Editing Christianization (section)

=== Spanish and Portuguese India, Mexico, the Americas, and the Philippines ===
{{See also|Christianization of Goa}}
Portugal practiced extractive colonialism, and was the first to get involved in the pre-existing slave trade.{{sfn|Cheng|1999|p=205}}{{sfn|Morgan|2007|p=3}} Historian [[Kenneth O. Morgan|Kenneth Morgan]] writes that, "the Portuguese and the Spanish dominated the early phase of transatlantic slavery".{{sfn|Morgan|2007|p=2}}
[[File:Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Calle 69 n53 -Av.6, Venustiano Carranza, Federal District, Mexico08.jpg|thumb|Evangelization of Mexico|alt=photo of painting depicting monks baptizing Mexicans one at a time]]
[[File:Meirelles-primeiramissa2.jpg|thumb|''"First Mass in Brazil"''. painting by [[Victor Meirelles]]|alt=photo of painting by Victor Meirelles depicting the first mass given in Brazil]]
Under Spanish and Portuguese rule, creating a [[Commonwealth Theology|Christian Commonwealth]] was the goal of missions. This included a significant role, from the beginning of colonial rule, played by Catholic missionaries.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=218}}

Early attempts at Christianization in India were not very successful, and those who had been converted were not well instructed. In the church's view, this led them into "errors and misunderstandings" that were often defined as heresy.{{sfn|Paiva|2017|pp=568, 585}} In December 1560, the state controlled [[Portuguese Inquisition]] arrived in [[Goa|Goa, India]].{{sfn|Paiva|2017|p=566}} This was largely the result of the crown's fear that converted Jews were becoming dominant in Goa and might ally with [[History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Jews]] to threaten Portuguese control of the [[spice trade]].{{sfn|Paiva|2017|pp=567–568}} After 1561, the Inquisition had a practical monopoly over heresy, and its "policy of terror ... was reflected in the approximately 15,000 trials which took place between 1561 and 1812, involving more than 200 death sentences".{{sfn|Paiva|2017|pp=588, 591}}

Spanish missionaries are generally credited with championing efforts to initiate protective laws for the Indians and for working against their enslavement.{{sfn|Woods|2012|p=135}} This led to debate on the nature of [[human rights]].{{sfn|Spliesgart|2007|p=287}} In 16th-century Spain, the issue resulted in a crisis of conscience and the birth of modern [[international law]].{{sfn|Woods|2012|p=137}}{{sfn|Johansen|2005|pp=109–110}} [[Jesuits|Jesuit]] opposition to the enslavement of native Amerindians inadvertently contributed to the proliferation of black African slaves in their place.{{sfn|Morgan|2007|pp=3-4}}

In words of outrage, [[Junipero Serra]] wrote of the depredations of the soldiers against Indian women in California in 1770.{{sfn|Castañeda|1993|p=15}} Following through on missionary complaints, [[Antonio María de Bucareli|Viceroy Bucareli]]  drew up the first regulatory code of California, the ''Echeveste Regulations.''{{sfn|Castañeda|1993|p=19}} Missionary opposition and military prosecution failed to protect the Amerindian women.{{sfn|Castañeda|1993|pp=23–26}} On the one hand, California missionaries sought to protect the Amerindians from exploitation by the conquistadores, the ordinary soldiers and the colonists. On the other hand, Jesuits, [[Franciscans]] and other orders relied on [[corporal punishment]] and an institutionalized [[racialism]] for training the "untamed savages".{{sfn|Castañeda|1993|pp=28–29}}