SLAVERY IN THE MISSIONS

• When the Spanish came to the Americas during the 1500-1700’s, one of their primary goals was to convert the native peoples to Catholicism. Reformation efforts of groups known as protestants, who disagreed with some of the teachings and practices of the Catholic church, prompted the church to pursue new converts, even if they had to establish colonies in other parts of the world to do so. After explorations of the Americas, the Spaniards set up a complex system of missions in areas that are the present-day states of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The missionaries worked hard to attract the natives to the missions by offering them gifts like food, clothing, and beads if they would move to the missions. While living in the missions, they were taught how to farm, make candles, and a variety of other skills to promote community life at the missions.
• While all of this seemed very charitable in the beginning, many native Americans decided that they wanted to return to their former way of life, and found to their horror that they were not permitted to leave the mission. Instead, they were forced to stay, give up their former beliefs and traditions, and work very hard cultivating food, raising livestock, and maintaining the mission and its grounds. They were forbidden to worship the gods of their ancestors, and had to study Catholicism, the religion of the Catholic church. They were even made to give up speaking their native languages and learn to speak Spanish. In many of the missions, they were treated more like slaves than fellow believers.
• It could be said that the Spanish had a catastrophic impact on many of the major Native American groups. Some natives attempted to resist the Catholic missionaries, and were killed attempting to stage revolts. Thousands of others died as the result of disease. Native Americans had never been exposed to  many European diseases, and therefore they did not have any natural immunity to them. When Europeans arrived who were stricken by diseases such as smallpox and the measles, the disease quickly swept through the native populations. Native Americans died by the thousands.

 Name:__________________________________

Answer the following questions based on the reading passage. Don’t forget to go back to the passage whenever necessary to find or confirm your answers.

1. Did the desire of the Spaniards to convert the natives to Catholicism justify the way they were treated at the Missions? Why, or why not?
2.  Why do you think the Spaniards forced the natives to give up their languages and learn Spanish?
3.  When the Spanish arrived, they gave gifts to the natives. Do you think they intentionally harmed the natives, or were they trying to help them?
4. Do you think the natives might have chosen. Catholicism for themselves if they had been treated more fairly? Why, or why not?
5. Should missionaries make an effort to understand the culture of the people they want to convert, or should they ask the people to change? Why?