World Religions › Early modern
Global Christian missions and empire
1500s – 1900s· Event· Judaism, Christianity & Islam
Historical recordConfirmed by archaeology, outside sources or contemporary records.
Christianity's spread worldwide from the 1500s to the 1900s, often traveling with European empires and trade.
See it on the World Religions map →What it is
Spanish and Portuguese conquest brought Franciscan, Dominican and Jesuit missionaries to the Americas, Africa and Asia; Francis Xavier reached Japan in 1549 and Matteo Ricci China in 1582. Baptisms were sometimes coerced and native religions suppressed, though some missionaries, like Bartolomé de las Casas, defended native peoples. Protestant missions surged from the 1790s, reaching India, China, Korea and Africa, often building schools and hospitals. By 1900 Christians lived on every continent, though most were still in Europe and the Americas.
Why it matters
It made Christianity a global faith, today about 2.3 billion people, most now outside Europe; its ties to colonialism remain painful and debated.
Sources and history
Missionary letters and reports, such as the Jesuit Relations; colonial records; baptism registers; mission schools and churches still standing; and historical estimates of church membership.
Questions and debates
Historians debate how far missions served empire or resisted it, and how much converts reshaped Christianity on their own terms.
Inside this (1)
Connections (6)
▸Indigenous religions of the Americas (Maya, Aztec, Inca) were largely suppressed by Global Christian missions and empireHistorical record
The connection
Spanish conquest brought missionaries who saw native gods as demonic. Temples were torn down and churches built on top, as at Cholula and Cuzco. Priests burned Maya books, and campaigns to 'extirpate idolatry' swept Peru. Yet indigenous beliefs survived, often blended with Catholic saints and festivals, as in Andean devotion to the earth mother Pachamama.
When and where
Mexico from 1519 and Peru from 1532 onward; Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits; Bishop Diego de Landa burned Maya codices at Maní, Yucatán, in 1562.
Historical evidence
Missionaries' own reports, such as Landa's and Sahagún's; church trial records; churches standing on temple foundations; and the survival of only four Maya books.
Questions and debates
How much indigenous religion survived beneath Catholic forms, and whether blending was resistance or genuine conversion, is debated by historians and anthropologists.
▸Roman Catholic Church and the papacy led early Global Christian missions and empireHistorical record
The connection
Papal bulls of 1493 divided newly reached lands between Spain and Portugal, refined by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas; later bulls gave their crowns control of church appointments there in return for spreading the faith. Catholic orders, especially Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits, led the first wave of missions. From 1622 Rome's Propaganda Fide office coordinated missions directly.
When and where
From 1493 onward; Pope Alexander VI; the Jesuits, founded 1540; missions from Mexico and Peru to Goa, Japan and the Philippines.
Historical evidence
Papal bulls such as Inter caetera; mission archives in Rome; Jesuit letters; and baptism records across the Spanish and Portuguese empires.
Questions and debates
Historians debate how far the church restrained colonial abuses versus justified them; the Vatican formally repudiated the 'Doctrine of Discovery' in 2023.
▸Council of Trent and the Catholic Reformation energized Global Christian missions and empireMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Trent's renewal energized the Catholic orders that led missions overseas, above all the Jesuits, founded in 1540, just before the council opened. Its catechism gave missionaries a standard creed to teach and translate. Missions in Asia and the Americas expanded, partly framed as winning new souls to replace those 'lost' to Protestantism in Europe.
When and where
From the 1540s; Jesuits Francis Xavier in India and Japan and Matteo Ricci in China; Franciscans and Dominicans in the Americas.
How do we know?
Missionary letters, catechisms translated into Asian and American languages, and Jesuit records; the direct causal link to Trent is a scholarly interpretation.
Questions and debates
Historians debate how much missions grew from Trent itself versus Spanish and Portuguese empire and older orders; the 'replacing lost souls' motive is partly rhetoric.
▸Global Christian missions and empire laid the ground for Christianity in KoreaHistorical record
The connection
Korea's first Christians learned the faith from books produced by the Jesuit mission in China, such as Matteo Ricci's The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, which Korean envoys brought home from Beijing. In 1784 Yi Seung-hun was baptized there and returned to start a lay-led church. A Chinese priest came secretly in 1795, and French priests from 1836.
When and where
Beijing and Seoul: Southerner (Namin) scholars studied Catholic books in the 1770s, Yi Seung-hun was baptized in 1784, and the Paris Foreign Missions Society arrived in 1836.
Historical evidence
Korean Catholic records, Jesuit books preserved in Korea, Chinese and French mission records, and Joseon trial records naming these books.
Questions and debates
Korea is unusual: lay readers started the church before any missionary arrived. Historians debate why Catholic ideas appealed to Confucian scholars.
▸Global Christian missions and empire planted churches leading to Christianity's shift to the Global SouthMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Nineteenth- and 20th-century missions founded churches, schools and hospitals across Africa, Asia and Latin America and translated the Bible into hundreds of local languages. But the steepest growth came after independence in the 1960s, under African and Asian leaders and independent churches, as converts made Christianity their own.
When and where
Africa, Asia and Latin America, 1800s–today; the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference; growth surging in Africa after about 1960.
How do we know?
Church membership statistics, censuses, and historians Andrew Walls and Lamin Sanneh, whose 'Translating the Message' (1989) traced the role of local languages.
Questions and debates
Scholars debate how much growth came from missionaries versus local evangelists and independent churches, and how far missions were tied to colonial power.
▸Hindu reform movements (Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj) answered the challenge of Global Christian missions and empireMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Christian missionaries in Bengal, such as the Baptists at Danish-ruled Serampore near Calcutta, attacked image worship, caste and sati, and won converts through schools. Reformers answered in two ways: Ram Mohan Roy's Brahmo Samaj accepted much of the critique but grounded reform in the Upanishads, while Dayananda's Arya Samaj pushed back, reconverting Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.
When and where
Bengal from the 1810s–20s, where Roy debated the Serampore missionaries; Bombay in 1875, then Punjab and northern India, for the Arya Samaj.
How do we know?
Roy's The Precepts of Jesus (1820) and his published debates with missionaries, Arya Samaj pamphlets and reconversion (shuddhi) campaigns, and mission reports.
Questions and debates
Scholars debate whether reform was mainly a reaction to Christianity and colonialism or a continuation of older Indian reform impulses.