Christianity In The New World

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the Indians as equals. The implanting of , and the treatment of the native population by the missionaries and christian conquerors was detrimental to New World. Through men such as Cortez and Las Casas accounts of the conversions have been recorded. One of the reasons for this was the alliance of the Catholic Church with the Spanish monarchy. The status of the Indians was disregarded as the Christian conquers and missionaries who wanted to convert them subjected them to violence and reduced them to a laboring population. The Indians, however did not always respond in a negative way to the work of the church.
The Catholic Church arrived in the New World immediately after Christopher Columbus laid claim to it for Spain. After Columbus's discovery of the new lands he wrote a series of treatise as to what the European purpose there was. Columbus, in his writings, said that the purpose of the New World was two fold. He said that the gospel message of the church should be spread ...

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to establish Christianity there. The number of missions sent to the New World accelerated in tempo until the final decade of the 16th century. The crown paid for the sending of missionaries, and its officials kept track of the many "shiploads" of religious personnel sent and of the expenses they incurred. The records show that the Spanish dispatched missionaries to more than 65 destinations, ranging from Florida and California to Chile and the Strait of Magellan. (Van Oss 5) Between 1493, when the first mission left for Espanola, and Spanish American independence (roughly 1821) more than 15 thousand missionaries crossed the Atlantic under royal auspices. (Van Oss 4)

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