Missionaries

Feed with the right, beat with the left
The missionary plays an extremely important role in European christendom and in European history. Missions that sought to extract natural resources and exploit slave labor were often post-justified as methods to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Sometimes imperialism and this religion were described as separate aspects of the culture, such as when Christianity was preached to the enslaved Africans who were captured by European raiders, traders and slavers, and some times it was preached as the cure for the cruelties of the Imperial adventure in the case of Bartolomeo de las Casas, the founder of modern human rights. One cannot understand the enormous progress of European society except by looking at its incredible barbarism. Just as the French Revolution and its ideals were an extreme reaction to the excess of the nobles of France, so were de la Casas’ ideals a reaction to the horror of European rule. The church often though functioned merely as an extension to the oppression of the regimes - helping to put a friendly face on the institutions that were oppressing the native peoples while offering a pittance of a salve. This example is most marked in the Americas where Christianity is extremely popular among the population of formerly enslaved peoples (most of whose ancestors were abducted from Africa) and formerly conquered peoples (erroneously often called Indians). While the slave master beat, raped and punished the poor souls during the day, the priest would come to read the story of Jesus at night and reinforce this idea that suffering brings one close to godliness, rather than that suffering is something humanity must attempt to understand and overcome. Similarly, the descendants of the natives, who often make up the service caste and often speak their own language