North American Folk Religions

North American Indigenous traditions included the Algonquian concept of manitou, a spirit or spiritual power, and the Lakota understanding of Wakan Tanka, or Great Sacredness. Stories and oral histories carried beliefs and practices between generations.

In Spanish New Mexico, Franciscan missionaries sought to replace Pueblo worship with Christianity and forbade traditional ceremonies. Religious persecution helped provoke the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, which expelled the Spanish settlers from the province until their return in 1692.