SALVATIERRA, JUAN MARÍA

Jesuit missionary in New Spain and founder of the missions of Lower California; b. Milan, Nov. 15, 1644;d. Guadalajara, Mexico, July 17, 1717. Salvatierra entered the Society of Jesus at Genoa in 1688. He arrived in New Spain (Mexico) in 1675, and there finished his theological studies and was ordained. His first mission assignment was to the Sierra de Chínipas. After a decade there he was sent north as visitador to report on conditions in the new mission of Pimería Alta; here he became acquainted with the great Padre kino, from whom he received the inspiration to attempt to reopen the mission field on the California peninsula. When permission was finally granted for this Lower California enterprise, the Jesuits had to undertake the financing of the mission with very little royal aid. Salvatierra and Juan de Ugarte, through their personal begging, began what developed into the later famous pious fund. In 1697 the Lower California mission field was reopened. In 1704 Salvatierra was called back to the mainland to become provincial superior, but in 1707 he returned to the peninsula, where he remained until his health failed in 1717. Death overtook him at the Jesuit college at Guadalajara as he was on his way back to the capital. The California mission went on, through periods of success and reverses, until 1767, when the Jesuits were expelled. Franciscans, who were soon to push the mission frontier into Alta California, took over the peninsula missions.

Bibliography: m. venegas, Juan María de Salvatierra of the Company of Jesus, tr. and ed. m. e. wilbur (Cleveland 1929). p. m. dunne, Black Robes in Lower California (Berkeley 1952). f. j. alegre, Historia de la provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, ed. e. j. burrus and f. zubillaga, 4 v. (new ed. Rome 1956–60).

[j. f. bannon]