I wrote my master's thesis on how French-Canadian religious brought social
services to the Pacific Northwest at the invitation of the Hudson's Bay
Company's Catholic employees to offset the effects of evangelizing
Protestants such as the Whitmans. It was interesting to consider the
differences between the two groups in relation to the large and settled
population of Native Americans. The Protestants required personal conversion
and change of lifestyle, usually from nomadic hunting/fishing to sedentary
farming (If the Tribe was not already sedentary). The Catholics were far
more interested that their converts attended the Sacraments and less
interested that they modify their lifestyles, except for some obvious
biggies, such as multiple wives.
Both Protestant and Catholic groups were anxious to get hold of the
offspring of Caucasian men and Native American women, based on the
centuries-old observation that the children usually followed the mother,
which meant that they would become full fledged Tribal members. It was part
of Native American foreign policy to ally their women -- high status women
too, not necessarily low status women -- with the Caucasian men for mutual
political and economic advantages. The resulting children were generally
quite accepted by the Tribes, compared to the low status such children
would have in Canadian/American society.
To return to the Middle Ages, I suspect that there may have been similar
dynamics, mutatis mutandis, in the spread of Christianity in Europe. Then
the split was, of course, not between Protestants and Catholics, but
possibly among different sects or cultures of Christianity, who would
emphasize different aspects of the new religion.
Karen Rosenstiel
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Izbicki [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, September 24, 1999 5:45 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: religious mentality and farming
>
> I have seen it suggested (and I do not recall where) that christianity had
> become an urban religion in the Roman world & did not transfer well at
> first to the countryside. I also wonder whether a (tacit) equation of
> conversion of a king with conversion of a people did not make it easy to
> sluff off the hard work of evangelizing large & scattered rural
> populations. Working at the other end of the MS, with an interest in
> Colonial Latin America, I also wonder whether baptism was equated with
> conversion - and how well did Christian concepts, esp. the Trinity,
> translated into the northern tongues at first.
>
> Tom Izbicki
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