The instinctive response was to accommodate them to the modern world. Missionaries particularly were concerned to teach them the true faith, along with Western dress codes and some of the skills necessary for modern life. They were to be assimilated. It turned out that this was difficult. Many did not respond because, we might suggest, tribal life is closely regulated by custom, and therefore lacks the individual springs of action necessary in modern life.
Custom is all.
These are not differences that will respond to a little education in Western ways. Not all indigenous peoples have had quite the same experience. Maori, for example, as an aggressive and energetic set of people, took to Christianity so successfully that they were soon creating their own heresies, and exhibited considerable trading initiative. The Aborigines, by contrast, often seemed lost in their dream world. In both cases, however, conquest, disease and cultural disparities took their toll, leading to rapid decline.