Spain not only aimed at dominion, but conceived as well a broadly humane policy toward the Indian. It was in Spanish America chiefly that the Indians were preserved. Elsewhere they have mostly disappeared. Spain aimed to convert, protect, civilize, and exploit the natives. In the early days of the conquest their welfare was entrusted largely to _encomenderos_ (trustees), who were charged with the care and exploitation of the natives within large areas. The grants were called _encomiendas_. But Mexico was a long distance from Spain. The _encomenderos_, beyond the reach of the royal arm, fixed their attention too much on profit and too little on their obligations to convert, protect, and civilize the natives. Having abused their power, they became discredited. As the frontier advanced to distant outposts, more and more the _encomendero_ was supplanted by the missionary. By this means more emphasis was placed on conversion and civilization, and less on exploitation. The missions therefore became agencies of both State and Church. Since they served the State, they received State support. Each mission became not only a church and monastery, but a school of discipline in which the rudiments of European civilization were taught. The missions were usually provided with great enclosures, well defended by high walls against forays of hostile Indians, and the discipline therein enforced was an essential element in the Spanish policy. Even on a barren mesa-top like Ácoma there is evidence of a monastic settlement of considerable extent connected with the church, where the inhabitants of that pueblo received daily instruction of some kind from the padres. Not merely as teachers and preachers were the missionaries useful. They served also as diplomats to win the Indians to Spain, as explorers to spy out the land, and as reporters to make known the needs of the frontiers. There are no more heroic annals in the world than those which tell of the experience many brave and ardent priests underwent. The Conquistadores were brilliant soldiers, but their story would be incomplete if beside them had not walked these brown-habited Franciscans, who burned with zeal to save the souls of the invaded country, and stayed on after the soldiers had departed, to pursue their selfless task, coveting martyrdom as their only personal reward.