Religion Section A + B case studies

 Zupanov - Jesuit espirit de corps

Jesuit obedience and esprit de corps allowed methodological diversity without institutional fragmentation, enabling flexible missionary strategies across different regions of the Iberian world.

In Latin America, where Christianisation followed military conquest, Jesuit universalism took a coercive form, as conversion was assumed to be self-evident and enforceable through colonial power.

Missionaries employed a “tabula rasa” approach in many American contexts, aiming to eradicate Indigenous religious practices and replace them with Christianity through ritual suppression and discipline.

Where Amerindian religions proved more resilient, missionaries adopted limited accommodation, justified by Ignatius of Loyola’s principle of “entering through the door of the other” in order to effect conversion.

Metcalf - limitation of accommodation when colonial conquest available

Missionaries relied on colonial force in order to consolidate power; willing to allow military expansion and control as long as benefited evangelism 

Early Jesuits in Brazil favoured conversion through persuasion and preaching, not force.

Later 1550s Nobrega believed no longer persuasion alone could achieve conversion 

1558 recommended first defeating the Indians before an effective evangelism could begin

Mem de Sá’s violent campaigns. Sá had “punished some” and “yoked all,” wrote a Jesuit to Lisbon in September 1558,

Campaign eliminated autonomous chiefs and shocked the entire coast

After conquest, Indigenous populations consolidated into aldeias under Jesuit and Crown control

aldeias = large mission villages whereby living under supervision of Jesuits teaching Christianity and transforming way of life 

Major aldeias founded 1557–1561 (São Paulo, Santiago, São João, Espírito Santo, Santo António, Santa Cruz)

Jesuits recognized that force had been used to lay the foundation for the first aldeias, but they still believed that their evangelism was fundamentally based on the power of persuasion. 

The aldeias also had stocks, where the boys were locked up if they ran away from school, or where the bailiff would detain those who resisted evangelism.

→Violence and colonial expansion (imperialism) necessity for large scale evangelism, co - opted by missionaries 

LIMITATIONS:Johnson - (Brazil) prominence of the colonial political economy overrode missionary goals

Should not minimise disputes between Jesuits and colonialists

Jesuits condemned abuses such as pseudo-marriages used to enslave Indigenous women

Jesuits continued to oppose illegal enslavement even after accepting coercion

when Jesuits made the residents of the aldeias available for work, colonists wanted slaves to work their plantations and farms, not free laborers from the aldeias.

treatise written by Gabriel Soares de Sousa in 1587, Sousa was highly critical of the Jesuit control over indigenous labour

(India) Statue of a Child Jesus as the Good Shepherd made of Ivory, Goa, India, 17th century

Carved ivory. Goa, India, c.1650. produced on India's western coast, where sculptures were made for export and for Catholic missionaries in India

Aware of Mughal interest, Jesuits might have brought similar sculptures to the court.

Jesus was regarded as a prophet in Islam, and images of Jesus and other prophets were collected by the Mughal courtiers and painted on the walls of Mughal palaces.

The Christ Child as the Good Shepherd is seated above a mount from which a fountain spouts and sheep and lambs graze.

At the bottom, Christ's follower Mary Magdalene reads scriptures in a mountain cave, where, according to legend, she retired in later life.

Above is a fountain of life (suggestive of baptism) with doves and lambs, and at the top is the meditative figure of the Christ Child sitting with a lamb. Christ's eyes are closed.

→ Images of Jesus as a child were introduced there by Christian missionaries, who accompanied Portuguese invaders, in an effort to convert local communities.

→ Using luxury as a bargaining tool, attempt to appeal to local Buddhist people who were accustomed to similarly seated images of the Buddha.

→ not orthodox but missionaries adapted religion to align closely to familiar native devotional images despite their belief of 'paganism'

Sandoval - imperial logic for slavery, justifying colonial projects with religious framework to legitimise

Jesuit missionary from Spain who lived and worked in Cartagena de Indias (today Colombia), a major centre of the slave trade in the Americas

published in Spanish in 1627. 

