Catholic. In Latin America and "New France," Catholic missionaries helped to extend the European empire. There was no "separation of church and state" but there were many conflicts of interest between missionaries and their fellow countrymen, for example in the Paraguay mission. In Latin America the dominant strategy, such as used by Junipero Serra, was to gather large Native American populations into missions. There native peoples were taught Christianity and European ways with little or no differentiation between the two. In New France, missionaries such as Jean de Brébeuf used a different strategy--they disbursed themselves and adapted to Native American ways to a great degree.

Protestant. Protestants from Sweden, the Netherlands, and England tried to evangelize Native Americans in what became the United States. A common method was to learn the language, translate Bible and Catechism, and obtain tribal permission to preach. Sometimes converts were gathered into "praying villages." Leaders such as Roger Williams and William Penn sought peaceful coexistence and paid tribes rather than simply taking their lands. Time and again such work was undone when settlers took tribal lands, or in warfare failed to distinguish one tribe from another. Later, mission societies sought to evangelize on "Indian reservations." But by then war, disease and the loss of lands tended greatly to contradict the Christian message.

Orthodox. In 1794 Russia sent ten monks to evangelize Alaskans. A successful Orthodox mission was established by Ivan Venyaminov (1797-1879), a Russian missionary. After Alaska became U.S. territory in 1867, Orthodox Christianity persisted with more than 10,000 communicants among native peoples. Encroachment by new settlers did not undermine the work of the missionaries as swiftly as in other regions.

Europeans engaged in colonial settlement unwittingly transmitted diseases to native peoples. The resulting death toll among Native American tribal peoples is estimated in tens of millions. Despite such huge losses many Native Americans have become Christians. Others, though not embracing Christianity, have incorporated some Christian elements into various religious practices. Native American responses to evangelism ranged all the way from acceptance of Christianity, as in the case of Kateri Tekawitha, to rejection, as in the Pueblo revolt, with many responses in between.