Recollect and Jesuit missionaries were very much the same, in the sense that both orders sought to Christianize natives, while at the same time using similar methodologies. Within the Recollect theory of conversion, the French settlers in New France played a primordial role in the Christianization of indigenous peoples. They believed that colonization and evangelization were inseparable. On the contrary, the Jesuits held their evangelization efforts completely separate from their involvement in the French colony. The Recollects never neglected the French settlers in favour of devoting themselves entirely to the conversion of natives. French settlers were seen by the Recollects as the key to creating their ideal society; they wished to promote French-Native intermarriage, in the hopes of eventually building a larger Christian settlement. In practice, however, the native populations encountered by the Recollects had no intentions on settling permanently in the French colony. This led the missionaries to instead travel alongside indigenous communities in the hopes of teaching them about the Catholic faith, much like their Jesuit counterparts.
