It was from the Antilles that the French Jesuits went to Guiana. Its conversion had been attempted in 1560 by two Dominicans, but they were both martyred almost on their arrival. No other effort was made until late in the following century, when in 1643 two Capuchins essayed it, only to be killed. Four years before that, however, the Jesuits Meland and Pelliprat entered the country at another point and succeeded in subduing the savage Galibis, who were particularly noted for ferocity. In 1653 Pelliprat published a grammar and a dictionary of their language; in the following year Aubergeon and Gueimu were killed; then the Dutch took possession of the country, expelled the Jesuits and obliterated every vestige of Catholicity. Nevertheless, the missionaries returned later and renewed their work with the intractable natives. In 1674 Grillet and Béchamel started for the interior, and were followed later by Lombard, who, after fifteen years of heroic toil, erected a church at the mouth of the River Kourou to the northwest of Cayenne. There he labored for twenty-three years, and in 1733 was able to report to his fellow missionary, de la Neuville: "Acquainted as you are with the fickleness of our Indians, you will no doubt be surprised to hear that their inconstancy has been overcome. The horror with which they now regard their former superstitions, their regularity in frequently approaching the sacraments, their assiduity in assisting at the Divine service, the profound sentiments of piety which they manifest at the hour of death, are effectual proofs of a sincere and lasting conversion."
Father Grillet's story of the capture of the French fort in Guiana makes interesting reading. He went out with the garrison to meet the English who were landing from their ships, but the French commander was killed and his men fled. Grillet, with some others, made his way to the forests and swamps of the interior, but was finally captured at the point of the pistol. He was ordered to hand over his money, but as he had none, he would probably have been killed had not a party of English officers recognized him as the priest who had rendered them some service over in the Antilles some time before. They led him to Lord Willoughby the governor, who showed him every attention. It will be of interest to know that these gentlemen carried on their conversation with the priest, in French and Latin. When the ship arrived at Barbadoes, Grillet was lodged with a Scotch gentleman whose son-in-law was a Protestant minister; "a clever man, a good philosopher and well up in his theology," says Grillet. They discussed religious questions amicably, and on Sunday the priest had the satisfaction to hear that the parson told his congregation how he "wished they had the same sorrow for their sins as Catholics have when they go to confession."
Grillet remained a month with his Protestant friends, Lord Willoughby coming occasionally to visit him. From Barbadoes he was conducted to Montserrat, where "Milord, after celebrating Christmas ten days later than we do," notes Grillet, "for the English did not accept the Gregorian Calendar," then handed him over to a Catholic colonel of a Yorkshire regiment, who finally delivered him safe and sound to the French Governor de la Barre. This was the de la Barre who was afterwards to figure in Canadian history. Grillet then returned to his old mission work at Cayenne, for the English had abandoned it, and with Father Béchamel set out to explore the interior, with a view to future missionary establishments. With no other provision than a little cassava bread, and no other escort than a negro and a few Indians, they began a journey of 1920 miles, through forests and swamps and across mountains and down rivers which were continually broken by cataracts merely to find where the Indians were living, so as to send them missionaries later. They had started from Cayenne on January 25, 1674, and returned there on June 27. Both died shortly after.
Along both banks of the Oyapoch, throughout its whole course, missions were established by other valiant apostles who, as a French historian relates, had formed the gigantic project of uniting by a chain of stations both extremities of Guiana. Indeed, the church on the Kourou was only an incident in this work. Eleven years before that, Arnaud d'Ayma had fought his way to the Pirioux, the remotest of all the known tribes. There he lived like the savages in a miserable hut, spending every moment among them in studying their language and teaching them in turn the truths of salvation. He then founded a mission on the Oyapoch where he collected the entire tribe of the Caranes. Meantime, D'Ausillac looked after the Toeoyenes, the Maowrioux, and the Maraxones on the Ouanari. Up to the time when de Choiseul, minister of Louis XV, drove the Jesuits out of Guiana, one hundred and eleven of them had devoted their lives to the evangelization of that country.
