The Evil Twins - Colonial Expansion and Christian Missionary Ambitions


In 1965, John Harrison and Peter Laslett published The Library of John Locke, within which they listed 195 titles under the category of voyages and travels. Most of these describe trips to the Americas by European explorers.  Such voyages were very expensive to mount and were usually sponsored either by the monarchy or by the church in Europe.  It must be born in mind in analysing these texts that writers were interested in two main goals in relaying their descriptions of native Americans back to Europe, namely the enlargement of a kingdom or church. Thus Father Joseph D'Acosta, head of a Jesuit College and quoted by Locke in his Second Treatise, writes in his Natural and Moral History of the Indies:

The intention of this History is not only to give knowledge of what has passed at the Indies, but also to continue this knowledge, to the fruit we may gather by it, which is to help this people for their souls  health, and to glorify the Creator and Redeemer, who has drawn them from the obscure darkenes of their infidelitie and imparted unto them the admirable light of his Gospel.

Father Cristoval D'Acuna writes of a similar objective:

Such is the sum of the new discovery of this great river which excludes no one from its vast treasures, but rewards all who wish to take advantage of them...those who are most interested in this discovery, are the zealous men who seek the honour of God and the good of souls...faithful ministers of the Holy Gospel, that, by its brightness, they may dispel the shadow of death in which these miserable people have lain for so long a time...this new vineyard will always require fresh and zealous labourers to cultivate it, until it is made- entirely subject to the keys of the Roman church.

Gabriel Sagard Theodat was appointed to bring both the Church and the French Dominion to North America. M. De la Salle, a French explorer expresses most succinctly the dual nature of this voyage:

"The design of traveling from Lake Frontenac in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico through a vast unknown country is to bring the inhabitants to the knowledge of  Christian Religion, and extend the dominions of France."

Reference:

Barbara Arneil, John Locke and America: The Defence of English Colonialism, p 24-25, Oxford University Press (1996)