San Javier Mission

So we left the resort and headed up the road. The mountains were super close to the coast. Rising way up above the road, it was super dry it was hard to work out where we would find a road that would enter them.

We found the road and wound our way up the mountains. There was a valley carved into the mountain and the road wounded around and around until a white donkey stopped us on a corner. He was just standing there in the middle of the road.

The river that carved the valley wasn't visible except for the occasional oasis of green made of Palm trees. We found out later that they were Date palms plated by the missionaries.

The road stated t flatten out and then wind continually through the dessert mountian plain. It was hard to beleive anyone would live up here. There were many cactuses rising out of the dry rocky land scape. The road followed the river and very occationally we would see another oasis.

Finanlly we arrived at a small town oasis. Surrounding the town was mountains. The little town was so green in contrast to the rock dry mountians where it was hard to beleive anything could live.

The History.

The Spanish attemped to found a colony on the Baja Peninsula in 1535, but it wasn't until 1697 that the first succesful party established a small mission at Lorreto. Much of the exploration of this area was done by Missionaries who were attempting to establish agricultural lands inorder to establish towns.

Esusbie Kino a spansih priest, followed the well established native traing routes to explore the areas on the mainland side of the Sea of Cortez, Arizona and Southern California. Along the way estabishing small settlments around river basins with missions as the center point.

In 1697 some of his followers set sail from he mouth of the Río Yaqui River in Sonora and landed on Baja Calainfornia just south of a failed mission. This was the first Misiòn de Nueva Sońora de Lorreto that was scucessful and is now the town of Lorreto.

The area in Lorreto had little water, so about 2 years later an expedition left here and headed into the mountians in search of an area for another settlement. They rode on horseback 40 km guided by the local indians (CochimÍ) up into the mountains where they found a Cochimí rancheria. Here the found a little oasis. They were able to batptiss some of the Indian. Over the next few years, atempts were made to establish a mission and agriculture at the village. In 1710 that a descion was made to move the mission a few kilometers further south where a spring supplied water all year round. The priest at the time Juan de Ugarte spent time building dams and aquaducts which can still be seen today.

They were able to plant grapes, date, citrus and olives as well as other grain crops.

In 1744 they start to build the buildings and in 12 years they built what we came to see.

We were in awe of what they were able achieve with a few Spanish priests and the native labour force.

In total the Jesuits priests established 20 missions throught the baja penisula. between 1697 and 1767, but in 1760's across Europe the monarchs had become wary of the the Jesuit movement. Worreid about thier of politcal and economic power. They began to expel them from thier conutries. And in 1767 the spanish army removed them from the missions replacing them with Fransiscon monks.

The history of the area was well explained in Jack Williams cruising guide. It was amazing to see what had been achieved centuries before by what we would consider today to be unskilled labour. The area is now a xxx.