Through a Christian Indian interpreter, Serra told the Indians that de la Campa would stay at the mission to serve them. According to Stephen Hyslop, "goal and that of his fellow friars was not to confirm Indians [sic in their seeming innocence, like 'Adam in the garden, before sin', but to make them aware of their sins and move them to repent." The motive behind gifts of food, tobacco, and the like was, "in the words of Serra's colleague and biographer, Father Francisco Palóu, spiritual conquest meant enticing Indians with food and clothing, by which means they could be indoctrinated as Christians and 'gradually acquire a knowledge of what is spiritually good and evil' ".