The landing of marines in Haiti on July 28, 1915, was the climax to more than a century of political, financial, and diplomatic problems on that unhappy island. The Haitians had not been prepared for the hard-fought independence proclaimed on January 1, 1804. In the intervening years, they had been theoretically governed under fourteen constitutions. Only two of their twenty-six chief executives had managed to serve a regular constitutional term of office and then retire alive. Indeed, the occuption forces landed when an enraged mob was cutting President J. V. Guillaume Sam into pieces.

On April 28, 1774, the Boston News-Letter published at the bottom of its first page the following “extract” of a letter it had recently received from Fayal, the Azores:

By a Vessel that arrived here last Month from Rio de Janeiro in the Brazils, we have accounts of a small Whaling Brig belonging to some Part of North-America, putting in there for Refreshments, but that Part of the crew were prevailed on either by fair or foul Means to enter on board a Portuguese Scow, to go on a Cruise of three Months a Whaling…. That the Brig still remained there in October last, with only the Captain and three People on board…. That the Portuguese provided themselves with Harpoons and other Necessaries, agreeable to the English Model, and were gone in Search of Spermaceti Whales, a Trade they have hitherto been entirely ignorant of, and are very desirous of acquiring some Knowledge in. All the oil they used to make in the Brazils was from the Bone Whales, and those they caught in such Abundance in open boats along the Shore that they migh[t] undersell any other Europeans if they were expert in their Business, but they never venture out of Sight of Shore.

Since 1773 various official and semi-official lists of the California missions with their founding dates have been compiled, but the lists do not all agree with one another nor with the founding reports. This paper is an attempt at a critical and analytical study of the founding dates based on the founding reports, on the annual reports (estados) of the individual missions, on the beginning dates (comenzadas) on the title pages of the parochial books, on the traditional lists, and on the factors involved in the founding of the establishments. In the 1920's Father Engelhardt made some study of these lists in his various histories of the missions, but some of the findings may be questioned.