The English, like their French rivals, began their colonizing ventures in North America with a sincere interest in converting the Indians to Christianity and civilization. Nearly all the colonial charters (41) by the English monarchs in the 17th century assigned the wish to (42) the Christian Church and to redeem savage souls as a principal motive for (43) This desire was grounded in a (44) of complementary (45) about "savagism" and "civilization". The English held that the Indians were (46) of (47) . "It is not the nature of men, "they believed, "but the education of men , that makes them (48) and (49) ". Moreover, the English were confident that the Indians would want to be converted once they were exposed to the (50) quality of English life. The strength of these beliefs was reflected in Cotton Mather’s works of his astonishment in 1721.