Anchieta and Nóbrega had long opposed the way the Portuguese colonists were treating the Indians and had a serious conflict about it with Duarte da Costa, who served as Governor-General of Brazil from 1553 to 1558. They nevertheless supported the Portuguese against their French rivals in establishing claims to Brazil and welcomed the support of Portuguese authorities against the Huguenot Protestants whom the French at times welcomed to their settlements. In fact, the two Jesuits saw the French colony as a generally Protestant enterprise, ignoring its Catholic components and making no distinction between Lutherans and Calvinists. Anchieta recognized that violence could be necessary to create the conditions for evangelizing the indigenous inhabitants and later praised the colony's third Governor General, Mem de Sá (1500–1572), for what he accomplished in killing large numbers of Amerindians.