Eusebio Kino

Eusebio Kino (born Aug. 10, 1645, Segno, Tirol [now in Italy]—died March 15, 1711, Magdalena, Mex.) was a Jesuit missionary, cartographer, rancher, and explorer in Spanish service, founder of numerous missions in the Pimería Alta region, now divided between the Mexican state of Sonora and the U.S. state of Arizona.

Educated in Germany in philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1665 and was sent as a missionary to Mexico City in 1681. In March 1687 he established his first mission among rural Indian peoples, Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, in what is now Sonora. In 1691 he made the first of about 40 expeditions into Arizona. Introducing fruit trees and cattle, he helped the Pima Indians to diversify their agriculture. To the dismay of mine owners, he opposed the enslavement of Indians in the northern Mexican silver mines. His Favores celestiales (1708) was translated into English as Kino’s Historical Memoir of Pimería Alta, 2 vol. (1919, reissued 1948).