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Salvatierra’s Legacy to Lower California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Peter Masten Dunne
Peter Masten Dunne*
Affiliation:
University of San Francisco, California
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Extract

After the Failure of the Atondo-Kino attempt (1683–1685) to found permanent Christian missions among the Indians of the rock-ribbed peninsula called Lower California, the project lapsed for over a decade. Then a missionary who was to achieve historical fame, Juan María Salvatierra, was sent as official Visitor to the north Sonoran establishments where Eusebio Francisco Kino was working successfully and pushing the frontier of New Spain across the international boundary north to what is now Tucson in Arizona. As Kino and Salvatierra jogged on horseback over mission trails during the early months of 1691, the former was able to impart to Salvatierra a spark of his enthusiasm for the conversion of the Indians of Lower California. The spark fell amidst ready tinder which took fire. From that time on an unquenchable desire to convert the Indians of California took hold of Salvatierra. Though other duties intervened (Salvatierra was made rector at Guadalajara, then master of novices at Tepotzotlán), he never gave up the idea of founding permanent missions in the cactus-ridden peninsula. For years the holy man prodded viceroys in Mexico and Jesuit generals in Rome. Finally, through a fortunate combination of circumstances both in New Spain and in Rome, secular and ecclesiastical authorities became willing to allow the Black Robe to carry out his idea provided there would be no burden put upon the royal fisc and provided he would take full charge of the soldiers and seamen necessary to implement the founding of a permanent establishment on the peninsula. The happy turn of events came in 1696. Salvatierra with Kino and Juan de Ugarte as treasurer would beg money to finance the expedition, Kino would cross the gulf with Salvatierra, and the first permanent mission in California would be founded. The last minute Kino was detained and Francisco María Picólo, Tarahumar missionary, was designated. But the ardent Salvatierra could not wait. In a small boat with sixteen men, three of them Christian Indians, the missionary put off from the port of Yaqui on October 10, 1697. After dangers and adventures the party set foot on California soil five days later.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , July 1950 , pp. 31 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1950

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References

1 These were Loreto, San Francisco Javier Viggé, Santa Rosalía Mulegé, San Juan Bautista Malibat, San José Comondú and Purísima Concepción. By the time of their expulsion (1768), the Jesuits had founded sixteen missions in Lower California. Three of these were later discontinued by them.

2 Contemporary and later Jesuit historians were very proud of this achievement. See, for example, the original manuscript of Miguel Venegas, “Empressas Apostólicas de los PP. Missioneros de la Compañía de Jesús de la Provincia de Nueva España Obradas en la Conquista de Californias, debidas y Consagradas al Patrocinio de María Santíssima, Conquistadora de Nuevas Gentes en su Sagrada Imagen de Loreto. Historiadas por el Padre Miguel Venegas de la Misma Compañía de Jesús.” This contemporary manuscript of 682 pages belongs to the Bolton Collection, University of California. Another copy lies in the library of the Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid; and still another poor and incomplete copy in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The manuscript, according to Venegas’ own note, was completed November 7, 1739. It was later sent to Madrid for publication. Andrés Burriel edited and abridged the manuscript which ultimately came out in 1757 under the title: Noticia de la California y de su Conquista Temporal y Espiritual hasta el Tiempo Presente, Sacada de la Historia Manuscrita, Formada en México año de 1739 por el Padre Miguel Venegas, de la Compañía de Jesús; y de otras Noticias, y Relaciones antiguas y modernas: etc. Burriel’s name nowhere appears. Hereinafter we shall refer to the manuscript as the “Empressas Apostólicas” and to the published work as Venegas-Burriel.

For the importance of Lower California to the interests of Spain, cf. Cayetano Alcázar Molina, Los Virreinatos en el Siglo XVIII (Barcelona-Buenos Aires, 1945), 115 ff.; and Engelhardt, Zephyrin O.F.M., The Missions and Missionaries of California (Mission Santa Barbara, 1929), I, 32 Google Scholar ff.

3 Salvatierra informed Viceroy Alburquerque, doubtless with some exaggeration, that in six attempts to colonize California the royal fisc had poured one and a half million pesos down a rat-hole (“Empressas Apostólicas,” 575).

