ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the state of Iberian Catholicism at the time of the American conquest and shows how it worked in the context of the so-called New World. Representatives of the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church took power over the Aztec Empire and began a centuries-long process of shaping New Spain. The Spanish who came to conquer and convert the Americas bore with them a particular history of religious conflict back on the Iberian Peninsula. There were major disruptions in political and economic structures, and the cosmovision of Native peoples was greatly challenged by often violent Catholic evangelization. One feature of Iberian Catholicism that would have far-reaching effects on religion as well as state formation in Latin America was a series of agreements between the Spanish monarchs and the Pope. For larger sectors of Native society, the friars used another tactic: brief instruction in the rudiments of Catholicism followed by mass baptisms.
