When plans for the New World were being conformed, the Pope had plans for a unified Catholic nation and that was an order for the Friars and Leaders of the Spanish settling in the New World. 3 With this conflict came the formation of Protestants and one of the first splits, or denominations, in religion. But on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther wrote 95 thesis’s as to what was wrong with the Church and that, “to consider papal indulgences so great that they could absolve a man even if he had done the impossible and had violated the mother of God is madness”. Back then, leaders of the Catholic Church stated that payments, or indulgences for their sins can be made to absolve their sins, thus benefiting the Church and its lead members by means of currency. 2 Martin Luther was battling the status quo of Catholicism in the early 1500s. Although Spain had housed one of the widest and most influential religions, a great amount of turmoil and discrepancy was taking place simultaneously. Spain was the center of Catholicism and the Pope was a huge part of it. A first look at Spain and their motives for coming to the New World showed promise, having been the most influential and powerful nation of Europe during the time. In order to understand all the Who, What, When, Where, and Why’s of this War of Religions, we must first take a closer look at each of the New World’s potential powers leading into the 16th and 17th century individually. And these differing views lead to competition and deceit, creating the War of Religions in the New World. There were other countries involved in the settlement of the New World, including: the Netherlands, Italy, and Portugal and when separate countries are involved, so are differing religious views and methods of colonization. Countries such as Spain and France “initially aimed to find gold and to locate a North-west passage” 1(22) but motives during settlement would soon shift towards conversion of Native Indians to their birth-given religion and even the partaking of mating with these Natives. Motives for exploration would seem unclear for the first few years since there lied so many opportunities for growth in economy, population, expanding boarders, and religion as well. Every powering country during that time believed it was their right to conquer and expand their country to the South-West part of the world. One could only imagine, the chaos surrounding the opportunities that would come from this misused or uncharted land. The War of Religions I am going to be addressing takes place during the time of pre-colonization and settlement in the 1600s of the New World. The War of Religions, a term coined in this paper, was not a war of guns and arrows.
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