KINO, EUSEBIO FRANCISCO

Missionary, explorer, and cartographer; b. Segno, Italy, Aug. 10, 1645; d. Magdalena, Ariz. (then Mexico), March 15, 1711. Called the "Apostle of Sonora and Arizona," Kino changed his family name, spelled Chino or Chini, to Quino or Kino. In his prayers for recovery from a nearly fatal illness in 1663, he promised St. Francis Xavier that he would assume the name Francisco, enter the Society of Jesus, and devote himself to the missions. Two years later, he joined the Jesuit province of Upper Germany. While engaged in ecclesiastical studies, chiefly at Innsbruck and Ingolstadt, he also familiarized himself with astronomy and mathematics as necessities for the Chinese missions. His association with Germany during these years have led some historians to class him as a German under the name Kühn. Finally in 1678, after repeated petitions, Kino was assigned to a group being assembled in Spain for missions in American and Asia. Since their destinations were not explicit, he and a fellow Jesuit drew lots; the pious gamble chose his destination as Mexico.

Kino voyaged from Genoa to Cádiz, only to endure a two-year delay in Spain—a delay that permitted him to study the comet of 1680. He sailed from Cádiz in January of 1681 and landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico, in May. In Mexico City he published a pamphlet containing his observations on the comet, which were attacked by the Mexican scholar and former Jesuit novice, Carlos Sigüenza y Gángora. Meanwhile Kino had left Mexico City to serve as a royal cosmographer and Jesuit superior on the Atondo expedition of 1683 to Lower California. He wrote reports, crossed this reputedly "large island" from Gulf shore to Pacific coast, and drew maps which he sent to Europe. Drought caused the abandonment of his missionary and colonizing venture in 1685.

Pimería Alta, a vast region extending over modern northern Sonora and southern Arizona, was the scene of Kino's endeavors from 1687 until his death. Establishing his headquarters at Mission Dolores in 1687, he founded missions in the San Miguel, Magdalena, Altar, Sonóita, Santa Cruz, and San Pedro valleys. He baptized 4,500 Pimas, promoted cattle raising, and established missions on the sites of many modern towns and cities. He rode thousands of miles, traveling north from Dolores as far as the Gila and Colorado Rivers. His was the first clearly recorded description of the Casa Grande of the Gila. His enthusiastic letters and reports on Lower California helped the Jesuits to return there in 1697. Kino himself was retained at Primería even though royal decrees directed him to go to California with the missionary Juan Salvatierra; his missions sent cattle and other supplies to the new posts across the Gulf.

In 1700, while constucting the first mission of San Xavier del Bac, he became convinced that California was not an island when he noticed blue shells that he had originally seen on California's Pacific coast side. Two expeditions to the lower Colorado strengthened his opinion, and his maps did much to prove the fact to Europe. He planned to open a road around the head of the gulf, but it was not until generations later that Juan de Anza and Junípero Serra made it a reality. In 1711 the dedication of a chapel in honor of St. Francis Xavier brought Kino to his mission at Magdalena, and he died there.

Bibliography: e. s. kino, Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimería Alta, tr. and ed. h. e. bolton (Berkeley 1948). e. j. burrus, ed., Kino Reports to Headquarters (Rome 1954). h. e. bolton, Rim of Christendom: A Biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino, Pacific Coast Pioneer (New York 1936; repr. 1960).

[j. a. donohue]