After their conquest of the Aztec Empire in the sixteenth century, the Spanish slowly expanded north. They conquered northern New Mexico by the end of the seventeenth century. While Spanish control over New Mexico was always tenuous, the Spanish authorities were relentless in their goal of subjugating the inhabitants of the region. Spanish soldiers and missionaries forced the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico to abandon their religious practices, adopt Christianity, and pay tributes to Spanish colonial authorities. Over the course of just a few generations, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico watched as their kivas, their traditional centers of worship, were destroyed by Spanish colonial authorities. The Spanish colonial authorities of the region, aided by Catholic missionaries, were unyielding in their efforts, crushing all resistance with a combination of imprisonment, forced conversion, and torture.