"For the Spanish, there was little doubt that they were the Catholic power in the wake of Columbus's discovery and Luther's Reformation. Benefiting from finding and conquering the two richest and strongest Native American tribal empires (the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru) the Spanish were overnight awash in a sea of wealth. Rather than funding a crusade to liberate the Holy Land, however, the Spanish opted to use their riches to build up the Roman Church and their own power. This often meant fighting Protestant (and at times other Catholic) nations in both the Old and New Worlds. It also meant actively seeking to convert Native Americans by Catholic missionaries and by the sword. The empire the Spanish constructed heavily meshed the church with the state, and vice versa, with the church hierarchy handpicked by the Spanish crown, and the institutional church used to help administer the far-flung colonial holdings. But the Spanish were not alone as a colonial power for very long, nor was their model the only one crafted by European Christians in the New World. The Portuguese quickly recognized their mistake in not backing Columbus and soon landed in Brazil with the full blessing of the papacy, which arbitrated and divided the Americas between Spain and Portugal in order to avert a conflict between the two powers. By the mid-1500s, the French joined them in the Americas as well."