Spanish missions in the Americas
Many hundreds of missions, durable and ephemeral, created by numerous Catholic religious orders were scattered throughout the entirety of the Spanish colonies, which extended southward from the United States and Mexico to Argentina and Chile.
Missionaries usually followed a strategy of creating reductions to concentrate indigenous people into Spanish-style settlements in which they were instructed in Christianity and Spanish customs.
In general and over centuries, the reductions succeeded in achieving the widespread adoption by indigenous people of Christianity and Spanish customs.
It clarified the Crown’s responsibility to promote the conversion of the indigenous Americans to Catholicism, as well as total authority over the Church, educational, and charitable institutions.
It authorized the Crown’s control over the Church’s tithe income, the tax levied on agricultural production and livestock, and the sustenance of the ecclesiastical hierarchies, physical facilities, and activities.
It provided the Crown with the right to approve or veto Papal dispatches to the Americas, to ensure their adherence to the Patronato Real.
Nevertheless, Pedro de Gante saw the ritualistic practices of the indigenous, which traditionally involved human sacrifices (specially from enemy tribes), and as a missionary, saw the need for a change in faith.
[5] Additionally, Pedro de Gante was a big advocate of education of the youth, where he established schools throughout Mexico to cater to the indigenous communities.
Many of these children resided in cities such as Cholula, Tlalmanalco, Texcoco, Huejotzingo, Tepeaca, Cuautitlán, Tula, Cuernavaca, Coyoacán, Tlaxcala and Acapistla.
[10] The Jesuit Reductions were socialist societies in which each family had a house and field, and individuals were clothed and fed in return for work.
Additionally, the communities included schools, churches, and hospitals, and native leaders and governing councils overseen by two Jesuit missionaries in each reduction.
Like the Franciscans, the Jesuit missionaries learned the local languages and trained the adults in European methods of construction, manufacturing, and, to a certain extent, agriculture.
[13] Another major Jesuit effort was that of Eusebio Kino S.J., in the region then known as the Pimería Alta – modern-day Sonora in Mexico and southern Arizona in the United States.
Bartolomé de las Casas was the first Dominican bishop in Mexico and played a pivotal role in dismantling the practice of "encomenderos", with the establishment of the New Laws in 1542.
These laws were intended to prevent the exploitation and mistreatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas by the encomenderos, by strictly limiting their power and dominion over groups of natives.
To begin the process of constructing a new parish, the priests entered an indigenous village and first converted the leaders and nobles, called caciques.
In New Spain, which is modern-day Mexico and Central America, the friars taught Nahuatl to indigenous Americans who had not spoken it prior, as a way of establishing a common language.
[1] Early into the existence of the community, the European clergy formed a cofradía, which is a lay brotherhood meant to raise funds to construct and support the parish church, provide aid to the poor, aged, or infirmed and to widows and orphans, and to organize religious processions and festivals for Catholic holidays.
[17] That said, the creation of the parish also depended on the labor of the recently converted indigenous people to build schools, offices, houses, and other infrastructure for economic production.
[1] In addition to the encomienda system, the aggressive implementation of missions and their forcible establishment of reductions and congregations led to resistance and sometimes revolt in the native populations being colonized.
Many natives agreed to join the reductions and congregations out of fear, but many were initially still allowed to quietly continue some of their religious practices.
An example of rebellion against colonization and missionaries is the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, in which the Zuni, Hopi, as well as Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Tano, and Keres-speaking Pueblos took control of Santa Fe and drove the Spanish colonists of New Mexico with heavy casualties on the Spanish side, including the killing of 21 of the 33 Franciscan missionaries in New Mexico.
The Tepehuan Revolt from 1616 to 1620 was likewise stirred by hostilities against the missionaries, which arose due to the concurrent and explosive rise in disease that accompanied their arrival.
[18] The Tepehuan associated the rise in death directly with these missionaries and their reductions, which spread disease and facilitated exploitative labor to encomanderos and miners.
This 87% decrease in population size illustrates the tragic effects of diseases of the time, combined with the introduction of a new culture influenced by the Spanish missionaries.
The role of missionaries was primarily to replace indigenous religions with Christianity, which facilitated integration of the native populations into the Spanish colonial societies.
[28] Establishment of missions was often followed by the implementation of Encomienda systems by the Vice-royal authorities, which forced native labor onto land granted to Europeans by the Spanish Crown and led to oppression.
Many missionaries even allowed for natives to keep some aspects of their original ritual in place, like giving the child or newborn a small arrowhead or broom to represent their future roles in society, as long as it complied with Catholic beliefs.
To perform the sacrament of marriage, Franciscan friars had a husband bring his many wives to the church, and had each state her reasons for being the one true wife.
Although the author of these edits is unknown, it is a tangible example of how Spanish missionaries began the process of catholic transformation in Native territories.
