They taught the Indians better farming methods, and easier ways of weaving and making pottery. Because some people questioned whether the Indians were truly human and deserved baptism, Pope Paul III in the papal bull Veritas Ipsa or Sublimis Deus (1537) confirmed that the Indians were deserving people.[124][125] Afterward, the conversion effort gained momentum.[126] Over the next 150 years, the missions expanded into southwestern North America.[127] The native people were legally defined as children, and priests took on a paternalistic role, often enforced with corporal punishment.[128] Elsewhere, in India, Portuguese missionaries and the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier evangelized among non-Christians and a Christian community which claimed to have been established by Thomas the Apostle.[129]