‘Jesuit fathers have been here for forty years, and there have always been learned jesuit fathers in brazil. non e of us have ever considered this trade illicit’ 

This is not only useful for commerce but still more for the service of God and the good of their souls… They are thus taken away from their heathen ways and are redeemed’

Argues that Europeans need not trouble their consciences if Africans have been enslaved illegally

Responsibility for unjust enslavement is displaced onto African rulers, who are blamed for violating Christian norms of lawful enslavement

→Christianity is used to morally redeem slavery itself, demonstrating how religious discourse adapts to economic imperatives.

→ Reveals a clear imperial logic, shifting moral responsibility away from Iberian traders and toward African political structures 

→ALso has to consider getting book published and not banned by the inquisition

Sandoval - self promotion of jesuit actions abroad 

T BROOK - Ming and Qing governments (China + Japan)

More deference shown to societies that were stronger or 'elite', forced to be accommodationist

The few missionaries permitted to enter couldn't rely on political and economic privileges that were theirs under direct colonialism- as in the Philippines for example with no centralised state existing to oppose colonisation

Ming and Qing governments were fiercely protective of sovereignty: considered infiltration of foreign agents as an attack on that sovereignty.

Aside from Macao (odd circumstances granted to Portuguese merchants) no piece of Chinese territory was brought under European colonial control.

The only way European missionaries could extend their 'community of worship' in China was by accommodating to conditions.

→ Necessity for soft power + accommodation with regions outside of their control, missionary tactics X uniform

SOURCE: De morga  - Japan under ruler Taicosame dangerous religious persecution

In stronger states, missionaries often at the whim of ruler - more pragmatism 

Often depended on the religious tolerance of rulers and openness to convert 

Describes how Fray Geronymo of Jesus had to hide in Japan from the government until Taicosama died and Daifusama took over

Only then have access to the king Daifu ordered him to come and tell him about ‘how good it would be for Dayfu to possess the friendship and have dealings with the Spaniards’

He had stayed after ‘the martyrdom of his companions’ - suggesting persecution against Christians in Japan? precarious nature for the fate christianity 

missionaries goals for japan in Japan are much more conservative 

Vivero’s account Spanish missionaries requested ‘religious of all the Orders present in Japan might be protected and treated with respect…’

Rather than agitating for expansion under mercy of these lords and so more passive actors pleading to ensure protection of preexisting catholic communities rather than rampant expansion of religion 

→ Japan regional lords and not as subject iberian religious imposition,  from state of predominance into a very passive actors

→ missionaries show more deference to Japan, areas beyond their jurisdiction

Zupanov - Jose de Acosta (Spanish Jesuit)

Varying approaches exercised on societies based on the way they’re classified 

José de Acosta’s De procuranda Indorum salute (1588) systematised missionary methods by categorising peoples according to perceived levels of civilisation, linking method of conversion to cultural hierarchy.

For “lawless” and non-literate hunter-gatherer societies, Acosta advocated coercive conversion, justified as necessary for the salvation of souls.

For organised American societies with writing and political structures (e.g. Aztecs and Incas), Acosta proposed a combination of coercion and persuasion, alongside governance by Christian rulers.

For Asian “cultured ethnics” (Chinese, Japanese, Indians), Acosta prescribed rational persuasion, modelled on apostolic conversion of Greeks and Romans, emphasising dialogue, teaching, and elite engagement rather than force.

→ Was a rubric towards conversion, not all societies considered the same, missionaries consciously thinking of ways to resonate with population based on their value systems 

Zupanov - Nobili and ‘elite’ Brahmins (Jesuit India)

Elite-oriented strategy centered on belief in more ‘civilised’ society, treated as social and intellectual equals so medium of debate used 

Nobili’s first successful conversion was achieved through praelectio (elite intellectual disputation) with a high-caste schoolteacher.

The conversion involved extended rational debate (around twenty days), focused on examining points of the teacher’s religion and identifying “errors”.

