The Other(s) of Spanish America
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During the early days of the Spanish reign over its 'New World' colonies from modern-day Mexico to Argentina, the homogenising mission of the Spanish authorities faced many challenges. Namely, as Cook references, the culminating Reconquista brought peninsular antipathy toward Morisco converts and Crypto-Muslims into convergence with pervasive anxieties in the Catholic world over the growing threat of Protestant encroachment, as well as with the the proselytising project of the Spanish religious governance in conquered Indigenous lands. This meant that, despite their fundamental dissimilarities in origin, Spanish concerns about the varieties of Other in their territories drove their blending-together. Protestants and Muslims, both considered 'iconoclastic' relative to catholic orthodoxy, were grouped together and their religious practices outlawed to the extent of total criminality. In turn, this was thought of as protecting the prospects of the proselytisation of the Indigenous inhabitants of the territories, because they could potentially be lured by Muslims or Protestants into these faiths of Other.