How Does The Native Peoples Be Taught A New Religion?

As stated in “History of Mexico: 2” documentary film by History Channel, the Spanish believed it was their responsibility to save the souls of the natives by converting them to Christianity. Even thought the natives were forced to convert, the natives eventually accepted Catholicism into their everyday life, creating a mixture of cultures and eventually a mixing of heritages known as “Mestizo”.

Spanish colonization areas where missions were constructed in order to educate the native people about Christianity; commonly NOT to their own will

Convinced of the superiority of Catholicism to all other religions, Spain insisted that the primary goal of colonization was to save the Indians from heathenism and prevent them from falling under the sway of Protestantism. The aim was neither to exterminate nor to remove the Indians, but to transform them into obedient Christian subjects of the crown. To the Spanish colonizers, the large native populations of the Americas were not only souls to be saved but also a labor force to be organized to extract gold and silver that would enrich their mother country. Las Casas’ writings and the abuses they exposed contributed to the spread of the Black Legend-the image of Spain as a uniquely brutal and exploitative colonizer. This would provide of a potent justification for other European powers to challenge Spain’s predominance in the New World.

It had very specific instructions and everything had to be done by protocol. It had to be read aloud and acknowledged by the natives. The Requirement stated that if rules were not followed and the natives would not yield to the Spanish authority then they would be warred upon. As said in Chapter 3, “It set the aims of warfare not as mere surrender, but as submission to the Catholicism and its legitimate representative, the Spaniards.” Thus, the spoken speech was focal point in Spanish conquest. “It “requires” that the indigenous peoples of the new world acknowledge the church as superior of the world and therefore consent to have priests preach to them.” The speech then goes on to give a written disclaimer that if anyone were to not follow these guidelines they were subject to death that they themselves brought upon them. The Spanish also used taxes as a form of submission and humiliation to conquer new worlds. This came from the influences of “jizya-inspired Moslem and Jewish tribute payments to Christian rulers.” Under Christian rule the wealthy communities paid in cash while the poorer communities paid in hard labor. Although, eventually, natives would merge into Spanish society they were never thought of as actual Spanish citizens they were thought of as subjects living under Spanish rule. Most of the Spanish Requirements were influenced by the Islam’s concepts of beliefs on conquering and taking over new people. The Spanish used

Spain’s goal of spreading Catholicism was undoubtable strengthened when the Pope sanctioned all Spanish efforts. Thus, slavery of Native Americans was justified, and would liberate them in the eyes of God. In effort to prevent British protestant influence, Spain declared that Non-Spanish citizens and Non-Spanish Christians were not permitted to settle in their borders.

Prior to European influences, many indigenous religions did not dichotomize the world into good and evil, and, as a result, natives interpreted their deities as both good and bad. When the town council describes their indigenous beliefs as “wicked,” this diction represents how European influences affected and shifted how natives interpretation of nature.

For this essay I will be talking about the book “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” by Bartolomé de Las Casas. Whom wrote this to the King of Spain, Prince Philip II, in 1542 to protest what was happening in the New World to the native people. I will be explaining many things during this essay. The first thing I will go over is what the books tells us about the relationship between Christianity and the colonialism. The second thing I will talk about is if it was enough to denounce the atrocities against indigenous people. Next, if it is possible to

Religion played a huge part of the initial Spanish conquest of the Americas. Most of Europe practiced Christianity while the Indians of the Americas worshiped many gods. "Although Columbus concluded that the Tainos "had no religion," in reality they worshipped gods they called zemis, ancestral spirits who inhabited natural objects such as trees and stones", (Roark, 35). When the Spanish came to New Asia, the missionaries made it their goals to convince the Indians to change their religions and accept what they believed as the one true religion. "Catholic missionaries worked to convert the Indians. They fervently believed that God expected them to save the Indians' souls by convincing them to abandon their old sinful beliefs and to embrace the one true Christian faith" (Roark, 44). Many people would travel to the New World just so they could try and convert the Indians that live there. “In the Spanish colonies the Catholic Church was instrumental in the conquest and worked hand in hand with the secular government” (lecture 1: the Spanish conquest –page 1).

