How did the conquistadors spread Christianity?

Question

How did the conquistadors spread Christianity?

Answer 1

they explained the indiand the faith of catholic religion remarking the similitudes between the indian and catholic beliefs and religious festivities.

Answer 2

Mainly at the point of a blade.

The native people were given a choice between converting and being put to death. Naturally, many of them chose to save their own lives and become Christian. One of the interesting things is that in Latin and South America, where the Indian people were forced to convert, there are still areas where they practice traditional religions alongside Christianity (mainly, it's Catholocism in those areas, as that's what the conquistadors practiced). They have a sort of hybrid type religion in many areas which incorporates Catholic teachings with older, traditional teachings. It's because they didn't want to give up what they truly believed in, but could see the wisdom of converting rather than being put to death.

The conquistadors weren't really very friendly or flexible about the whole conversion process. It was pretty harsh and ugly--it always is when a person is forced to change religions to stay alive.

Answer 3

...at the point of a sword.....convert or die...some choice hu?

Answer 4

i dunno....all i know is Juan Diego was visited by Our Blessed Mother from whence we have Our Lady Of Guadelupe.

.....dunno much about the conquisatdores.

Answer 5

While it's probably true that the conquistadores forced natives to convert or die, they were still open enough to let indians sonserve some of their old customs and beliefs as long as they weren't offensive in their views or that they could at least be "moldable" into a christian point of view.

The dance of the flyers of Papantla wouldn't exist today if the indians had told the spaniards the dance was religious. The Spaniards only allowed it because they thought it was a sort of friendly family fun event of theirs that was perfectly harmless. If you haven't seen it for yourselves, you should.

Conversion was made easier because Spaniards told the indians that their mulit-god religion in christianity friendly terms was like worshiping the Saints just as long as god, Jesus and the virgin Mary were held at a greater level of devotion. With over 400 Saints to choose to worship, it makes sense why celebrating Day of San Telesforo (or naming your kids the most hideous christian friendly names ever) is so big here. Most mexicans that are faithful worship Mary far more than Jesus.

In fact, piñatas only exist today because they were an amazingly intelligent thing invented by priests to convine indians that breaking them represented destroying the 7 deadly sins. The fruits and vegetables that were released when a piñata breaks represents the godly gift you get from destroying your sins. Classic piñatas nowadays though usually only hold 5 spikes, you'll have to see them (unless you were living in a cave or something) if you ever visit the country during the Christmas season cuse they are sold everywhere at that time of the year. Nowadays though, cartoon oriented piñatas for birthday parties kinda detour people from the original purpose of piñatas and they can be bought for less than 10 dollars anytime of the year. You can even order a custom piñata several weeks in advance too.

Not all indian tribes converted though. The Huicholes for example were almost fully immune to the religious influence of the spaniards (cept I don't know how considering the spaniards were armed and the Huicholes were not). They still conserve most of their culture intact over the past 500 years or more.

I don't say however that everything that the Spaniards didn in this sense was bad. The Aztec empire was crumbling and there was going to be a lot of bloodshed because lesser tribes wanted to unite and crush them (you'd be fed up too if someone wanted to kill one of your people every day as a living sacrifice to the gods), the opportune arrival of the Spaniards in that sense really did make the prohecy of Quetzalcoatl encarnated as Hernan Cortes to bring peace to the land come true.

Answer 6

By killing anyone who wouldnt convert, very Christian eh?

Answer 7

They swapped gold for glass beads, mirrors and Christ.....Oh, and carried big swords!