ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Latin America about the difficulties in learning about or understanding indigenous patterns apply even more strongly to the North American situation. It also focuses on three areas: French North America, New England, and the southern colonies and on three types of religious institutions: Catholicism, Puritanism, and Anglicanism, all of which operated in close cooperation with secular authorities. The policy of Fransication included intermarriage between French men and indigenous women, for the French hoped that such marriages would help the fur trade and strengthen ties between French and Native American communities and families. The number of converts in French North America grew during the seventeenth century, as conversion generally cut one off from the family and kin networks that were essential to survival; many of the early converts were war-captives, already separated from their home people. Christianity in French North America was shaped by changing government policy about how best to increase the colony's population and strength.
