ABSTRACT

Both as an institution and as represented by individual clergy, the Roman Catholic Church has exerted a profound influence on the development of the Atlantic World from the earliest days of transatlantic contact. The year after Columbus’s first voyage, Pope Alexander VI divided all “undiscovered” lands of the New World between the Spanish and the Portuguese. Catholic priests accompanied many early voyages and blessed the conquerors and their endeavors. Others, most famously Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas, protested European treatment of the Amerindians and questioned the moral and ethical basis of Spanish exploitation after contact quickly turned to conquest.1 On the whole, by frequently providing theological justification for conquest, exploitation, and oppression, the Catholic Church has been a major legitimating power in Latin America from the first moments of European expansion. Far from being confined to the early modern period, this influence continues to the present.