Bandelier, writing in "The Catholic Encyclopedia" (IV-123), tells us that in the district in which Cartagena was situated, "the religious of the Society of Jesus were the first during the Colonial period to found colleges for secondary instruction; eight or ten colleges were opened in which the youth of the country and the sons of Spaniards were educated. In the Jesuit College of Bogotá the first instruction in physics and mathematics was given. In the expulsion of the Jesuits by Charles III the Church in New Granada lost her principal and most efficacious aid to the civilization of the country… To this day the traveller may see the effects of this arbitrary act, in the immense plains of the regions of Casanare, converted in the space of one century into pasture lands for cattle, but which were once a source of great wealth, and which would have been even more so. It is only within the last ten years that the Catholic Church, owing to the peace and liberty which she now enjoys, has turned her eyes once more to Casanare; a vicariate Apostolic has been erected there, governed by a bishop of the Order of St. Augustine, who with the members of his order labours among the savages and semi-savages of these plains."
The first Jesuits, as we have already said, arrived in Mexico in September, 1572. They were sent out at the expense of the king, but as he did nothing more, a wealthy benefactor immediately put his money at their disposal and gave them a site for a college and church. The latter was erected with amazing expedition at a trifling expense, for three thousand Indians who had heard that the Fathers were going to take care of their spiritual welfare worked at it for three months. The structure was declared to be muy hermoso por dentro, but as much could not be said of the exterior. It was simply a thatched structure and was long known by the name of Japalteopan. Their college, which took more time, was called St. Ildefonso. Guadalajara, Zacatecas and Oaxaca also became Jesuit centres, while Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Sonora, and, later Lower California were their fields of labor among the savages. It may be noted here that Father Sánchez was one of the presiding engineers in the work of the Nochistongo tunnel on which 471,154 men were employed. The purpose of the work was to drain the valley of Mexico.
Among the very early missionaries of Mexico was an Irish Jesuit named Michael Wadding, though he was known among the Spaniards as Miguel Godinez. He was born at Waterford in 1501, but his mother was a Frenchwoman, named Marie Valois. He made his studies in Salamanca and entering the Society April 15, 1609 was sent to Mexico in the following year. He labored for a long time in the rude missions of Sinaloa and won to the Faith the whole tribe of the Basirvas, and then taught for several years in the colleges. He was famous as a director of souls, and wrote a "Teologia mística" which, was not published until forty years after his death; however, it made up for the delay by going through ten editions. His editor, Manuel La Reguera, S. J., says that he also wrote a "Life of Sister Mary of Jesus," a holy religious whom he was directing in the way of perfection.
The Jesuit mission work in Mexico which has attracted most attention is that of Fathers Kino, Salvatierra, Ugarte and their associates. They were engaged mostly in the evangelization of the Peninsula of Lower California and the vast northern district of Mexico, known as the Pimería, or land of the Pima Indians, which extended into what is now the State of Arizona. The success achieved there and the resources of the "Pious Fund" which Salvatierra had gathered made the work of Junípero Serra and the Franciscans in Upper California possible in later days.
Gilmary Shea (Colonial Days, p. 527) maintains that Eusebio Kino is one of the greatest of American missionaries. Many historians claim that he was a German and say that his name "Kino" was an adaptation of Kühn. That such is not the case is shown by Alegre in his history of the Jesuits in Mexico; by Sommervogel in his "Bibliothèque des écrivains" and by Bolton, who has just published Kino's long lost "Autobiography." Hubert Bancroft pronounces for Kühn, but he publishes an autograph map which is signed "carta autoptica a Patre Eusebio Chino;" Huonder, in "The Catholic Encyclopedia," declares him to be a German of Welch Tyrol, but the "Welch" Tyrol is precisely that part of the country where there are no Germans. The Chino family still exists, near Trent and has never spoken anything but Italian. The change from Ch to K had to be made to prevent the Spaniards from thinking he was a Chinaman; furthermore the ch in Spanish being always soft would not represent the Italian letters when they are pronounced k.
