![]() ![]() California was just one of the many “regions missions were the instrument for the extension of Spanish rule.” 4 This further proves that missions were more about expanding an empire than about spreading the teachings of the Bible. The missions were implemented as tools to expand European power, and the idea of manifest destiny was used to give moral justification to immoral actions in the service of expanding European control over land, resources, and labor. Because manifest destiny was rooted in the idea that westward expansion had been divinely ordained, colonizers were able to decimate an entire civilization without thinking of themselves as bad people. Missions were used as tools to strip indigenous nations of their sovereignty without remorse or consideration because missionaries believed that spreading the Christian religion was more important than the wellbeing and freedom of Native Americans. They were seen as incapable of self-rule because they were not Christian, even though they had their own systems of government. Manifest destiny was used to rationalize “numerous acquisitions of territory from both Indigenous nations and from countries acknowledged to be fully independent sovereign states.” 3 Manifest destiny provided a moral and religious sanction for stripping indigenous nations of their sovereignty. Manifest destiny is a 19th century term that referred to the idea “that the rules of ‘civilized’ warfare did not apply to uncivilized peoples,” which was rationalized “by invoking the ‘higher good’ of bringing civilization to new lands and peoples.” 2 Manifest destiny was used to justify westward expansion in the United States on the grounds that God intended that Christian people should spread their ideas across the entire globe. To grasp how religion has been used to justify colonialism, it is essential to understand the ideology of manifest destiny. ![]() The colonizers constructed the perception of the California missions, resulting in a legacy that does not honor, but suppresses, indigenous experiences. Justified by both religious and capitalist motives, California missions embodied a particular mode of colonialism used to deny indigenous people their sovereignty and their freedoms of movement and expression. Europeans gave themselves the power to decide who could be sovereign, and because they had more wealth, they saw themselves as morally superior to indigenous people, justifying their subjugation of the latter in large part on the basis of their religious beliefs. Native American tribes were sovereign nations for thousands of years before Europeans came to North America, but the Europeans did everything that they could to strip Native Americans of their sovereignty. Legal theorist John Austin defined the sovereign formally as “that certain member of the society, or that certain body of its members, to whose commands, expressed or intimated, the generality or bulk of its members render habitual obedience.” 1 Sovereignty is intimately related to power and privilege power-hungry nations will strive to strip other nations of sovereignty for their own gain, manipulating others into obedience by any means necessary. To be sovereign is to be independent of the authority of other governing bodies. ![]() Sovereignty, at its core, is the ability of governing bodies to make and enforce their own choices over the populations that they rule. ![]() Religion and Capitalism as Motivators for Colonial Exploitation ![]()
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