I'm feeling like watching shit about the conquistadors

i think the movie is about loss and nature

Maybe, but the possibilities of finding something magical or otherwordly must've seemed quite real given the discovery of this massive landmass.

It's not anglos, its the judeo-prot strain that got brought in.

Now that we mention Gibson and conquistadors/jesuits, i remember very well Mel after doing Apocalypso, still in the mood that he was going to stay, decided to make a colonization movie
He went to explore and found a much-dreaded figure for southern mexicans but a folk hero for northern ones. Situated in the states under Arizona/Cali, he found this mary sue jesuit that was the de-facto figure in the zone that colonized without violence all the tough as fuck natives around, including at times the Hiaki and the lowland Apache to say some names, and lobbied them civilian status.
Big settling occurred, but when he died, spaniards went full crazy with taxes and laws, and a general war happened for quite some time to the point all towns were fortified or had more armed men than people, in both sides, with the basques (mainly jesuit families) being an important faction. Dude is still revered to this day by natives, mestizos and europeans.

Mel Gibson went for it but the gov somewhat disliked this lad's story due to cultural/butthurt reasons, so he put it on stand-by. Still he probably decided to do this due to the priest's name:
Eusebius Chinus, better known in the U.S. and Mexico as Padre Kino