America, in its entirity, was a Catholic Colony of Spain for well over a century. Then a small enclave was carved out for Protestants. Although Philippe III didn't become less Catholic, he became more realistic than his father ~ and thought Peace worth more than controlling how Protestants said their prayers ~ in fact, he had more than the Dutch to worry about since the Hapsburg empire encompassed more than few Protestant areas.
I think the two things Catholics should beware of is discounting the influence of Catholicism in the settlement of America. And, in discounting the influence of Protestant theories of religious tolerance in making it possible for Catholics to live inside the King of Spain's Protestant zone of control.
Today religious tolerance is expected throughout the Americas ~ it existed in only one small place in 1604.
Just got to this thread, and i wanted to thank you for so much interesting information here and elsewhere, and your objective tone.
We tend to be guilty of judging the forefathers anachronistically.
But despite the conflicts, America is an anomaly among the nations, and insomuch as the power of the evangelical gospel that worked to bring souls to be controlled from within then they needed not be controlled from without, and the opposite is increasingly the case today.