Kino was born on August 10, 1644, and entered the Society of Jesus in Bavaria on November 20, 1665. He subsequently taught mathematics at Ingolstadt, and while occupying that post applied for the foreign missions. He left the university in 1678, but did not reach Mexico until late in 1681. The reason of the delay was his assignment as an observer of the famous comet of 1680 and 1681. During that time, he lived in Cadiz, but he did not publish the result of his observations until after his arrival in Mexico. The book has a very portentous title and is listed in Sommervogel as: "Exposicion Astronomica de el Cometa, que el año de 1680, por los meses de Noviembre y Diziembre, y este año de 1681 por los meses de Enero y Febrero, se ha visto en todo el mondo, y le ha observado en Ciudad de Cadiz el P. Eusebio Francisco Kino, de la Compañi de Jesus, con licencia en Mexico por Francisco Rodriguez Lupercio, 1681." Possibly this pompous announcement was intended as an apology for Kino's audacity in questioning the findings of a famous astronomer of the period who rejoiced in the name and title Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Gongora, Cosmógrafo y Mathemático Regio en la Academia Mexicana.
The settlement of Lower California had been attempted as early as 1535 by a Franciscan who landed with Cortes at Santa Cruz Bay near the present La Paz. "After a year of privations", says Engelhardt, "which had cost the famous conqueror $300,000, the project had to be abandoned. Another effort was made in 1596, but the mission did not last a single year. Almost a century later, namely in 1683, the Jesuit Fathers Kino and Goni, along with Fray José Guijosa of the Order of St. John of God, accompanied Admiral Otondo on an expedition to that unhappy country." They embarked on the "Limpia Concepción" and the "San José y San Francisco Javier" and set sail on January 18. A sloop with provisions was to accompany them, but it never left port. The voyage lasted until March 30, and on that day they entered the harbor of La Paz, but not until April 5 did the admiral set foot on shore to take solemn possession of the land. The mission, however, lasted only a short time; and thus Spain failed for the third time to establish a post in desolate Lower California. Kino then applied for work among the Pima Indians. His offer was welcomed by the provincial, who would have sent him thither immediately, if a government permission as well as a royal assignment of funds had not been prerequisites. Neither difficulty dismayed Kino; he immediately interviewed the viceroy and was so eloquent in his plea that he received not only permission and financial aid to work in the new field, but authorization for whatever post he might choose among the Seris of Sonora. When that much was accomplished, he set off for Guadalajara, where the royal audiencia was in session, to address it on another matter which was very close to his heart, namely the abrogation of the stupid policy of imposing labor on the convert Indians in the mines and haciendas, while the others who refused to be Christians were allowed to go scot free. It was putting a premium on paganism. All that he could get, however, from the audiencia was a five-year exemption, in spite of the fact that as far back as 1607 Philip III had ruled that for ten years after baptism every convert should be exempt from compulsory labor. The same royal order had been renewed in 1618, and was most faithfully observed where there were no mines or haciendas to put the converts at work.
In 1764 the Pimería was the northern limit of Spain's possessions, about 400 leagues from the city of Mexico and about 130 from Sinaloa. On the east a mountain range separated it from Taurumara, and on the west the Gulf of California bathed its shores from the Yaqui River to the Colorado. Its northern boundary was the Hila, Gila, or Xila River, and its southern, the Yaqui. According to Alegre "the soil is rich, there is no end of game, such as lions, tigers, bears, deer, boars, rabbits and squirrels. The woods are full of serpents, poisonous or otherwise, but there are herbs and plants innumerable," which possessed most wonderful healing powers. The birds were numerous and "two-headed eagles," the reader is assured, "were not rare." Kino, as far as we can find, makes no mention of "two-headed eagles."
The people were robust and lived to an extreme old age, except where the fogs of the lowland prevailed. There all sorts of ailments occur. The Pimas were composed of a number of tribes such as the Opas, Cocomaricopas, Hudcoacanes, and the Yumas. They lived on both sides of the Gila River in rancherias, which the missionaries united into pueblos. They numbered in all about 30,000. The Seris who were found along the Gulf coast were mostly identified with the Giuamas. To the north were the savage Apaches.
