What did spanish colonists build in the americas to convert people to catholicism?

Spanish and Portuguese conquerors built missions all throughout the newly conquered lands of the American continent, from what is now the American Southwest to Argentina. These missions were built to spread Catholicism through the indigenous conquered peoples in an effort to spread European values and systems of belief that could make communication and exploitation easier for the European settlers while carrying out the “work of god”, that is to say, the spreading of Catholic beliefs.