Missionaries: From Alaska to Patagonia
Faith, power, and indigenous resistance across 500 years and two continents. From Russian Orthodox priests in Alaska to Anglicans in Tierra del Fuego — ten episodes on how missions reshaped the Americas, and how indigenous nations resisted, adapted, and survived them. Narrated by AI voices from sourced, human-reviewed research.
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Episodes
How Alaska Natives Turned Missionary Assimilation Against Itself
In 1880 a handful of Protestant leaders met in New York and divided the entire territory of Alaska into denominational "spheres of influence" — then ran federally funded schools to erase Native languages and ceremonies.
A Race for Souls: How Two Churches Divided the Canadian Arctic
There was no treaty for the Canadian Arctic — there was a race.
How Indigenous People Resisted the Spanish Missions — Pueblo Revolt to Serra
Spain conquered the Southwest and California not mainly with soldiers but with friars — gathering Native people into missions that were church, farm, factory, and, for many, prison.
Black Robes and Praying Towns: Two Ways to Convert a People Who Outnumbered You
In the 17th-century Eastern Woodlands, the French and English were badly outnumbered by powerful Native nations — so they made two opposite bets.
The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: Friars, the Inquisition, and Our Lady of Guadalupe
After Cortés destroyed the Aztec empire in 1521, twelve barefoot friars set out to convert millions — fast, because they believed it would trigger the end of the world.
Andean Resistance and the War on "Idolatry": Missions in the Inca World
In the Andes the Spanish didn't find scattered villages but the devout remnant of an empire — and discovered, decades after declaring the people Christian, that they had been secretly feeding their mummified ancestors in mountain caves the whole time.
The 500-Year Crusade for Amazonian Souls: Jesuits, Pombal, and the Uncontacted
In Brazil the cross and the slaver's net arrived together.
How the Guaraní Fought Two Empires: The Jesuit Reductions and the Guaraní War
Deep in the forests between the Spanish and Portuguese empires, the Guaraní and the Jesuits built something no other people in the Americas managed: an armed, literate, self-governing republic of some thirty cities, with its own communal economy and its own army — an army that in 1641 wiped out a Portuguese slaving expedition and held the frontier for a century.
Indigenous Survival in Tierra del Fuego: Missions, Genocide, and the Refusal of Extinction
At the frozen tip of the Americas, the spiritual conquest reached its coldest and bleakest end.
The Cold War Battle for Latin Souls: Liberation Theology, Evangelicals, and the CIA
For four centuries the question in Latin America was which church would convert the Indigenous.