Why have you come here?
Subtitle: the Jesuits and the first evangelization of native America
By: Nicholas P. Cushner.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 255
ISBN-13: 9780195308013
Subjects: Jesuits -- Missions -- North America -- History
Description: "Christian evangelism was the ostensible motive for much of the early European interaction with the indigenous population of America. The religious orders of the Catholic Church were the front-line representatives of Western culture and the ones who met indigenous America face-to-face. They were also the primary agents of religious change. In this book, Nicholas Cushner provides the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the American missionary activities of the Jesuits. From the North American encounter with the Indians of Florida in 1565, through Mexico, New France, the Paraguay Reductions, Andean Perus, to contact with Native Americans in Maryland on the eve of the American Revolution, members of the order interacted with both native elites and colonizers. Drawing on the abundant documentation of and scholarship about these encounters, Cushner examines how the Jesuits behaved toward the indigenous population and analyzes the way in which native belief systems were replaced by Christianity. He seeks to understand how and why the initial European-Indian encounter changed not only the religion of the natives, but also their material culture, economic activity, social organization, and even their sexual behavior. Always sensitive to the influence of European 'cultural filters' on Jesuit accounts, Cushner attempts as far as possible to discover the authentic voices of the Native Americans with whom they interacted. The result is a fascinating and highly accessible introduction to the earliest colonial encounters in the Americas"--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Worlds meet; title: Native America; title: The European world; title: Why they went; title: Church and state; title: La florida; title: Message and response; title: Europeans and Indians; title: The four rivers of Sinaloa; title: Sinaloa and Sonora; title: The mission : organization and methods; title: Baptism and epidemics; title: Fair with occasional showers; title: Attitudes : Indian and European; title: The formality of religion; title: Conversions : sincere or fake?; title: "Conquest, pacification, and conversion"; title: The uprooting of idolatry; title: Juli :́ utopia or theocracy; title: Xulí of the Andes; title: Socio-religious structures; title: Doctrina Christiana; title: "The devil has persuaded them"; title: Isolation and indoctrination; title: The Guaraní; title: Beginnings; title: "Men of one day"; title: Why the European came; title: "Arma mágica"; title: The kingdom of God on earth; title: Tea and cattle; title: From folkways to heresy; title: Art, architecture, and theatre; title: Old forms in new settings; title: Houses of God; title: The great estates; title: "Palaces in the desert"; title: Jesuit theatre; title: The beaver and the Fleur de Lis; title: The land between the lakes; title: Politics, culture, and religion; title: Message and response; title: Legacies; title: Go left at the Gila River; title: Maryland : "a fine, poor man's country"; title: St. Mary's City, 1634; title: Jesuits and Indians; title: Politics and religion; title: Farms and manors; title: Maryland missionaries; title: Retrospective.