Establecimiento Y Progresos Delas Misiones De La Antigua California

Resumen del Libro

Bound collection of copies, probably made around 1800, of three documents pertaining to the history of California and the missions established there, between 1531 and 1762. The first document, Establecimiento y progresos, dated 1791, is a year-by-year history of the missions of California, from 1531, when Cortés began his explorations of the peninsula, to 1767, when the Jesuits were expelled from New Spain and control of the 15 missions already established was handed over to the Franciscans of the Colegio de San Fernando in Mexico. The compiler of the history, an anonymous Franciscan brother, describes the expeditions and missionary work of Fathers Kino, Picolo, Salvatierra, Ugarte, and Mayorga, and includes the texts of several of Salvatierras letters to the attorney general of Guadalajara which document events and conditions at the missions. There are several tables, giving populations of the missions, and indicating number of baptisms and confirmations. The narrator concludes with status reports on the missions of San Borja, San Ignacio, and Santa Gertrudis. The second document, Memorias para la historia natural de California, dated 1790, also by an unnamed Franciscan, describes the domestic and wild animals, plants and trees, vegetables, cacti, chiles, and rocks and minerals of California. Also included are a few pages on the designs, colors and significance of the paintings of the Indians of California. Finally, Memorias piadosas, compiled by the Franciscan father Joseph Diaz de la Vega in 1782, contains stories of conversions of the Indians to Catholicism, documenting the exemplary lives and glorious deaths in defense of the faith of certain Otomí and Iroquoian Indians. Several chapters are devoted to the martyrdom of the Indian boy Christóval of Tlaxcala at the hands of his own father. There are also many accounts of how the Indians were honored by miraculous appearances of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, and St. Michael the…