Nobili structured the discussion as a Socratic-style dialogue, positioning Hindu ideas as intellectually serious but philosophically mistaken.

Tamil philosophical concepts were treated as part of a pre-Christian intellectual system, analogous to Europe’s own classical past.

Nobili argued through reasoned logic to expose contradictions in Hindu metaphysics (e.g. creation, substance, divinity).

When rational argument reached its limits, Christian faith and Church authority were asserted as the final grounds of truth.

→ When missionaries could picture themselves or parallels of European society more like to use soft power win hearts and minds

Limitations of nobili elite

Over time, indigenisation undermined Jesuit ambitions of global, unified conversion

Christianity became personalised around individual missionaries rather than institutionalised.

Christianity in South India often became associated with charismatic Jesuit figures (e.g. Nobili, Francis Xavier, João de Britto, Beschi), resembling local gurus or power divinities, rather than a universal Church.

After the death of a missionary, followers frequently splintered into independent devotional groups, weakening long-term Jesuit control.

Nobili initially assumed elite (Brahman) conversion would trickle down to lower castes, based on misreading Sanskrit philosophical texts as prescriptive social law.

SOURCE: Natural and Moral History of the Indies (1590 Seville)

• Spanish Jesuit Jose Acosta, missionary Peru 1571-86

• dispel myths about indians being utter 'brutes and bestial folk' addresses abuses because of this

• observed indigenous groups in Peru (Andean) their traditional information systems to Catholic liturgy.

• Indigenous elders Peru arranged pebbles in circles to map out the Our Father, Ave Maria, and the Creed , another to represent holy ghost which ‘suffered under pontius pilate’ 

• noted when an elder made an error in recitation, they would "correct themselves" by looking at and touching the pebbles.

→  "lack of writing" as a justification for subjugation Indigenous peoples integrated Christian doctrines into pre-existing visual and mnemonic traditions

→ also uses this to show they were rational beings, accuracy and precision of techniques supposedly surpassing Spanish pen and ink 

→ condemnation of destruction because missionaries indiscriminately label all things witchcraft 

SOURCE: Antonio Dias SJ (P) devaluation of cultures with little learning 

• Portuguese presence in sri lanka; catholic church in Sri Lanka

Went to India in 1551, then Ceylon in 1552 with Fr Morais, before returning to Goa in 1553

• looks down at priests called changatares ‘they have such little learning’ also that ‘they do not have the ability to follow an argument and to acknowledge where they are in error’ • cross cultural connections more respect given to those who value debate, argumentation, writing 

Limitation espirit de corps

Acosta explicitly rejected the idea that Andean customs could be left intact

José de Acosta, whose ideas guided the work of the Third Council of Lima (1582–1583),

wrote that first it was necessary to “ensure that the barbarians should learn to be men, and then to be Christians” 

Acosta reasoned that the Indians, because they had remained so long deprived of any possibility of knowing the true faith, were people of limited understanding: fickle, servile in character, with few or no virtues, and inclined to vice. 

advocated physical violence as the only language for disciplining the Indians

The Councils of Lima established various penalties: flogging for those accused of disinterring bodies buried in churches in order to transfer them to the old graves

 infliction of physical pain as a pedagogical tool was based on the idea of the Indians’ limited ability to understand the negative effects of evil-doing on the soul

Matthew - (Goa) bureaucratic and coercive, state driven conversion 

Conversion not always under episcopal control, in Portuguese India was embedded into imperial governance state-driven

The Pai dos Cristãos was a lay, Crown-created office (Goa, 1537) conversion was also state responsibility

its operation was embedded in: ecclesiastical councils, especially the First Provincial Council of Goa (1567), royal legislation and viceregal orders

Oversaw catechumens (those preparing to baptism) and neophytes (new converts) across Portuguese India

Candidates examined for sincerity before baptism; baptism delayed until instruction deemed sufficient

Detailed registers recorded names, baptism dates, caste status, and legal position