That is not to say that native groups did not utilize the tools around them to optimize their ability to have access to some means of autonomy, be that on a personal or a societal level. Native individuals utilized Christianity when they were taken to court, as seen in Plimouth through Isaac and Betty. There was an even more effective use of the system at a societal level, typically through the recruitment of missionaries, and using Bible scriptures in petitions and other legal documents was the most common form of appealing to the religious legal system. There is also the vital aspect of unity in Massachusetts that Christianity brought to the native community, even if all did not believe, they were forced into practicing, and as a condition of that found solidarity with other native groups that enabled numbers that forced colonizers to listen to them, as seen through the Mittark’s Will. Religion was also vital for the fur trade in new French colonies, allowing native women to act as converts and mediators to between the colonizers and the native groups they hailed from. This conversion to Catholicism was also vital to native women in creating a system of sustainable survival without their native past or their colonizers after their husband’s death. This is a few of the specific examples as to how native Americans used the Christian faith to better their position in this system. It was effective in the context of gaining them rights and land that they would not have had without it, it was useful but it did not solve for colonizer violence against these

Early on, some opposition against the actions of the Spanish in the New World where the priest, Bartholome de Las Casas, denounced the harsh treatment of natives in the 1530s stated, "From the beginning until now, Spain’s entire invasion of the New World has been wrong and tyrannical. And from 1510 on, no Spaniard there can claim good faith as an excuse for wars, discoveries, or the slave trade.” which portrays the Christian aggression against a race of people who are innocent. Thier only crime was being non-Christian.

Secondly, the Aztecs welcomed the spaniards into their city. The Aztecs thought the spaniards were gods and going to give them everything. Aztecs were barbaric and savage while christianity was civilized.

The Europeans and the Jesuits unknowing brought much more than economic interests and the word of God. They brought with them disease, which in time will lead to major epidemics in the New World. This becomes a major obstacle to their work with the Indians. As if the death of the Native Americans were not bad enough, the Jesuits face a religious problem as well. During the epidemic, the Jesuits would baptize the ill taking comfort in the fact that the dead are brought to eternal life. The Indians did not quite share this view. Sadly, the Indians came to believe that baptism was associated with death and not the Catholic association of death into new life. In the Annual Letter of 1592, the writer expressed, “On the one hand it is a great

When the Europeans first arrived in Latin America, they didn’t realize the immensity of their actions. As history has proven, the Europeans have imposed many things on the Latin American territory have had a long, devastating effect on the indigenous people. In the centuries after 1492, Europeans would control much of South America and impose a foreign culture upon the already established civilizations that existed before their arrival. These imposed ideas left the continent weak and resulted in the loss of culture, the dependence on European countries, and a long standing ethnic tension between natives and settlers which is evident even to this day. The indigenous people of South America, which

In his treatise as well as Cruelties of Spaniards, Bartolomé Las Casas supported the Native Americans by explaining that they were just as human as the Spaniards were. He states in his treatise that “…it is unlikely that anyone will resist the preaching of the gospel and the Christian doctrine.” Because he has been in the New World, he has seen the acceptance of Catholicism from the Natives, unlike the crown whom have never seen such cooperation. He continues by taking shots at the Spaniard colonists who fought with the Natives, even though their kings “have prohibited wars against the Indians of the Indies…” It’s rather confusing to find out where Las Casas

During the mid 16th century, the Spanish began their conquest of the newly ‘discovered’ North America . The native populous of North America (referred to as ‘Indians’) became the subject of a heated debate in which the humanity and mental capacity of the Natives were called into question. Specifically, whether or not the Indians had ability to accept Christianity. As the subject became more in-depth Charles V, the king of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire at the time ordered a group of lawyers and theologians at the University of Valladolid to evaluate the two most prominent opinions on the matter -- Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474-1566). The two opinions were very different in the fact that Sepúlveda believed that