The Impact of Christianity

The French Jesuits were strange individuals with black socks carrying gifts and the promise of eternal life, which led the Hurons to mistrust them. Despite having lived in the villages of the Hurons and having learned their language, the Jesuits were not willing to live the same life as these Aborigines, rejected Indian spirituality and pressured the people to accept the teachings of a foreign religion.

The sacred figures of the Christian narrative inhabited an unimaginable and distant land instead of a territory that the tribe knew and could enter, despite the fact that the Christian God was a great spirit compatible with the beliefs of some Indians. Christian teachings were based on a book that the Indians could not read and were expressed through images, symbols and music that were foreign to them.

In any case, the missionaries managed to convert the converts. For many, Christianity was a question of economic opportunism. The furons discovered that wearing French clothes allowed them access to the leather trade. In 1610, Chief Micmac Membertu and other members of his family were baptized by the French Recolet missionaries in Port Royal, in present-day New Scotland, for the possibility of establishing an alliance with the French.

The settlers who caused these suffering were the same ones who offered Christianity as a solution to the suffering of the natives. For the Timucua of Florida, conversion was a way of reducing the exploitation of the Spanish conquerors. Similarly, the northeastern Mohawks asked for missionaries after the French destroyed their villages in a punitive incursion in 1666.

Converts were forced to reject traditional beliefs and rituals, which were the very essence of their culture and identity. To secure submission, the Puritan settlers of New England used force. In 1662, the wampanoag, who were practically slaves, were persecuted for hunting and fishing during the day of keeping, using Indian medicines, and marrying outside the Catholic Church. The Indians of Plymouth, Massachusetts, were sentenced to death for denying Christianity. The 19th-century Anglican Lego minister William Duncan urged the tsimshian of the northwest coast to destroy their own masks, clothes and other religious symbols. These acts were common. The Federal Office of Indian Affairs issued a code of religious offences in 1883 prohibiting natives' medical practices and sun dancing, among other rituals. The Canadian government banned potlatch at about the same time.

Roman Catholicism had a great influence because many of its traits had resonances known to the converts: the worship of the virgin evoked the respect they felt for Mother Earth, saints resembled Indian sacred beings, and spectacular ceremonies were a feature shared by Catholics and many Indian cultures.

Although Christianity spread among some indigenous groups, in many peoples it did not supersede traditional religion. Respect for the natural world, a fundamental feature of many native American traditions, was barely mentioned in this religion. Christianity was a foreign doctrine to most Indians because they were brought to India by people whose influence was not considered positive.