Early Colonial New Spain Summary

After the fall of Tenochtitlan, improper conversions, as mentioned above, were a common occurrence in early colonial New Spain. The reason for this being that the Spaniards believed that the natives were incapable of understanding the religion of Catholicism, so they instead tried to force it on them or just baptize them even when the religion’s practices and beliefs were not explained as well as they should have been. Other times, the natives were punished for their past practices of their religious traditions or for the continuation of carrying out these practices after the arrival of the Spaniards. A prime example of another person whom also supported my belief is the late Bishop of Chiapa Bartolome de Las Casas. In his book, originally …show more content…
Also, if this was the case the unbelieving natives could technically still worship these idols but would have to follow Spanish regulations to do so.
Fourthly, native unbelievers “are not subject to the church or its competence and, therefore… idolaters cannot be punished by the church” because they “live outside her district and territory (de Las Casas 1992, 79).” In other words, the natives cannot be punished by the church because they were not under control of the church because they lived “outside her district and territory (de Las Casas 1992, 79).” With that being said, “the punishment of crimes committed by pagans or idolaters is reserved to divine judgement” meaning that “this punishment does not belong to the Church (de Las Casas 1992,