used to question dominant ideologies. More specifically, people might accept certain kind of knowledge and use it to deal with he imposition of authority, which allow them the opportunity of preserving their cultural practices, language and knowledge. Thus, the understanding and acceptance of dominant discourses, knowledge and power depends on how people interpret them and for what purposes they use them, which can create the room for resistance.

In the context of colonialism, complex, dynamic and contradictory relationships between colonizers and colonized subjects created cracks where authority was disrupted and challenged by colonial subjects, transforming these fissures into sites of indigenous resistance. Bhabha (1985) suggests that

resistance is not necessarily an oppositional act of political intention, not is it the simple negation or the exclusion of the 'content' of another culture, as difference once perceived... [but] the effect of an ambivalence produced within the rules of recognition of dominating discourses as they articulate

the signs of cultural difference (p. 153).

In other words, resistance was an effect that was embedded within the dissemination of

colonial discourses and institutions. Theoretically, colonial power and western

knowledge and culture were highly accepted during the process of and after colonialism. This is true in the sense that especially western knowledge is the dominant way of