My dim memories of lectures on the activities of early modern
missionaries in Latin America (which I have to admit go back many years)
yielded the unchecked nugget that Jesuits and other Spanish missionaries
were in the habit of baptizing whole populations of Indians as fast as
they could in order to save them from being enslaved by the
conquistadors. The rule enforced by the Spanish crown was, I believe,
that you could enslave non-Christians captured in "just war" but not
Christians and that the conquistadors were supposed to make an effort to
convert the Indians before proceeding with said war. They got around the
whole thing by exhorting the Indians in Spanish to accept Christ and
declaring their failure to convert a cause for war. The missionaries
responded by the crude method of baptizing first and telling them about
it later. If this is right, it does not seem too far-fetched that a
French Jesuit or two might have tried the same trick in Canada to save
Indians about to be killed.
Jo Ann McNamara
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