Certificates issued to freed converts to regulate mobility and prevent re-enslavement

Catechumens confined in houses, isolated from non-Christians, closely observed for apostasy

Catechumens received instruction twice daily +practical training in Christian conduct

→ Fundamentally state-led, catholic in its self conception but missionaries were not autonomous

→ absolute discipline and spatial control by the state to repress reversion

Ramos - (Lima) missionaries repressive methods, persistence of rituals

Missionaries in the Andes, operating under post conquest Mexico and bounded by the Council in Trent 

In the Andes, ancestors’ graves functioned as sacred sites, making them powerful competitors to Christianity

Missionaries saw these sites as a major barrier to conversion, because Andeans already had deeply rooted religious loyalties

The First Council of Lima (1551) marked recognition by ecclesiastical authorities that conversion had not displaced Andean religious structures, prompting more systematic regulation 

Bishops believed intact shrines encouraged baptized Andeans to revert to old worship + ordered the destruction of guacas and temples

Also orders for churches and crosses to be built directly on their ruins

imposition of compulsory church burial for baptised Andeans, enforced through physical penalties if buried elsewhere

sustained resistance to abandoning ancestral funerary practices.

The Third Council of Lima (1582–83) reiterated and intensified earlier measures, implying that decades of coercive regulation had failed to internalise Christian norms.

Parish priests were instructed : Ensure burials took place only in churches, Prevent Andeans from removing bodies from consecrated ground to traditional burial sites

Ancestor worship and pacarinas (places of origin) expressed:

Claims to land, Political and social belonging, The organisation of Andean life

→ separating Andeans from sacred spaces, Spaniards aimed to: disrupt their native religious life 

→  missionaries could not be free actors, instructions directly from councils more controlled, institutional Church presence 

?? - (Lima) Active agents of imperial social control

Pastoral care could be wielded, not merely  as sites of charity but as instruments of conversion and moral reform within colonial evangelisation.

Institutions such as the Hospital of Santa Ana in Lima explicitly combined assistance, conversion, and indoctrination, revealing the fusion of pastoral care and religious discipline.

Hospitalisation targeted Indigenous people made vulnerable by disease and poverty, creating conditions in which conversion could be more effectively imposed or encouraged.

Those already baptised were expected to confess before death, while unbelievers were not permitted to leave without converting and receiving baptism, indicating coercive pressure at moments of extreme vulnerability.

Missionaries prioritised spiritual salvation over physical recovery, reflecting a hierarchy in which the soul mattered more than bodily survival.

The Hospital of Santa Ana also functioned as a centre of behavioural control, promoting doctrinal teaching, literacy, and the education of caciques’ children.

Priests attached to the hospital preached in Indigenous languages and visited homes in the city and surrounding hamlets, extending institutional authority beyond the hospital itself.

Pastoral visits served a dual function: caring for the sick and monitoring moral behaviour, including drinking and public sins.

Priests were required to report such behaviour to colonial authorities

→ Missionaries agents of empire also as pastoral care became a gateway to surveillance and policing.

→ evangelisation operated through discipline, regulation, and social control, rather than persuasion alone.

→ missionary institutions embedded Christianity within everyday governance, blurring the line between spiritual care and imperial authority.

Axerod and Fuerch - (Goa) Hindu suppression

Portuguese policy aimed at total Christianisation and the elimination of Hindu practice

Document upon document chronicles mass conversions, the destruction of all the temples in Goa, and the swift success in Christianizing virtually every village in Goa

28 March 1580: King orders “no temples, no idols, no festivals”; admits policy should have been enforced earlier but has failed.

Notes Hindus revert to rituals, especially in Salsette and Bardez.

Seen as damaging to conversion efforts.1580 (viceroy’s letter): Hindus accused of setting a “bad example” for converts.

Converts allegedly returning to “old ways”. Calls for severe punishment of those impeding conversion.

Reiterates ban on idols and festivals.

1633: Same decree reissued → shows long-term failure to eradicate Hindu practice.

