Austin: University of Texas Press As most of the indigenous people had been Christianized during the first wave of mendicant friars, the clerics who arrived later took more interest in providing for the spiritual needs of wealthy Spanish settlers, many of whom in turn bequeathed their worldly goods to the Church. The Crown saw the intendants as a check on these other officers. The difficult topography around the port affected local development and New Spain as a whole. Burkholder, Mark A. Initially, the missionaries hoped to create a large body of Amerindian priests, but this did not come to be. He attracted a large band of Indian followers as he made his way into New Mexico and back to Mexico, where the Indians were enslaved.