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Latin America is the collective term for the nations of Middle and South America and the Caribbean, in most of which Romance languages are spoken. The area has been the lively scene of interaction between religion and politics since the Spanish (1492) and Portuguese (1500) conquests. Under royal patronage (patronato real), the Roman Catholic Church was subordinate to the state. Church officials, priests, and influential laity lobbied colonial administrators for allocation of land and other resources and argued over many general or local issues. During the first century of colonial rule, clerics were exceptionally active in politics, attempting to influence government administrators as they established colonial policies. Bishops and priests stood for or against government practices, carrying prolonged appeals to Spain to legal bodies there or to the king. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Anton de Montecinos, and many others defended indigenous rights heroically.