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Peregrinations of the Baja California Mission Registers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Peter Gerhard  and
W. Michael Mathes
Peter Gerhard
Affiliation:
Chemin de Prèbarjaud, Fayence, France
W. Michael Mathes
Affiliation:
Chemin de Prèbarjaud, Fayence, France
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Extract

Unique sources of historical, demographic, toponymic, and linguistic information, the mission registers (baptisms, matrimonial inquiries, marriages, burials, and census) of Baja California have been used in varying degrees to good effect by Carl Sauer, Peveril Meigs, Sherburne Cook, Homer Aschmann, and Pablo L. Martínez, among others. What is, alas, not so unique, but true of many parochial archives in Mexico, is the fact that until quite recently they were often left exposed to the elements, rodents, insects, and looters. Gerhard attempted to make an inventory of the known surviving registers in 1952-1953, when he found some of them totally unguarded and uncared-for. This work was followed by Woodrow Borah in the 1970s, and since 1971 Mathes has brought this calendar upto-date, and has obtained or personally produced microfilm of the entire corpus, including certain folios which have since disappeared. Here we shall summarize the tortuous history of the dispersal of these documents.

Type
Archival Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , July 1995 , pp. 71 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1995

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References

1 Sauer, Carl O. and Meigs, Peveril, Site and Culture at San Fernando de Velicatá, University of California Publications in Geography, 2:7 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1927).Google Scholar

2 Meigs, Peveril, The Dominican Mission Frontier of Lower California, University of California Publícations in Geography, 7 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1935).Google Scholar

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7 Woodrow Borah, “Reflections on the Demographic History of the Peninsula of Baja California, 1534–1910,” unpublished paper presented at several conferences in Mexico and the United States. Permission for consultation or acquisition of copy of the film is obtainable through the Sutro Library, San Francisco, California. Census reports (padrones) from individual missions are found in widely scattered repositories and are not considered herein. See: Gerhard, Peter, The North Frontier of New Spain, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 301–303.Google Scholar

8 Colección de documentos inéditos, relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceania, (Madrid: 1864–1884), 12: 298–313.

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10 Robinson, David J., Research Inventory of the Mexican Collection of Colonial Parish Registers, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1980), p. xl–xliii,Google Scholar contains a good discussion of this, although his chart ignores Asians. “Two mulatto servants and five Philipinos Pampangos” were living at Loreto as early as 1700. Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla. Audiencia de Guadalajara, 134. Petition to the Viceroy, 1 March 1700. Others arrived on Manila galleons. See: Lassépas, Ulíses Urbano, De la colonización de la Baja California y decreto de 10 de marzo de 1857, (México: Vicente García Torres, 1859).Google Scholar The great disparity between male and female population, in some areas as much as ten to one, is discussed in: Río, Ignacio del, Conquista y aculturación en la California jesuítica 1697–1768, (México: UNAM, 1984), 229.Google Scholar

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12 Gerhard, Peter, “Gabriel González, last Dominican in Baja California,” Pacific Historical Review 22 (1953), 123–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In the baptismal register of San José del Cabo, Fray Gabriel baptizes his own grandchildren.

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14 The origin of the composite volume is detailed in a note by Father César Castaldi, dated at Mulegé, July 17, 1914. For security, the book was given to the Jesuit seminary in Mexico City.

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16 Giving the impression that these registers were in Ensenada where they were microfilmed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints prior to 1977, the missions were cited as San Francisco “Bonja” and Santa Gertrudis de “Guadacamán,” and erroneous citations to the existence of books of Nuestra Señora de La Paz in La Paz and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Tijuana are listed. Genealogical Society of Utah, Cottler, Susan M., et al., Preliminary Survey of the Mexican Collection. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1978), pp. xlv, 3Google Scholar; and, Robinson, , Research Inventory, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

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19 Coronado, Eligio Moisés, Descripción e Inventarios de las Misiones de Baja California, 1773 (Palma: Institut D’Estudis Balearios, 1987);Google Scholar Mathes, Michael, “Oasis Culturales en la Antigua California: Las Bibliotecas de las Misiones de Baja California en 1773,” Estudios de Historia Novohispana, 10 (1991), 369–442.Google Scholar