Conquistadors decimating the Inca Empire

For this Sunday, we will go over Chapter 19: A Worldwide Faith (1500 – 1800).

Rather depressing (don’t know if that’s the right word) chapter to read personally, especially the brutal treatment of the native populations in the Americas and the slave trade in Africa.

Please write a summary or essay on one of the following:

1. What was the Catholic Church’s involvement and stance of the early Western conquests and missionary work?  For instance, how did Pope Julius II’s Patronato, which gave the Spanish Empire exclusive rights to preach the Gospel in new territories, as well as conquistadors who saw themselves as part of the Reconquista or part of the crusade in Europe to destroy Spanish Islam and Judaism, play as a factor in the treatment of the native population in the Americas?
2. Explain the efforts of some Dominicans and Franciscans who protested against the brutal treatments of the natives.  How did the ideas of the Franciscan Bartolome de las Casas lead directly to the enslavement of Africans and their coming to the Americas?
3. Discuss how exclusive attitudes of Christian monopoly culture when dealing with the native culture and religions changed the landscape of the Americas.  How did the apocalyptic End Time beliefs of the Iberian Franciscans factor into their missionary work?  Describe how Christianity in the Americas evolved to become of mixture of native culture and Western Christianity.
4. Describe the missions to Asia by the Jesuit Francis Xavier in 1542.  How were their attitude and approach unlike the Iberian missions to the Americas?  What were some tactics Jesuits used to reach out to the Chinese population who were antagonistic to Western culture and religion?
5. Explain the reasons why Christian missions to Japan failed for the most part.
6. Discuss the Church’s involvement with the African slave trade. Was the Catholic Church for or against the slave trade?  Did their attitudes change later on?
7. Explain how native African beliefs mixed with Catholicism to form syncretistic variations like voodoo in French Haiti, Candomble in Brazil, and the Santeria of Cuba.

Please submit you writings by Saturday, June 28.