None of these people had any means of recording the doings of the past, such as the hieroglyphics of the Mexicans, but they made much of certain traditions which they refused to impart to strangers. As far as could be ascertained, they had no sacrifice or idols, no land of worship and no priests except the wizards, whom they regarded with abject terror. Tatooing around the eyes was universal, even for children. At birth a sort of sponsor for the child was summoned, and he was given more authority than the parent. At death all the trappings and household belongings of the departed were buried with him. They believed in divinations like the ancient Greeks and Romans, with the difference that the creature inspected was not a bird but a lobster. Statues and emblems were placed on the roadsides, before which every passer-by had to leave an offering. Alegre gives a long list of their superstitions, some of which Bancroft denounces as hideously obscene. The initiation of the warrior resembled the horrible ritual common among the northern Mandans, and the torture of captives, even of little children, by old squaws, was as fiendish as similar practices among the Iroquois.
The Jesuit missions among these people were inaugurated as early as 1637 or 1638, by Father Castano, who had been trained in the Sonora district by Méndez, but the Pima section to which Kino betook himself was a new field. He called his first post Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, and it may be found on the map just north of Cucurpé at the source of the river called Horcasitas or San Miguel. From there he developed dependent stations, and before 1691, he had three at San Ignacio, Remedios, and San José, in each of which he built a fine church.
"The work which Father Kino did as a ranchman or stockman," says Bolton, "would alone stamp him as an unusual business man and make him worthy of remembrance. He was easily the cattle king of his day and region. The stock raising industry of nearly 20 places on the modern map owes its beginnings to this indefatigable man. And it must not be supposed that he did this for private gain for he did not own a single animal. It was to furnish a food supply for the Indians of the missions established and to be established and to give these missions a basis of economic prosperity and independence. Thus we find Saeta thanking him for the gift of 115 head of cattle, and as many sheep to begin a ranch at Caborca. In 1700 when San Xavier was founded, Kino rounded up 1400 head of cattle on the ranch of his own mission at Dolores, and dividing them into droves, sent one of them under his Indian overseer to San Xavier. In the same year he took 700 cattle from his own ranch, and sent them to Salvatierra, across the Gulf at Loreto – a transaction which was several times repeated."
Kino had often spoken to Salvatierra about the failure of the attempt to evangelize Lower California, to which his heart still clung, and he suggested to his companion that in his capacity of official visitor he might make another effort to redeem the unfortunate people who lived there. It was true, he admitted, that the country was so barren that it could not be self-sustaining, but he was convinced that it would be an easy matter to convey provisions from fertile Pimería to the starving Californians if a ship could be constructed to transport to the other side of the Gulf whatever the future missionaries and people might need. Salvatierra took fire at the idea, and, before they parted, ordered Kino to build the barque at any point he might select along the west coast of Mexico and assured him that he himself would further the project with all the power at his disposal.
It was not until 1694 that Kino attempted to build the ship. He was then among the Sobas on the Gulf, and with him were Father Campo and Captain Manje, the latter of whom has left a diary of that journey. He began to cut his timber on March 16, 1694, but he was informed that Lower California was not an island, but a peninsula, and he then inaugurated a series of amazing overland journeys to reach the head of the Gulf. His companion Captain Manje had told him of the wonderful structures on the Gila River and thither he directed his steps. He is said to have celebrated Mass in the largest of those ruined buildings, the famous Casa Grande. It was quadrilateral in form and four stories high. The rafters were of cedar and the walls of solid cement and masonry. It was divided into various compartments, some of them spacious enough for a considerable assembly. The tradition among the people was that Montezuma's predecessors built it on the way from the north to the southern countries where they ultimately settled.
At a distance of three leagues from this Casa and on the other side of the river are the ruins of another edifice, which appears to have been still more sumptuous. Indeed the ruins at that place would indicate that at one time there had been not merely a palace but a whole city, and the natives assured the missionaries that there were other buildings further north which were marvelous for their symmetry and arrangements. Among them was a labyrinth which appears to have been a pleasure house of some great king. Excavators have discovered in various places, sometimes leagues away from these great buildings, shapely and variously colored slabs, and two leagues from the Casa Grande there was found the basin of a reservoir large enough to supply a populous city and to irrigate the fertile plains around for great distances; while to the west was a lagoon which was emptied by a narrow sluice. The regularity of the circular form of this lagoon and its rather contracted dimensions would suggest that it was the work of men were it not for its extraordinary depth. Holes had been cut into the solid rock which subsequently were found large enough to be used as storehouses for provisions for troops.