4 Venegas in the “Empressas Apostólicas” devotes the whole of book X, 108 folio pages, to the various details of this organization, exclusive of one chapter on the benefactors (Cf. 563 ff.). Clavigero, Francisco Javier, Storia della California [Venice, 1789]Google Scholar (translated by Sara E. Lake and A. A. Gray, The History of [Lower] California, Stanford University Press, 1937), IV, ch. 19, says that in 1744 the fathers renounced authority over the captain and his soldiers. There is no evidence of this elsewhere, but rather the contrary. For instance, the royal cédula of December 4, 1747, insisted on the arrangement being continued (cf. Venegas-Burriel, II, 264). See also the letter of Benno Ducrue to Procurator Armesto dated from Guadalupe, September 15, 1767, Biblioteca Nacional, Mexico, Californias, legajo 53.

5 Venegas quotes directly from Salvatierra’s report. The olden historian further informs us that since that time the government, having taken over the charge of paying the soldiers and sailors, spent in the succeeding twelve years (1717–1729) 600,000 pesos. But, Venegas argues, the Jesuits spent still more because the missions of the mainland gave generously and constantly as did other benefactors, while 130,000 came from the income of the mission estates. The whole sum contributed by the Jesuits and their friends would, computes Venegas, amount to over a million. Cf. “Empressas Apostólicas,” 577.

6 Venegas-Burriel, II, 281.

7 “Empressas Apostólicas,” 604 ff.

8 Venegas-Burriel, II, 273 f.

9 Archivo General de Indias, 67-3-28, Report of the Jesuit, Alonso de Quiros, dated November 28, 1715, to the Audiencia of Guadalajara.

10 Venegas-Burriel, II, 270.

11 Ibid., II, 264 ff.

12 A.G.I., loc. cit.

13 Barco to Lizasoain, report of 1762, printed in Bayle, Constantino S.J. (ed.), Misión de la Baja California (Madrid, 1946), 225 Google Scholar ff., and in Documentos para la Historia de México, series IV, tomo 5, where the long and valuable document is given entitled: Establecimiento y progresos de la Antigua California, dispuestos por un religioso del Santo Evangelio de México, Año de 1791.

14 Informe de Francisco María Picólo á S.M., Guadalajara, Feb. 10, 1102, soon after printed in Mexico without date.

15 The appointment of Indian officials to serve under the Spaniards was an early colonial practice introduced soon after the conquest and incorporated into the Laws of the Indies. Such natives were officials of the King of Spain and were often privileged to carry a sword, wear a Spanish cloak or doublet, and even ride a horse. Cf. Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1791), t. II, lib. VI, tit. VII, “De los Caciques.”

16 “Empressas Apostólicas,” 627, where part of Echeverria’s report is given. The first verse of the alabado ran thus: “Alabado y ensalzado sea el divino Sacramento en quien Dios oculto asiste de las almas en sustento.” The second verse sings the praises of the Virgin Mary and the third those of St. Joseph. The air is very simple and may be found in Engelhardt, Missions and Missionaries of California, I, 169.

17 Bravo’s enthusiastic letter, “Bericht Bruders Jacobi Bravo, Soc. Jesu, von der Mission in California,” is incorporated into a letter of Father José Bonani from Mexico written to Father Sigismund Pusch of the University of Grätz in Styria, Joseph Stöcklein, Der Neue Welt-Bott, mit allerhand Nachrichten dern Missionariorum Soc. Jesu, 6 vols. (Augsburg und Gratz, 1726 ff), no. 171. Bonani’s letter is dated November 13, 1717. Bravo’s report is not so long as Picolo’s Informe, but just as enthusiastic and a bit more exaggerated in the painting of a rosy picture.

18 Baegert, Jakob, Nachrichten von der Amerikanischen Halbinsel Californien (Mannheim, 1772)Google Scholar, III, ch. 4. This valuable work has been recently translated into Spanish by Pedro R. Hendrichs as Noticias de la Península Americana de California (Mexico, 1942).

19 Part of Luyando’s letter is given in the “Empressas Apostólicas,” 630.

20 Letter of February 10, 1730, to Villapuente, loc. cit., 635. The Marquis of Villapuente, was California’s most generous benefactor and the most important founder of the Pious Fund. He endowed six missions with 10,000 pesos each, gave close to half a million acres of land, and up to April, 1720, had given the missions 167,540 pesos, besides a constant flow of gifts in food, provisions and clothes for the Indians.

21 “Empressas Apostólicas,” 636.

22 Letter of February 10, 1730, loc. cit. The Visitor made a regulation that in time of plague no missionary go farther than fifteen leagues from his mission pueblo.