"The Portuguese brought Christianity and guns. My ancestors embraced both. To people living in Sakai in those days it must have seemed an intelligent choice. The harbor was crowded with European ships bristling with cannons and flying Christian banners from every spar. Also, the Jesuits liked to establish missions in poor areas, and despite the silver mines, our ancestral land was still poor. So when a mission was established there at the invitation of my great-great-grandfather, the miners and peasants embraced Christianity without hesitation. Here was a creed that preached to the poor and the meek, and they were both.