Colonial Latin America Chapter 13 Analysis

In Colonial Latin America, the conversion of indigenous people to Catholicism took off in 1493. Catholicism was the religion of choice because the Europeans conquering Latin America were from the parts of Europe that practiced Catholicism such as Spain, Belgium and Portugal. The rise of Catholicism would enter England as well with Queen Mary’s reign from 1553-1558. However, Spain had a larger role in sending missionaries to Colonial Latin America than England. England is referenced to provide prospective of the Catholic Church’s reach in the late 1400s-1500s. Catholicism was expanding across the world. At this time many natives already had religious and cultural practices of their own that involved cannibalism, Indian style music and other unorthodox practices that
This mantra would initially lead a small band of six Jesuits to the shores of Salvador on the Bay of All Saints in 1549 alongside the first Portuguese Governor of Brazil. In the Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History, the focus of Chapter 13 is a series of letters that documents the struggles that the Jesuits faced in converting Tupi Indians to Catholicism. Also the chapter highlights the controversy of unorthodox practices that are used for conversion in Colonial Latin America, and the questionable means used to sustain a Jesuit Society and Catholic infrastructures, both physically and spiritually,. From the surface controversy can be attributed to the Jesuits pushing against the Eurocentric ideas of what conversion practices should be like in Colonial Latin America in comparison to conversion practices on the Iberian Peninsula. However, the Jesuits were not opposing the way that the Catholic Church functioned on the Iberian Peninsula, instead the Jesuits were having to adapt by necessity to the environment, culture and practices in Colonial Latin America and specifically in