Similarities between Spanish and English Colonization Religion: Compare and Contrast Essay

Christianity is the religion of empires central to how they function, which leads to many situations like global conflict and the rise of multiple different religious movements. The British Empire is a primarily protestant nation that would become the largest Empire in Europe with its influence spreading far out past Europe. The British Empire’s influence in their multiple colonies leads to North America primarily being a Protestant colony. The Spanish Empire was the most powerful empire at the time and they had spread their religion and beliefs throughout the colonies like New Spain. At the time, the main way religion is spread through the colonies is through different settlers from the Empires that aspire to expand Christianity in the New World. So the difference is how the Empires differ in their set of beliefs, which the British Empire is Protestant and the Spanish Empire is Catholic. Once the Empires move on to these different lands, they would either get pushback from the Natives of that land or they would push back against the Natives for not assimilating to the culture the Empires would provide. Both Empires differ in the way they treat these Natives with the English settlers being more violent and the Spanish settlers being more peaceful. Puritans are members of a group of English Protestants of the late 16th and 17th centuries who had regarded the Reformation of the Church of England under Elizabeth as not complete and had sought to simplify forms of worship that would also be regulated. Satanic is a phrase where some Natives are called for being evil or “unholy.” In New Spain, there’s a bond between the Spanish Empire and the Natives with the “Virgin of Guadalupe” which is the patron saint of what is known today as Mexico. There is a clear division between how the Catholic settlers and how the Protestant settlers view the Natives in ways like how the different settlers handle the language situation, how they were viewed by the different settlers which are seen through actions like marriage or violence, and the effect of the entire integration of its religion into Native society.

Language is a form of communication different throughout many areas because of a group of people’s culture. The Protestant Puritans, refused to respect the Native language so they attempt to forcefully integrate English into the Native culture as they viewed the Native language as savagery. There are some English settlers that attempt to spread Christianity in a peace that allows the Native's culture to flourish while Christianity could still be a major force in the region in which there were a few early colonists that thought of attempting to spread Christianity among the Native American population in which they would take their time to learn and analyze their languages. This shows the minority of the English settlers that want to integrate their beliefs peacefully disturbing none of the Native American cultures, but most of these English settlers want the Natives to speak English. While the Spanish settlers want the Natives to keep their language and their culture but to apply Christianity along with it, which leads to a decree of synthesis between Christianity and what it allowed to survive in Native culture. Unlike the Protestants who had insisted that Native Americans use English for cult and predication, Spanish Catholic missionaries privileged native languages. This shows how the Spanish settlers want to integrate Christianity in the most peaceful way possible into the Native population but would allow the Natives to keep their identity and culture which is the opposite of how the English settlers had handled the language situation in Native American society.

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The different settlers also view the Natives in a different light with the English settlers viewing them as being “Satanic” while the Spanish settlers also view them as “Satanic” people but they would marry and would want to integrate Catholicism into the Native's society as peacefully as possible. The Natives would be able to “keep” their culture with no potential violent repercussions. “Satanic” is defined as “extremely evil or wicked which is also tied to Satan.” The English settlers had thought the Satanic part of the Natives was too ingrained into the Natives to convert them. Spanish settlers had viewed the Natives as “redeemable from the influence of the devil.” The Patronato shows this through how the Spanish had promised the Pope that they would convert the Natives to Catholicism in exchange for the Pope forgoing all claims of jurisdiction over New Spain. The Spanish would also attempt to combine the cultures in ways like how “they would be very willing to strike marriage alliances with members of the local elites in contrast with the attitudes of the Protestant English colonists in North America that would resort to violence and forceful integration. This shows how the Spanish handle the Natives while also showing how the English are doing the opposite of what the Protestant English settlers are doing. The English settlers treat the Natives as lower than life and that they were sent from Satan to corrupt the world the English would state “The Indian religion was witchcraft and satanic inversion.” (Pg. 2) This is proof of why the English settlers want to massacre all the Native Americans as they are viewed as being evil. Marriage and violence are the main differences between how both of the settlers handle Natives that would not assimilate into the culture and religion of the settlers.

While both of the Native societies deal with the disease spread by the settlers which kill a lot of Natives, they differ in how the settlers would help to fix the broken societies. The English settlers do nothing to help the Native Americans that are affected by the settlers while the Catholic Spanish realized that because of the traumas of the conquest and epidemics caused by them, they must show that there were good things in the new religion that was handed to them. “Frequently, they turned their catechisms into song.” (Pg. 4) The Spanish wanted to paint Catholicism as a peaceful religion to the Natives so they would more be incentivized to adopt Catholicism. While both different settlers would handle the “Native situation” in different ways, they would both cause immense harm to the environment and the Native population overall