These historical sites comprise a series of religious outposts established by Catholic Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans among others, across Texas, during the Spanish colonial era. These spaces were meant to be centers of religious instruction, mainly to forcibly convert Native American people into faithful subjects and adherents of the Catholic doctrine across North America, which included all spaces that today constitute the Lone Star State. While the mission system and its politics did not survive past the Colonial era, the mission buildings and structures themselves withstood time and climate and stand as a reminder of Texas's richly diverse, yet complex past.