Roman Catholic pilgrimage shrines are found from Alaska and Canada to Tierra del Fuego. The oldest shrine in the Americas is probably Our Lady of Mercy at Santo Cerro in the Dominican Republic. Here, according to tradition, Christopher Columbus erected a cross in thanks for a victory over local Indians in the mid-1490s. The original image of the Virgin Mary is said to have been a gift from Isabella I, queen of Castile (1474–1504), and a pilgrimage chapel may have been erected as early as 1505. Thereafter, Catholic shrines spread through the Americas with Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonization. In some cases, as at Guadalupe, Amecameca, and Chalma in Mexico; Esquipulas, Guatemala; Caranqui, Ecuador; and Copacabana, Bolivia, indigenous holy places were christianized. More often, however, the establishment of shrines involved events leading to the sanctification of places...