5.3.6 Carte de la Californie / levée par la Société des Jesuites

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Date: 1757

Repository: California Historical Society

This map shows the Spanish occupation of Baja California (including the Jesuit missions there) as well as Spanish settlements in the Pimería Alta in the seventeenth century. Today these locations are Sonora in northern Mexico and southern Arizona in the United States. How do you think the missions and settlements show how Natives and Spanish settlers interacted? Given the purpose of the missions and Spanish occupation, do you think the Spanish interacted with Natives through conflict, diplomacy, religion — or a combination of all three?

This map shows the Spanish occupation of Baja California (including the Jesuit missions there) as well as Spanish settlements in the Pimería Alta. Today these locations are Sonora in northern Mexico and southern Arizona in the United States. The Jesuit missionary and explorer Eusebio Kino established a Jesuit mission in this area in the seventeenth century, and he interacted with many different indigenous communities. The lands of the Apaches are shown at the northeastern edge of this map. The Spanish viewed the Apaches as a major threat to the frontier; the Apaches first encountered the Spanish as brutal slavers. In his Historical Memoir of the Pimería Alta, Kino argued that the reduction of the Apaches was one of the justifications for establishing missions in the region.

Ten years after the publication of this map, the Jesuits were expelled from the Americas. The presence of missions, settlements, and the expansive Spanish occupation demonstrates the multiple goals of Spanish missionaries. Have your students analyze this source in conjunction with the subsequent one about the Pueblo Revolt in order to consider the longer history of religious conversion and military conquest in the region.

Carte de la Californie / levée par la Société des Jesuites
Dediee au Roy d'Espagne
en1757