The Jesuits Essay

Pontiac's speech portrays the Native Americans as being unequal to the French in stature and power. Cadillac describes Native Americans he comes in contact with as, “...the most tractable and most peaceable of the savages”(Cadillac 4). A similar message to Cadillac is represented by the capitalization of the “b” on the word brother, which refers to the French. In the Christian faith, the only time a pronoun or common noun is capitalized is when referring to God, so by making “brother” a proper noun the purpose of using the word “brother”, to symbolize the camaraderie between the two parties, as a synonym for “French” loses its meaning. Despite, the acknowledging the mutual friendship the French have with the Native Americans there appears to be better “friend.” This unequal division of brotherhood is also encompassed in Winthrop’s speech: “...some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection…all these differences for the preservation and good of the whole...”(Winthrop 1). The inclusion of the European definition of brotherhood shows that the translation of Pontiac’s speech is illegitimate.

In the opening scene of the movie the Frenchman Laforgue, whom repelled the Indian way of life, and the rest of the fathers deliver advanced tools, supplies, and weapons to the Algonquin Indians. Indians have the religious belief that those who can provide the best are the better leaders. The Frenchman used that to their advantage when providing the supplies. They used the supplies as a way to bribe the Indians to go on the journey with them and convert to Christianity. The supplies symbolized what they could have if they just accepted the Jesuits way of life and religious beliefs. On the voyage there was the Indian tribe, Laforgue accompanied by other Jesuits, as well a young non Jesuit male, Daniel. Daniel had no interest in going on the expedition to convert the Indians. Instead he was just bored and was looking for an adventure. Very early in the expedition Daniel caught interest in the

During the 16th century, Protestantism emerged as a new sect of Christianity. This process was not calm or peaceful in the slightest. Protestant leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin fiercely attacked and denied traditional Catholic beliefs, causing much controversy and debate upon religion. Many regions of Europe as a whole were converted to Protestantism, and many more Protestants emerged in areas where Catholicism remained the state religion. The Catholic faith became less and less appealing to people as the abuses of the clergy were now publicly addressed by reformers and a new, personal approach to religion was offered in Protestantism. In addition, rulers favored Protestantism as a state religion because it meant that no power

The Native American religion was very different from the Christian religion of the Europeans. The Native American’s didn’t pray to a god, they prayed to something in nature such as the sky or the sun. “O our Mother the Earth, O our Father the Sky” (Tewa Indian). The colonists thought that it was barbaric that the Native American’s didn’t believe in a God. The colonists thought that there was only one correct way to be religious and that the way that the Native American’s practiced religion was ‘the wrong way’.

While Verrazano speaks kindly of these courteous and generous groups, he also speaks of encounters with people he deems “full of crudity and vices.” He claims that interaction with these groups was difficult. He describes their attempts to trade with this group; “they sent us what they wanted to give on a rope, continually shouting to us not to approach the land.” This description provides us some insight into the feelings of the Indians towards these new European invaders. Their actions seem to be based on fear and apprehension towards these unknown men (Voices of Freedom, 9).

While many native hybridized Christianity into their own beliefs, others resisted Christianity in order to maintain traditional beliefs. In the Huejotzingo letter, the town council mentioned that, “(The People of) many towns were forced and tortured, were hanged or burned because they did not want to leave idolatry, and unwilling they received the gospel and faith.” (236). Under colonial mindset and the concept of “just war” via the Requerimiento, the Spanish forcibly converted natives into Christianity. The Tlaxcalans, for example, hybridized European practices, such as baptism, into their religious beliefs because of their defeat against the Spanish. In the paintings shown through the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (125), governors of Tlaxcala are being baptized in order to emphasize their conversions and loyalty. Throughout the painting, tropes of military technology, through the drawings of iron lances, and Christianity, through the cross with Jesus crucified and the picture of

At first the Indians welcomed the Americans with open arms and generosity and were in turn given “poison”, alcohol diseases, and a war. If these men who devastated his people were Christians, then it is not a religion his people are interested in. Furthermore, Red Jacket uses the past to tell the British how the Great Spirit created, has guided, and provided for his people over the years. It was not until the America “forefathers” came to the Seneca Tribe, that conflict began to arise. With that it goes to say that the religion that is associated with these men is not a good religion.

The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours. The Iroquois are northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans in North America.

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

Throughout the stories told in both Mohawk Saint and The Unredeemed Captive, the unintended consequences of attempting to convert the American Indians to Christianity are powerful players in the unfolding events. When these Christian groups arrived in the New World, they came armed with the word of God that they wished to share among a group of people that have never before encountered the concept of Christianity. While eventually these relationships improved and Christians and American Indians began to have closer contact, there were still results from the conversion process that no one could have expected when the progress had started. In both of these stories, the unintended consequences of the encounters between Christian religious and

Along with the preservation of their autonomy, the First Nations women and communities did not want to convert to Christianity and the customs that came with it because they were attached to their traditions and did not want to give them up. The Huron and Algonquian communities maintained that they would not physically discipline their children because they feared that suicide would result from punishment. Therefore the Huron and Algonquian avoided discipline at all costs because nothing was more important to them than their children’s lives.

The Europeans, therefore, described the indigenous people as savage, polytheistic pagans and heathens, who were doomed to damnation for the worship of animals and nature. The Europeans, within their understanding of the will of God, believed it their duty and their responsibility to teach these indigenous people the “correct” way to live, and were determined to impose their own religion upon the indigenous people by enforcing the worship of the God of the Christian Bible through any means deemed necessary, including slavery, coercion, and the threat of, or actual maiming or death. Europeans chose to dismiss the religious and cultural practices of the indigenous peoples because the indigenous peoples did not engage in scheduled worship services as the Europeans did, or call their deities by the names that the Europeans used, nor did the indigenous peoples perform their worship ceremonies in the same manner as the Europeans.

He tricked the Native Americans and promised them eternal salvation, the same Heaven that Serra wanted to see. He wanted to convert them into good men and women of God, but he was committing cultural genocide, which would occur again about 200 years later during the western expansion of the U.S. In fact, these two instances have their similarities and their differences. Many believed that in both cases the Native Americans were forced to change in order for them to be “saved”, but in Serra’s case, some were eager to become transformed and some were lured into it. According to Catholic doctrine, the Natives were warned that once they are fully devoted Christians, their lives would be restricted to the mission. They really believed conversion was the key to salvation and everlasting life in Heaven. Serra would lead them to their

By the late 1500s, Christian denominations had been popping up all over Europe. This was in response to the reports of indulgences (selling of freedom from purgatory), clerical immorality, abuse of money, along with many other bad actions that were rampant among the Church. It was these problems that Luther and others rebelled and created their own religions. With the rising of these Reformation movements, the Church needed to make some reforms itself. These reforms took the form of educating the clergy, opening monasteries, the Inquisition, and the organizing of councils. In fact, even though Protestant attacks brought these reforms, many of these reforms were needed anyway. The problems in the Church were so bad that the Church would not

Calling Out Hypocrisy within Euro-Christian and Native Relations During the years 1831-1833, William Apess took action against the dominant power that encroached on native people’s land. As a member of the Pequot tribe, he began writing impactful sermons addressed to these Euro-American settlers. These included ones targeting “those who professed to believe the Christian Bible and to behave as it commanded” (666). Apess uses strong emotions and an anti-hypocrisy approach in the piece, An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man.