Missionary Church

Missionary Church

http://www.mcguinnessonline.com/costarica/images/ujarras.jpg

post 1600

http://www.mcguinnessonline.com/costarica/images/ujarras.jpg

Coming into entirely new lands and encountering new peoples, the Spanish and Portuguese were faced with a problem. Additionally, bringing slaves into these same new lands brought three groups of people together who had never interacted before. The unique culture that emerged from this combination was largely facilitated and controlled by the colonizers by extensive use of the church through missions. Needing its subjects to have the same Catholic values that Iberians had, missions were often the first in new areas and readied the people for further colonization. The social hierarchy and respect to property and ownership were all values that needed to be instilled upon the laboring populations of indigenous peoples and African slaves. Missionaries expanded the ideas of the empires before the arrival of more exploitable groups, and readied the population for control by a new entity.

While not necessarily seeing themselves as re-socializing peoples, the missions largely saw themselves as spreading the true faith by converting those with polytheistic religion. With legitimacy determined by God, and kings chosen to rule by him alone, monarchs were intimately tied with Rome. The Catholic Church legitimized the conquest of the Americas, and in return wanted the conquered peoples to be converted to the Catholic faith. The Spanish and Portuguese crowns carried out the wishes of the Church, and quickly utilized one another for each other’s benefit. The Church gained more followers, and as a result increased its wealth, and as colonization continued exploitation increased. As a sign of how life was changing, in 1612 “…An Indian elder told French colonizers in Maranháo… ‘The Portuguese sent for their priests, who came and put up crosses and began to teach our people and baptize them. Later, the Portuguese said that neither they nor their priests could live without slaves to serve and work for them” (541). The missions came to embody the emerging culture they wanted to see.

Missions also became places of administrative power. The missions held land, and made profit off the fruits of it. At times competing with settlers for the indigenous work force, missionaries attempted to establish themselves as a dominant economic in their respected region. Missions operated differently in the case of our church, Bom Jesus dos Mastinhos. Located in the heavy mining area of Minas Gerais, these areas were controlled by secular clergy. Regulatoin over gold and other minerals was of too much importance to the Portuguese crown to be interfered with by the Church. With secular clergy appointed by the crown, they were loyal to the king rather than to the pope. In fact, missionaries were banned from coming into Minas in 1711 (548).

Missionaries, while spreading the faith, were also large socializing and wealth seeking institutions. With numerous sects, including Jesuits, Carmelites and Franciscans, the wealth gained by these groups cannot be ignored. They created “…Their own sources of income in the shape of farms, plantations, cattle ranches, sugar mills and slaves, often obtained through donation, inheritance, or the promises of the faithful”…and “The clergy devoted themselves, to a large degree, to money matters” (549). A look at the Catholic Church through this lens, with the crown competing against religion, shows missionaries, while converting the people, were perhaps not doing all this work simply in the name of God.