→ State backed destruction of indigenous structures, missionaries agents of the state, reported back and sparked campaigns of repression

SOURCE: Defense and Discourse of the Western Conquests

Bernardo de Vargas Machuca (governor and captain general of the Isle of Margarita)

reactions of the Spanish settlers to the hot debate over the morality of the Spanish conquest of the Americas.

A proud response to the celebrated Short account of the destruction of the Indies (1552) Don Fray Bartolome De Las Casas (bishop of Chiapa 1552)

‘...if they turn to obedience and the doctrine of the Holy Gospel, it is because they see the strength of the soldiers’. 64

‘It is often said… that when the Indian finds himself free and without fear, he has no virtue, but when he is subjected and fearful, he appears to possess all of them’.

→ coercive nature of conversion, identifies how turn to Christianity because of fear rather than through hearts and minds

Johnson - (Brazil) prominence of the colonial political economy overrode missionary goals 

Missionaries operated within, and were constrained by, an imperial economy that privileged profit over pastoral depth

Portuguese settlements had existed for nearly two decades before the Jesuits arrived, meaning exploitative practices were already well established.

the real economic foundation of Portuguese Brazil was the sugar estate (engenho), not towns or missionary settlements

Colonial society was structured less around urban centres and more around rural plantation communities, each dominated by a senhor de engenho

functioned as micro-polities, where the estate owner exercised authority over a mixed population of free and enslaved workers, Indigenous people, and enslaved 

Late 16th c sugar boom and rapid growth per capita income of whites in Brazil 

Reinforced planter dominance

higher pay of clergy attached to estate chapels compared to town churches  

The Crown’s principal revenue came from royal tithes, a 10% levy on agricultural production, tying religious finance directly to plantation output

Jesuit aldeias conflicted structurally with the plantation economy by withdrawing Indigenous people from exploitation, explaining settler hostility

→ religious life followed economic power, not the other way around

→ Christianisation in Brazil was partial, uneven, and often subordinated to plantation discipline, rather than constituting a comprehensive transformation of society

?? - (Mexico) Catholic stories operating in indigenous framework

Christianity was reworked through Indigenous religious frameworks rather than simply adopted.

The case of Domingo Hernández of Tlaltizapán, a Nahua village near Cuernavaca, 

Domingo acquired a reputation for holiness and healing after a visionary experience in which he claimed to receive powers “from heaven,”

His vision of two roads — a wide road of the damned and a narrow road of Christ — reflects Christian moral imagery introduced by missionaries, suggesting genuine penetration of Christian concepts.

At the same time, the structure of the vision closely follows a shamanic initiation pattern, including illness, near death, apparent death, journey to the otherworld, encounter with supernatural beings, and return with healing powers.

Domingo’s recovery through the Virgin’s intervention resembles Christian miracle narratives, but also matches Indigenous beliefs about ritual death and rebirth.

Nahua tradition recognised individuals with exceptional tonalli, capable of travelling between worlds, contacting gods and the dead, and acquiring healing knowledge; Domingo’s experience fits this model closely.

While the visions superficially resemble Jesuit-promoted Christian spirituality, the underlying logic remains Indigenous, suggesting conversion at the level of imagery rather than ontology.

Domingo’s authority as a healer indicates that Indigenous religious specialists continued to operate, even as their practices absorbed Christian elements.

Zupanov - (India) Jesuit Nobili tactics

Success through society ‘worshipping themselves’ missionaries gained credibility once they could see their own indigenous practices within Christianity

Nobili developed a missionary strategy based on analogical reconstruction of Tamil “holiness’’, testing and assembling its elements to make Christianity compatible within local religious categories.

Tamil rules of purity and pollution were understood by Nobili as equivalent to the separation of social orders in both contemporary and classical Europe, rather than as irrational superstition.

