Roman Catholics

Sources

Spanish. The Catholic Church and the Spanish state were a team in the early exploration and settlement of America; conquest and conversion were assumed to go together. The Pope had granted such ecclesiastical power to the Spanish monarchs that they became virtually vice popes, and their religious fervor prompted them to evangelize and promote the church throughout their empire. The major Spanish settlements, however, were south of the present-day boundaries of the United States, although they did maintain footholds around Florida and in the Southwest. San Miguel in Virginia did not long survive its founding in 1526, but its chapel remained. Saint Augustine, Florida, prospered after its founding in 1565. Jesuits and Franciscans established missions, hospitals, and convents. By 1634 there were thirty-four Franciscan friars maintaining forty-four missions and ministering to over twenty-five thousand Native American converts within the present boundaries of the United States. In the Southwest the Spanish ventured into New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas after 1598 and slowly established missions whose existence was made precarious because of Indian hostility, jurisdictional conflicts within the church, and political intrigues in Spain which necessarily involved the church. Also, many missionaries refused to learn the language of the Indians and demanded that they abandon their traditional ways and adhere to the Spanish culture. They gathered their converts into missions, assigning their work and controlling their lives in a system that often approximated slavery. Especially in the borderlands, missions took on the militaristic characteristics of frontier forts. Because it embarked on an empire a full century before other countries, Spain transmitted a religion and culture that was more medieval in flavor, having been little affected by the Renaissance, Reformation, or commercial expansion.

French. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century shattered the unity of Christendom and ushered in religious wars in France that impeded her efforts at colonization in the New World. When the dust settled in the early seventeenth century, French Catholicism underwent a resurgence of piety and the growth of old, and founding of new, orders dedicated to purifying the French church. In this new France the faith and institutions of the Roman church gained a centrality and importance that was equaled in no other country. This coincided with a renewed search for empire and the prominence of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, in making religion an integral part of this venture. The first Jesuit priests arrived in Canada in 1625 and, although most of their efforts were directed at settlers and Native Americans there, they spread out among the Iroquois and Hurons in the Great Lakes region. Some, such as Father Jacques Marquette, became explorers themselves. Unfortunately, when they ventured into the boundaries of the present-day United States and encountered the hostile English and Spanish, trade and military considerations often took precedence over religious objectives. This situation, plus the resistance of the Native Americans toward the adoption of European culture as a price for conversion, led the Jesuits in 1647 to relax their requirements for baptism, become more tolerant of traditional practices, and adopt stances admired in the native culture. Jesuits displayed oratorical skills, generosity with possessions, moral integrity, and patient suffering of adversity—all characteristics which the Indians admired. They also played on their ability to predict natural phenomena, such as eclipses, and on their ability to read and write, which seemed magical to members of an oral culture. They substituted religious icons for traditional charms, ascribing to a crucifix the power of healing simple diseases and flinging sulfur into campfires to illustrate their supernatural powers. Their effect on the religious beliefs of outlying tribes was questionable, but they left a legacy oí piety and Christian commitment among French settlers in Canada and the northern boundaries of the United States.

English. Roman Catholics provided the foundation on which Maryland was founded and formed enclaves in New York, Pennsylvania, and other tolerant colonies, where they often were denied political rights. Charles I granted the Catholic Calvert family the proprietorship over Maryland in 1632 to settle debts, allow the persecuted Catholic population an outlet, and conciliate the European powers of the Counter-Reformation. Lord Baltimore instructed his governors to give Protestants no offense and advised Catholics to worship privately. Such toleration of other denominations was the only way that Catholics enjoyed any rights at all. A church building was immediately erected in Saint Mary’s, the first settlement, in 1634, and within five years at least four other parishes had been erected. For the first decade the conduct of church affairs was in the hands of Jesuit priests, who converted both Protestants and Native Americans. However, their success antagonized the growing numbers

of Protestant setters, and the Calverts quietly began to limit their activities and invite the ministrations of other orders. The Catholic-dominated assembly passed an Act Concerning Religion in 1649 putting the long-practiced policy of toleration into precise and legal terms. Even though a Protestant Association arose during the Glorious Revolution and held power until 1691 when Maryland became a royal province, the colony reverted to the Calverts in 1715, by which time they had returned to the Anglican fold. Nevertheless, they maintained their earlier policy of toleration, and the small core of Catholics continued to attract priests and practice their faith in the face of Protestant threats. They were a landed and moderately wealthy group and enjoyed sufficient social prestige to sustain the work and worship of their church.

Sources

W. J. Eccles, France in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1972);

John Tracy Ellis, Catholics in Colonial America (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1965);

Colin M. MacLachlan, Spain’s Empire in the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).