Asistencias or visitas were smaller sub-missions of Catholic missions established during the 16th-19th centuries of the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Philippines. They allowed the Catholic church and the Spanish crown to extend their reach into native populations at a modest cost.
Asistencias were much smaller than the main missions with living quarters, workshops and crops in addition to a church. They were typically staffed with a small group of clergymen and a relatively small group of indigenous neophytes in order to maintain the complex.
Particularly strategic asistencias were later elevated to the status of a full mission. This typically included an expansion of existing facilities to support a larger clergy and indigenous neophyte population, improvement of basic infrastructure such as roads, and rechristening under a new Catholic saint. [1] [2]
In Spanish Florida, visitas were mission stations without a resident missionary. Church buildings at visitas were simple, or sometimes absent. [3] Visitas were often in satellite villages associated with a town with a doctrina (a mission with one or more resident missionaries). The mission of San Juan del Puerto served nine visitas in 1602. [4]
The following is a list of asistencias that remained so at the time of their abandonment, sorted by year of establishment.
The following is a list of asistencias that were elevated to the status of mission, sorted by year of establishment.
A presidio was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire between the 16th and 18th centuries in areas under their control or influence. The term is derived from the Latin word praesidium meaning protection or defense.
Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ, often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Bishopric of Trent, Holy Roman Empire.
The Las Flores Estancia was established in 1823 as an estancia ("station"). It was part of the Spanish missions, asistencias, and estancias system in Las Californias—Alta California. Las Flores Estancia was situated approximately halfway between Mission San Luis Rey de Francia and Mission San Juan Capistrano. It is located near Bell Canyon on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base ten miles south of the City of San Clemente in northern San Diego County, California. The estancia is also home to the architecturally significant National Historic Landmark Las Flores Adobe, completed in 1868.
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park is a National Historical Park and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site preserving four of the five Spanish frontier missions in San Antonio, Texas, USA. These outposts were established by Catholic religious orders to spread Christianity among the local natives. These missions formed part of a colonization system that stretched across the Spanish Southwest in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
The Spanish missions in Mexico are a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholic Franciscans, Jesuits, Augustinians, and Dominicans to spread the Christian doctrine among the local natives. Since 1493, the Kingdom of Spain had maintained a number of missions throughout Nueva España in order to preach the gospel to these lands. In 1533, at the request of Hernán Cortés, Carlos V sent the first Franciscan friars with orders to establish a series of installations throughout the country.
José Francisco Ortega was a New Spanish soldier and early settler of Alta California. He joined the military at the age of twenty-one and rose to the rank of sergeant by the time he joined the Portola expedition in 1769. At the end of his military duty he would be granted land which he named Rancho Nuestra Senora del Refugio near Santa Barbara.
The Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio was a 74,000-acre (300 km2) Spanish land grant to José Francisco Ortega in 1794 and is the only land grant made under Spanish and confirmed by USA in 1866 to Jose Maria Ortega under the US Supreme Court rule in what is today Santa Barbara County, California. A Mexican title was granted to Antonio Maria Ortega in 1834 by Mexican Governor José Figueroa. The grant extended along the Pacific coast from Cojo Canyon east of Point Conception, past Arroyo Hondo and Tajiguas Canyon, to Refugio Canyon, including what is now Gaviota Coast.
The Spanish missions in Baja California were a large number of religious outposts established by Catholic religious orders, the Jesuits, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, between 1683 and 1834. The missionary goal was to spread the Christian doctrine among the Indigenous peoples living on the Baja California peninsula. The missions gave Spain a valuable toehold in the frontier land, and would also act as a deterrent to prevent pirates from using the peninsula of Las Californias as a jumping off point for contraband trade with mainland New Spain. Missionaries introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables, and industry into the region. Indigenous peoples were severely impacted by the introduction of European diseases such as smallpox and measles; furthermore, the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire in 1767 ripped the social fabric of the peninsula, although Franciscans were sent to replace them. In 1769, the Franciscans moved to Upper California, leaving Dominicans in charge of Baja California. By 1800 indigenous numbers were a fraction of what they had been before the arrival of the Spanish, yet even today many people living in Baja California are of indigenous heritage.
Mission Indians are the indigenous peoples of California who lived in Southern California and were forcibly relocated from their traditional dwellings, villages, and homelands to live and work at 15 Franciscan missions in Southern California and the Asistencias and Estancias established between 1796 and 1823 in the Las Californias Province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Mission San Bruno was a short-lived Spanish mission established by Jesuit order on October 7, 1684, in what is now the Loreto Municipality of Baja California Sur, Mexico. The mission was the first Spanish mission established on the Baja California Peninsula.
The Visita de San Juan Bautista Londó was a Catholic visita located at the Cochimí settlement of Londó in what is now Loreto Municipality, Baja California Sur, Mexico. The visita was founded by Jesuit missionaries Juan María Salvatierra and Francisco María Piccolo in 1699 as an extension of Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó.
Misión Santa Rosa de las Palmas, also known as Todos Santos Mission, was founded by the Roman Catholic Jesuits in 1733 and dedicated to Saint Rose of Lima. After 1748, the mission was known as Nuestra Señora del Pilar de la Paz. The mission was the first European settlement at the site of what is now the city of Todos Santos, Baja California Sur.
The Visita de la Presentación was a Catholic visita located in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The visita was founded by Franciscan missionary Francisco Palóu in 1769 as an extension of Misión San Francisco Javier de Viggé-Biaundó.
The Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de la Habana is one of three Catholic archdioceses in Cuba.
The Spanish missions in South America comprise a series of Jesuit Catholic religious outposts established by Spanish Catholics in order to spread the Christian doctrine among the local natives.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Osorno is a suffragan diocese of the archdiocese of Puerto Montt, in Chile. The diocese was established on 15 November 1955 by Pope Pius XII by means of the papal bull Christianorum qui in Diocesibus.
Pedro de Rivera y Villalón was a brigadier general in the Spanish army, who was sent to New Mexico in 1724 to study the presidios near Louisiana.
Lorenzo José Carranco was a Jesuit missionary.
The Mexican Secularization Act of 1833, officially called the Decree for the Secularization of the Missions of California, was an act passed by the Congress of the Union of the First Mexican Republic which secularized the Californian missions. The act nationalized the missions, transferring their ownership from the Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church to the Mexican authorities.