On this basis, Nobili deliberately adopted Brahmanical discipline, renouncing:

polluting substances (meat, alcohol)

polluting relationships (association with low-caste groups)

He identified dissociation as the core principle of holiness in Tamil societ

withdrew into isolation in Madurai, limiting contact and engaging in meditation, 

Dressed as a Brahman hermit, employed Brahman cooks, became vegetarian, refused to be called ‘parangue’ which was the local designation for Christians

→Commensurability!! Likeness of christian to Brahmin religious facilitated conversion

SOURCE: Statue of a Child Jesus as the Good Shepherd made of Ivory, Goa, India, 17th century 

Even Christian iconography created to appeal to the familiar amongst native people 

The Christ Child as the Good Shepherd is seated above a mount from which a fountain spouts and sheep and lambs graze Carved ivory Goa, India, c.1650.

Images of Jesus as a child were introduced there by Christian missionaries, who accompanied Portuguese invaders

assumed to appeal to local Buddhist people who were accustomed to similarly seated images of the Buddha. 

 Iconography of jesus but with buddhist art form involving serene expressions and positions reminiscent of the Buddha

 Local religious art took on a more ecclectic form  Christian iconography designed to resonate with pre-existing religious habits

→ Religious syncreticism not just native practice but also implicitly practices by missionaries when trying to convert through commensurability to religion 

Metcalf - (Brazil) early Jesuit accommodation 

During early stages of conquest, can see accommodation before hardening which used more indigenous practices to win over hearts and minds

Nóbrega encouraged Jesuits to leave Portuguese settlements and actively seek out indigenous peoples

He emphasised living in indigenous villages, learning local languages, and teaching Christianity gradually rather than imposing it immediately.

Children became key "transactional go-betweens," indigenous boys were particularly receptive to Christian teaching.

By 1552, the Society of Jesus claimed to have raised and educated around two hundred orphans, providing them with an education comparable to that available in Portugal.

One Jesuit observed: "because they love musical things, we, by playing and singing among them, will win them."

When the children went from village to village in Bahia, one brother wrote, they adopted indigenous songs and instruments

"singing and playing in the way of the Indians and with their very same sounds and songs, changing the words in praise of God."

They shook rattles, beat sticks on the ground, and sang at night.

Axerod and Fuerch - (Goa) Hindu resistance 

Portuguese policy aimed at total Christianisation and the elimination of Hindu practices, yet their Hindu temples outside Portuguese control persistently undermined this goal.

local people outwardly complied with Catholic norms while quietly preserving Hindu meanings, structures, and practices underneath.

28 March 1580: King orders “no temples, no idols, no festivals”

Hindus reverting to rituals, esp Salsette and Bardez, despite conversion efforts 

1580 (viceroy’s letter): Hindus accused of setting a “bad example” for converts who allegedly returned to ‘old ways’, calling for their punishment for impeding converts

Portuguese officials overestimated their capacity to eradicate Hinduism, 

In the 1570s, following Portuguese temple destruction and conversion policies in Cunculim (old conquests),

 Hindus relocated the deity Shantadurga to Fatorpa - outside direct Portuguese control.

An annual procession reenacts the historical removal of Shantadurga from Cunculim to Fatorpa, embedding memories of Portuguese persecution into ritual practice.

→ violence alone could not eradicate indigenous practices

→Despite conversion, local people still practices superscribing and retained their religion 

Forgot - (Andean Lima) Persistence of indigenous religion despite Catholic impositon

In Magdalena parish near Lima, Indians treated themselves at home, while in remote parishes such as Pallasca, hospitals were described as “empty houses,” 

Huarochirí illustrates compromise rather than compliance: the hospital owned livestock, but patients refused admission and were treated at home using hospital income and occasional corregidor gifts.

European medicine lacked sufficient scientific authority to discredit Indigenous healing, forcing the Church to rely instead on ritual, sacrament, and demonisation.

Responsibility for healing likely fell to Indigenous specialists using native medical knowledge, continued authority of non-Christian expertise.

The Second Council of Lima allowed some native specialists to practice under diocesan licence, while others were incorporated into urban hospitals = selective accommodation.

