The New Latin American Mission History

The subject of missions—formal efforts at religious conversion of native peoples of the Americas by colonizing powers—is one that renders the modern student a bit uncomfortable. Where the mission enterprise was actuated by true belief it strikes the modern sensibility as fanaticism; where it sprang from territorial or economic motives it seems the rankest sort of hypocrisy. That both elements—greed and real faith—were usually present at the same time is bewildering.
 
In this book seve…