Racism had many consequences for the indigenous peoples of invaded lands. The various strands of Christianity fed into the colonial mindset from the last decades of the 18th century when missionaries followed the invaders. For the churches, these were their ‘civilising missions’, bringing what they thought was the best of their own culture. The literature is full of chaplains seeing their missions as bringing light to the darkness of the heathen. Many of the invaded did not see it that way, viewing the Christian churches as an attempt to denigrate their cultures and ways of life.

Racism was the ideology of European, then the US and Japanese Colonisation; the framework of ideas that justified every act that subdued populations across the world. The ideas varied over time. In 1492, racism was mixed with Catholicism, by the Spanish invaders. By the time the Reformation and the Settlement of the Calvinists into America, racism was mixed with the new religion.