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I dislike religious people, generally speaking, but Catholics in the PNW are the source of a lot of reliable historical accounts of tribal groups. I’m somewhat resentful, but they did good work recording linguistic data. Better than the miners would have done.

Just saying.

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Jesuits is one of the forward-looking and outgoing Catholic orders. They work on topics that both non-believers and believers could agree. Matteo Ricci was fluent in Chinese culture and language. Jean de Brebeuf learned aboriginal language and culture in the present day's Canada.

Many other orders have not been so much on going to foreign places and are pretty insular to the unfamiliar.

If we're talking about abusing and killing people, how do we weigh the factors of "reliable historical accounts" and "good work recording linguistic data"?

It’s not about weighing anything, they simply left something useful for posterity. Their observations and record keeping has helped preserve some scraps of indigenous culture that would have otherwise been lost, even to surviving members of tribes today. That’s a good thing, even if missionaries did more bad than good overall.

'My house burned down'

'Now you have some nice charcoal for BBQs.'

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