Spanish Missionaries Research Paper

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Spanish Missionaries The Spanish empire had Spanish missionaries, sent by the church, who would help them pass along their teachings and persuade people into converting to Catholicism. As well as becoming part of the Spanish empire. They particularly did this to American Indians because the Spaniards wanted to incorporate the Indians into their empire (lecture). However, they do see the Indians as savage and wild, something the Spaniards have never see in humans before. So, in order for the Spanish missionaries to incorporate American Indians to the empire they had to alter the Indians life style to be more like the Spaniards. The Spaniards imperial style believed that there was a way to live together with the Indians, but not as equals. There …show more content…

Religion was one of the main ways that they used to convert. They would send missionaries to spread the words of god and converting the Indians into the Catholic religion. Based off of the reading we do not know if the Indians had a religion prior to converting, but those that converted have a more set religion. Sharing the same religious beliefs helped unify the Spaniards and the Indians. Sending the missionaries out into the land in search of natives allowed the number of converted Indians in the Spanish empire to grow. The way they dressed was altered as well, with the help of the missionaries (Mission Guidelines). As examples if we compare two watercolor paintings of different Texas Indian people, the Comanches’ and Karankawas’, we can see there is a slight change in their clothing styles. The Karankawas’ stay more true to the traditional Indian culture with bare feet, basic hunting tools and the man barely clothed while the woman is fully clothed with a poncho (Karankawa Watercolor). However in the Comanche watercolor we see that they have been influenced with some of the Spaniards dress. Both the man and the woman are wearing shoes because that makes them more civilized and less wild. The woman wears more of a blouse that is mostly seen as Spanish clothing. One other main thing we notice in that painting is the riffle on the horse. Even the tools that Indians would commonly use were being replaced with Spanish weapons (Comanche

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