In rural areas, healing was organised through local networks and confraternities = why inspectors perceived institutional absence despite active systems of care.

negotiation rather than imposition in practices surrounding sickness and death.

The Church’s programme linking charity, surveillance, and conversion was only fully realised in urban contexts, not the countryside.

→ despite surveillance and control could not destroy/eradicate indigenous practices 

→ limited to episcopal authority, esp within rural contexts

→ still had to win hearts and minds for successful conversion to take place 

Resistance of Nahautl people

Private, domestic, lineage-based belief systems survived with relatively little disruption

Persistence of Tlapialli,  lineage idols kept inside homes were hidden inside Christian oratories or “heavens”

Not statues for public worship but bundles of objects (gourds, stones, cloth, plants, toys)

Retained material memory of ancestors,  hard to detect, did not look like idols to missionaries so avoided confrontation with Christianity

Tlapialli were feared for their spiritual power and could not be touched or opened casually

They echoed pre-conquest tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles), but were now lineage-based rather than communa

→ public sphere vs private sphere, missionaries could not penetrate 

→ despite governance, persistence of covert native practices 

→ another example of superscribing 

Emmanuel Morais (P) limitations of conversion, divisions on methods

Portuguese Jesuit, sailed for India in 1551 - Cochin and Goa ravels  Well respected preacher chosen to go to Ceylon to preach and convert King Dharmapala 

Nominal christianity, they will convert but not conversion of the heart 'many Christians here who have never been taught to make the sign of the Cross or to recite the Our Father' and so baptisms disappointing

Despite strong religious presence e.g friars of St Francis, dismayed at the lack of religious imposition/enforcement 

Disapproving of Portuguese accusing them of disobeying the law of God and man, committing many evils 

Denounced people eating meat on Friday and Saturday, not treating Sunday as a special day and the majority not attending confession ‘sin and lewd actions openly committed’ 

→ shows that previous christian influence treated conversions as a quota but did not deeply penetrate the population, religion is christianity but the cultural ethic that comes with christianity is missing 322

→ internal division amongst friars, some believed in conversion heart and minds should show in lifestyle vs accommodatio

→ When reprimanded in confession, local people said viceroy had come with the bishop and preachers who never told them about their sins ‘come to confession in fear and trembling’ 

→ Again must remember ppl writing are elite, didactic and more stringent with their religious teaching esp if this to reveal how conversions are going 

slavery reframed as spritiual

Jesuit missionary from Spain who lived and worked in Cartagena de Indias (today Colombia), a major centre of the slave trade in the Americas

published in Spanish in 1627. 

Slavery reframed as spiritually useful: suffering on ships and in Cartagena is used to argue for urgency of baptism before death (“many barely survive long enough to receive the holy sacraments”)

“They are simple people and if there were a settlement of Christians in the Sierra, they would very soon all be Christians” (p.81). Reveals missionary optimism and paternalism.

Sandoval presents death without baptism as the true tragedy: corpses “crossed” to signify eternal damnation because no priest was called → theological framing shapes interpretation of violence (missionary bias)

Antonio Dias SJ (P) - Christinianisation affirm native power

Went to India in 1551, then Ceylon in 1552 with Fr Morais, before returning to Goa in 1553

Describes how one of the chiefs was converted - they were proud of this conversion as the chief had a considerable social standing, and they converted some of his family too

The chief became ‘Dom Duarte’ p. 332

added the appellative ‘Dom’ because they were noble - trying to convert their understanding of social status to natives

Noble woman baptised given a Christian name (Lucrecia), Portuguese godparents, and the title “Dona”, formally inserting her into a Portuguese-Christian elite network.

‘belongs to the best caste and blood of the whole country’ 

→ Reflects the prioritisation of nobility, incl attempting to convert the king, also efforts to christianise local inhabitants but this not as emphasised, more social currency in getting elites converted

→  also elites using portuguese customs to assert their elitism over the caste, reaffirms their social standing = compatible with their way of life 

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