Education
Native Americans were among the first pupils in European schools in North America. Religious education was a tool of conquest used by all European colonizers in the New World (the European term for North and South America). Driven by "God, Gold, and Glory," the Spanish, French, Dutch, and English were determined to spread Christianity to "heathen" peoples. Yet conversion was not their only goal: they also wanted to seize land so they could exploit the rich natural resources and expand their nations' empires in North America. The Spanish and French established mission (church) schools where they converted Native Americans to Roman Catholicism and enforced European customs and traditions. (Roman Catholicism is a branch of Christianity based in Rome, Italy, and headed by a pope who has supreme authority in all church affairs.) The Dutch and the English used a similar approach, attempting to convert Native Americans to various Protestant beliefs. (Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that formed in opposition to Catholicism; it consists of many denominations, or separate organized churches.)
Franciscans in Spanish Borderlands
In the 1590s the Spanish occupied La Florida (present-day Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina) and the Southwest (present-day New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas), areas called the borderlands.