These ruins, however, do not appear to have interested Kino to any great extent. There were other ruins that worried him about that time. His own missions seemed to be facing universal destruction. He himself was being denounced in Mexico as conveying false information to the government about his Indians; they were accused of being in secret alliance with the Apaches, who were destroying the country and defying the Spaniards. Kino again and again had denied the truth of these charges, but he was not only not believed but was held up as a deliberate liar.
On March 29, 1695, the Pimas of Tubutama burned the priest's house and church, profaned the sacred vessels and then, starting down the river to Caborca, had, after murdering Father Saeta and desecrating the church, killed four servants of the mission. An armed force was quickly sent after them and succeeded in killing a certain number in the battle that ensued. Fifty of them then gave themselves up on a promise of immunity, but on arriving in camp they were brutally murdered. The troops then hastened to Cocospera, fancying that they had restored peace, but they were no sooner out of sight than the Pimas laid waste the whole Tubutama Valley and destroyed every town on the San Ignacio River. Where was Kino all this time? Quietly waiting to be killed at Dolores. He had concealed the sacred vessels in a cave and was kneeling in prayer, expecting the tomahawk or a poisoned arrow. But no one came. He was too much beloved by all the Indians to be injured in the least, even in their wildest excess of fury.
Of course the Spaniards ultimately won. They ravaged the whole country and slaughtered the savages until the entire tribe was terror-stricken and forced by hunger or fear of annihilation to sue for peace. Through the influence of the missionaries, a general pardon was granted, and then the work of reconciling the red men to the terrible whites had to be begun all over again. When Kino returned to Dolores, he was received with the utmost enthusiasm by his people. Not only the Pimas, but the Sobas and Sobaipuris came out to welcome him. They loaded him with gifts and made all sorts of promises of future good behavior, and he then set himself to the task of rebuilding the devastated rancherias. Notwithstanding this return, however, to normal conditions and the great increase of his influence over the Indians, Kino still longed to devote himself to the regeneration of the degraded Californians, and he asked to be associated with Salvatierra, who had gone thither in 1697, but owing to the protest of the Pimas, the Mexican government positively refused to permit him to leave the district where his presence was so essential for peace.
After endless journeys up and down the country, providing for the material and spiritual wants of his own flock, but ever keeping in his mind the great project of reaching Lower California by land, Kino at last climbed the mountain of Santa Brigida and saw quite near to him the Gulf of California with a port or bay which, because it was in latitude about 31° 36' must have been what the old cosmographers called the Santa Clara range. "From its summit," says Kino himself, "I clearly descried the beach at the mouth of the Colorado, but as there was a fog on the sea I could not make out the California coast." On another occasion, however, namely in 1694, he and Juan Mates had seen the other side from Mt. Nazarene de Caborca, lower down the coast. A point of identification left by Kino was that the mountain on which he stood in 1698, had been once a volcano. The marks of it were all around him.
Kino could not then pursue his exploration to the mouth of the river. His guides and companions refused to go any farther, so he had to turn homeward. On the way back, however, he was consoled by discovering more than "4,000 souls," to use Alegre's expression, "in rancherias which were until then unknown to him. He baptized about four hundred babies and sent little presents to his Indian friends along the Colorado and Gila," or, as Kino spells it, Hila. After making arrangements for future explorations he set out for Dolores, which he reached on October 18 after a journey of three hundred leagues. In 1699 he was joined by his friend Captain Manje, and they resolved to reach the Colorado itself and go down the stream to the mouth. But they failed to find guides, for it was an unfriendly country, and so the disappointed men again returned to Dolores. Kino was seriously ill on his arrival, but was on his feet again in October when the visitor, Father Leal, wanted to inspect the country. The official got no farther than Bac, while Kino and Manje started west, but they did not succeed in going far, and were at the mission again in November.
