The Dutch in Taiwan and in Brazil also focused, with no success, on the small Catholic populations left by previous Portuguese colonists. In North America, there was no Catholic problem, but one reason often cited by settlers for evangelizing the Native peoples was to prevent Catholic missionaries from infiltrating them first. When these missions did begin, their bemused subjects were made to sit through denunciations of popery. Early modern Catholic missionaries aimed to convert anyone and everyone. Protestant missionaries really only wanted to convert Catholics.