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.