On September 24, 1700, Kino attempted a new route. Striking the Gila east of the bend, he followed its course down to the Yuma country. After settling a quarrel between the Yumas and their neighbors, he climbed a high hill to explore, but saw only land. He then crossed to the north bank of the Gila with some Yumas and journeyed on to their principal rancheria, which he called San Dionisio, because he arrived there on the feast of that saint, October 9. There he ascended another mountain and this time he was rewarded. The sun was setting as he reached the summit, but he clearly saw the river running ten leagues west of San Dionisio and, after a course of twenty leagues south, emptying into the Gulf. From another hill to the south he saw before his eyes the sandy stretches of Lower California. The wonderful old man, however, was not yet satisfied. He would make one more attempt and with Father González, a new arrival in the missions, he set his face to the west, reaching San Dionisio by the way of Sonoito and from there went down to Santa Isabel. "From this point," says Bancroft (XV, p. 500), "they were in new territory. Going down the river they reached tide-water on March 5, 1702, and on the 7th, the very mouth of the river. Nothing but land could be seen on the south, west and north. Surely, they thought there can be no estrecho, and California is a part of America."
According to Clavigero these journeys totalled about twenty thousand miles. It is almost incredible, but Bolton tells us that "Kino's endurance in the saddle was worthy of a seasoned cowboy." Thus when he went to the City of Mexico in 1695, he travelled on that single journey no less than 1500 miles; and he accomplished it in fifty-three days. Two years later, when he reached the Gila on the north, he did seven or eight hundred miles in thirty days. In 1699, on his trip to and from the Gila he made seven hundred and twenty miles in thirty nine days; in 1700, a thousand miles in twenty-six days; and in 1701, eleven hundred miles in thirty-five days. He was then nearly sixty years of age.
Meantime, Salvatierra had been painfully establishing missions all along the barren peninsula, but was so woefully discouraged that he was on the point of returning to Mexico. At this juncture Father Juan Ugarte arrived on the scene. He had been Salvatierra's agent in Mexico for collecting funds, but when he heard of the threatening condition of things in California he had himself relieved of his rectorship in San Gregorio and became a missionary. It was really he who saved the whole enterprise from destruction. He was born in Honduras about the year 1660, and entered the Society at Tapozotclan. As soon as he set foot on the Peninsula, he began a reorganization of the whole economic system of the missions. With St. Paul, he believed that a man who did not work should not eat, and consequently that Salvatierra's benignant method of feeding every savage who would come to the "doctrina," or catechism, was psychologically, religiously and economically wrong. Hence, when he found himself fixed at San Javier, he taught the natives how to cultivate the land, to dig ditches for irrigation, to plant trees, to trim vines and to raise live stock.
Of course, the savages were surprised at the new system, but although Ugarte was very kind, he was very positive and his bodily strength astounded and appalled his neophytes. The result was that while other missions were starving, San Javier had fields of corn, rich pastures and great herds of cattle. It took a long time to make this system acceptable everywhere on the Peninsula; when it was adopted it was difficult to make it a success – even Ugarte's own fields were devastated and his cattle stolen. Indeed, conditions grew so desperate in 1701, that Salvatierra at last determined to abandon California and go back to Mexico. Ugarte stood out against it and protested that he would never give up until his superiors called him back. To show that he meant what he said, he went to the church and laid a vow to that effect on the altar.
Just when the sky was darkest, information came that Philip V had ordered 6000 pesos a year to be allotted to the missions. The first payment however, was made with extreme reluctance by the viceroy. But the royal example stimulated the piety of others, with the result that the Marquis of Villapuente gave an estate of 30,000 pesos for three missions; Ortega and his wife came forward with 10,000; and other friends hastened with their contributions. In 1704 Salvatierra went over to Mexico to collect the usual subsidy. He was rejoiced at being told on his arrival that not only would he receive the stipend, but that his majesty had ordered that the churches should be supplied with whatever was necessary for Divine services, that a seminary was to be founded in California, that a presidial force of thirty men was to be stationed on the coast to protect a galleon, a sort of mission ship for provisions and exploration, and that 7000 pesos a year were to be added to the former allowance. It was a splendid example of royal munificence; however, not only were none of these royal orders carried out, but even the original grant of 6000 pesos could not be collected. "It may be fairly stated," says Bancroft (XV, 432) "that the missions of California were from the first to the last founded and supported by private persons whose combined gifts formed what is known as the Pious Fund."