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Eusebio Kino (August 10, 1645-March 15, 1711) was a Catholic priest who became famous in Mexico and the Southwest United States for the methods he used to try to Christianize Mexican Indians. He established over 20 missions and vistas, and was known for his ability to create relationships between indigenous peoples and the religious groups of the time.
Kino was born on August 10, 1645, in Segno, Italy, a small town in the Tyrolese Alps. After recuperating from a serious illness, Kino joined the Society of Jesus in 1665. Although he wanted to go to the Orient, he was ordered to establish a mission in Mexico, then known as "New Spain". Father Kino parted Spain in 1681 with that purpose in mind. He led the Atondo expedition to lower California. After a drought in 1685, Kino was forced back to Mexico City.
Apart from being a Catholic priest, Eusebio Kino also practiced multiple other crafts,and he was an expert astronomer, mathematician and map-maker, who drew the first accurate maps of Pimería Alta, the Sea of Cortez and of Baja California. Father Kino enjoyed making model ships out of wood. His knowledge of maps and ships led him to believe that Mexican Indians could easily access California by sea, a view that was taken with skepticism by Mexico City missionares. When Father Kino proposed that a boat be made and pushed across the Sonoran desert and to the Mexican west coast, a controversy arose, as many of his co-missionares questioned Father Kino's mental abilities.
Father Kino arrived at Sonora in 1687 to work with the Pimas, and he quickly established the first Catholic church in that state. Kino traveled across Northern Mexico and to California and Arizona as an adventure traveller. Roads were built to connect previously inaccessible areas. His many expeditions on horseback covered over 50,000 square miles (130,000 km²), during which he mapped an area 200 miles (300 km) long and 250 miles (400 km) wide, and deduced that California was a peninsula.
Up until Kino's arrival at the Sonora area, it was believed that Baja California, like Isla de Mujeres, was an island and not a peninsula that was actually attached to mainland Mexico. Father Kino led the first ground expedition to Baja California, proving that the previous assumption about that area was wrong.
A fervent believer in the idea that Indians needed better ways of living, Kino was important in the economic growth of Sonora at the time, teaching the Indians the basics of farming and bringing them farm animals and seeds.
Father Eusebio Kino was fond of the Indians that he met in Sonora: according to legend, he was offered five minor girls, upon arrival in Sonora, by the chief of the tribe that he helped, for sex, in what would constitute statutory rape in today's society. He refused, blessing them instead. The five girls were the chief's daughters.
One fact that is widely known about Kino is that he fought hard for the Sonoran Indians, opposing hard labor that the Spaniards had imposed on them on silver mines. This also caused great controversy among his co-missionares, many of whom acted according to the laws imposed by Spain on their new territory.
Father Kino was also a writer, writing a considerable amount of books on religion, astronomy and maps.
He built missions extending from the interior of Sonora 150 miles (240 km) northeast to San Xavier del Bac. He constructed 19 rancheras, which supplied cattle to new settlements. He was also instrumental in the return of the Jesuits to California in 1697.
Father Kino remained in southern Arizona until his death in 1711. He passed away in the city of Magdalena, Mexico. He has been honored both in Mexico and the United States, with the naming of various towns, counties, streets and monuments after him.
Portions of this biography are courtesy National Statuary Hall.
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