Mission San Xavier del Bac is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham Nation San Xavier Indian Reservation. The mission was founded in 1692 by Padre Eusebio Kino in the center of a centuries-old settlement of the Sobaipuri O'odham, a branch of the Akimel or River O'odham located along the banks of the Santa Cruz River. The mission was named for Francis Xavier, a Christian missionary and co-founder of the Society of Jesus in Europe. The original church was built to the north of the present Franciscan church. This northern church or churches served the mission until it was razed during an Apache raid in 1770.
Alta California, also known as Nueva California among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of Las Californias, but was made a separate province in 1804. Following the Mexican War of Independence, it became a territory of Mexico in April 1822 and was renamed Alta California in 1824.
The Pimería Alta was an area of the 18th century Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, that encompassed parts of what are today southern Arizona in the United States and northern Sonora in Mexico.
Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás GarcésO.F.M. was a Spanish Franciscan friar who served as a missionary and explorer in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. He explored much of the southwestern region of North America, including present day Sonora and Baja California in Mexico, and the U.S. states of Arizona and California. He was killed along with his companion friars during an uprising by the Native American population, and they have been declared martyrs for the faith by the Catholic Church. The cause for his canonization was opened by the Church.
Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ, often referred to as Father Kino, was a Tyrolean Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer and astronomer born in the Territory of the Bishopric of Trent, then part of a partially German-speaking area of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. For the last 24 years of his life he worked in the region then known as the Pimería Alta, modern-day Sonora in Mexico and southern Arizona in the United States. He explored the region and worked with the indigenous Native American population, including primarily the Tohono O'Odham, Sobaipuri and other Upper Piman groups. He proved that the Baja California Territory was not an island but a peninsula by leading an overland expedition there. By the time of his death he had established 24 missions and visitas.
The Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert are a series of Jesuit Catholic religious outposts established by the Spanish Catholic Jesuits and other orders for religious conversions of the Pima and Tohono O'odham indigenous peoples residing in the Sonoran Desert. An added goal was giving Spain a colonial presence in their frontier territory of the Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and relocating by Indian Reductions settlements and encomiendas for agricultural, ranching, and mining labor.
Santa Teresa de Átil also known as Santa Teresa de Ádid and Los Siete Príncipes del Átil, is a historic Spanish mission located in the small town of Atil, Sonora.
Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó, or Mission Loreto, was founded on October 25, 1697, at the Monqui Native American (Indian) settlement of Conchó in the city of Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Established by the Catholic Church's Jesuit missionary Juan María de Salvatierra, Loreto was the first successful mission and Spanish town in Baja California.
Juan María de Salvatierra, S.J., was a Catholic missionary to the Americas.
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 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 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 and by 1800 their numbers were a fraction of what they had been before the arrival of the Spanish.
Francesc Palou or Francisco Palóu (1723–1789) was a Spanish Franciscan missionary, administrator and historian on the Baja California Peninsula and in Alta California. Palóu made significant contributions to the Alta California and Baja California mission systems. Along with his mentor, Junípero Serra, Palóu worked to build numerous missions throughout Alta and Baja California, many structures of which still stand today. A member of the Franciscan Order, Palóu became "Presidente" of the missions in Baja California, and later of missions of Alta California. Palóu's work in the Spanish mission system spans from his early twenties to his death at the age of 66.
Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas, also known as Calabasas, is a Spanish Mission in the Sonoran Desert, located near present-day Tumacacori, Arizona, United States. The Mission was named for the Italian Saint Cajetan.
The Californias, occasionally known as The Three Californias or Two Californias, are a region of North America spanning the United States and Mexico, consisting of the U.S. state of California and the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur. Historically, the term Californias was used to define the vast northwestern region of Spanish America, as the Province of the Californias, and later as a collective term for Alta California and the Baja California Peninsula.
The Sobaipuri were one of many indigenous groups occupying Sonora and what is now Arizona at the time Europeans first entered the American Southwest. They were a Piman or O'odham group who occupied southern Arizona and northern Sonora in the 15th–19th centuries. They were a subgroup of the O'odham or Pima, surviving members of which include the residents of San Xavier del Bac which is now part of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Akimel O'odham.
Tubutama is a town in Tubutama Municipality, in the north-west of the Mexican state of Sonora. Eusebio Kino, SJ, founded Mission San Pedro y San Pablo del Tubutama in 1691. Tubutama was the headquarters of religious administration for the entire Pimería Alta during much of the Jesuit and Franciscan period of Spanish colonial rule.
The Spanish missions in the Americas were Catholic missions established by the Spanish Empire during the 16th to 19th centuries in the period of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Many hundreds of missions, durable and ephemeral, created by numerous Catholic religious orders were scattered throughout the entirety of the Spanish colonies, which extended southward from the United States and Mexico to Argentina and Chile.
Philipp Segesser was a German-speaking Swiss Jesuit missionary who spent much of his career in Sonora, Mexico.
Mission San Cosme y Damián de Tucsón, originally known as Mission San Agustín del Tucson, was a Spanish mission located in present-day Tucson, Pima County, Arizona. It was established in 1692 by Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino as a visita, or "visiting chapel", of the nearby Mission San Xavier del Bac. Today, almost nothing remains of the original complex.
Province of Las Californias was a Spanish Empire province in the northwestern region of New Spain. Its territory consisted of the entire U.S. states of California, Nevada, and Utah, parts of Arizona, Wyoming, and Colorado, and the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur.
Between the years of 1539 and 1821, the Spanish Empire explored, colonized, and ruled over what is the state of Arizona in the United States.
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