Eusebio Francesco Chini

Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer and Italian astronomer

Life

Father Eusebio Francesco Chini was born in Segno, in the thirty Val di Non oggi Municipality of Predaia, on 10 August 1645 by Francesco and Margherita. Baptized in the church of the nearby village of Torra, after the elementary studies he undertook the gymnasium in the Jesuit College of Trento, to complete them in Hall in Tyrol where, cured of a serious illness, he vows to enter the Society of Jesus to devote himself to missions in the Indies as, a few years before him, he had made another illustrious son of Trent, Martino Martini.

Ordained priest in Eichstatt in Bavaria in 1677, he completed his preparation in Spain in the College of Seville and finally, on May 3, 1681, he reached Mexico, the "New Spain", landing in Vera Cruz after three months of navigation.
The Jesuit Eusebio Francesco Chini is 36 years old. Having quickly exhausted the Spanish attempts to create permanent settlements in the Baja California peninsula, to which he participated as a real missionary and cosmographer, Fr. Francisco Kino - thus had his name in the meantime - began March 13, 1687, the enterprise of his life: evangelization and civil, social and economic development of the peoples who live in the Pimeria Alta, the tribes of the Pima people, north-east of the Rio Sonora.
The adventure will last until his death, in 1711: for twenty four years Father Kino will be the soul of the many missions he founded, today thriving cities of the States of Sonora and Arizona. He will be a man of God and a defender of the rights of the Indians. Placed between God and creation, he was an explorer, historian, cartographer, pioneer, cowboy, ranchero. He taught the cultivation of unknown fruits and vegetables in those lands, introduced cattle breeding and iron processing. He vigorously protected the dignity and interests of his Indians against the arrogance of the conquerors, obtaining the royal decree which exempted the converts from work in the mines and from the payment of taxes.
Forge and determine the economic development of a deserted land burned by the sun. He makes many exploration journeys north to the Rio Colorado, providing scientific evidence that California is a peninsula. From an approximate calculation by default of his shipments results a total of 12,800 km. horseback rides through the Sonora desert. A gigantic enterprise, whose fruits are the souls brought to God, the life given to the desert, the dignity recognized to the Indians. He died at midnight on March 15, 1711, in Magdalena, as he had lived: "in peace and poverty, on the edge of something much greater" (Fr. Charles W. Polzer), while in Magdalena the cult of Fr. the faithful of Sonora, Arizona, Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Baja California. A cult that has transformed, for three hundred years, the devotion of Father Kino to St. Francis Xavier in the homage of the Indios to the Father Pioneer of the Pimería Alta.

The great and profound popular devotion, handed down for generations, finds a scientific foundation at the beginning of our century, when the journals of Padre Kino, the "Heavenly favors of Jesus and Mary Most Holy," experienced in the adventures of the Pimeria. It is the story of his life of mission, of the difficulties encountered, of the tireless explorations accomplished.
The figure comes from a giant, moved by faith and love, a man who leaves his mark in history.
We begin to search for the place of his burial, to honor the remains: and finally, after several unsuccessful attempts, on 19 May 1966 the tomb of Father Kino is located in the city of Magdalena and work begins on the construction of the mausoleum and transformation of the place into a monumental square, inaugurated both May 2, 1971 in the presence of the President of Mexico, Luis Echeverria.
Schools, universities and hospitals are named after Father Kino; monuments rise up in the small villages lost in the desert, the city of Tucson inaugurates a splendid bas-relief where the indefatigable pioneer is depicted together with an Indian Pima in the background of the desert.
In the cathedral of Hermosillo, the process of canonization is still underway, in recognition of the clear evidence of the sanctity of Father Kino, who had among other things protected the State of Sonora from the anti-religious persecutions of General Calles after the First World War.

 

The departure and stay in Spain
In 1678 the moment of departure finally arrived. After a brief stop at Segno to say goodbye to his mother and his sisters (who would no longer have the magazines), Father Eusebio Francesco finally reached Genoa, where he embarked on the ships commanded by Francesco Colombo (Christopher's great-grandson).

After escaping a storm and a pirate assault (as well as a forced stop in Ceuta), the expedition finally arrived in Cadiz (E), from where he saw the Fleet of the Indies move away, which forced the Jesuits to a forced stay of about two and a half years in Spain, where the non-missionary perfected the Spanish (which became his mother tongue) and the Amerindian idioms, in addition to the disciplines in which he was mostly paid. It was during this "holiday" that he assumed the pseudonym that made him famous, because the Spaniards pronounced his surname as Cini, so he changed it to Kino.
In 1680 it seemed finally time to leave, but the Nazareno ship (on which, in addition to the Jesuits, the viceroy De Paredes and his wife were also traveling) first got stuck on a dry and, after repairs, bumped a rock called " Grand diamond ", sinking to the peak. We had to wait until January 3, 1681 for the expedition to take the sea and leave Europe forever.

Arrival in Mexico and the first explorations
After 96 days of navigation, on 3 May 1681 the group finally arrived in Veracruz, from where a month later he reached Mexico City, where Count De Paredes confirmed to Father Kino the appointment to Cosmographer Réal (= official cartographer) of Nueva España, especially after Kino had shown him a map he had drawn of the passage over the Spanish skies of a comet (which many mistakenly believe was Halley's) and which was published in Mexico City.
After about two years Father Kino was joined to the am. Isidro Atondo y Atillon, former governor of Sonora and Sinaloa, as a missionary and magistrate, but above all cartographer, in the expedition that was to explore the Baja California (then simply California), at the time many mistakenly considered an island.
The first expedition, based in La Paz, resulted in a substantial failure due to the contrasts with the Amerindian population resulting in a massacre after the news of the killing of a sailor (who, in reality, had deserted). A second expedition was immediately sent this time further north, to the fort of San Bruno, from where Padre Kino and Atondo left in October 1684 to explore the interior and west coast of California. After the Rio Purissima and the Sierra Giganta, they reached Bahia de Año Nuevo (today Bahia de San Gregorio) on January 2, 1685, but on their return they discovered that the colony was in disastrous conditions due to drought and the consequent epidemic just when the missionary of Segno began to obtain results also in the field of evangelization.
At that point Atondo threw in the towel and ordered the immediate return. Father Kino tried in vain to organize a third expedition, also because the money destined for it had to be paid to the French for the loss of a ship mistakenly considered a pirate vessel.
But the Jesuit did not remain idle for long, because he was about to be sent to his final destination: the Pimeria Alta.

Arrival in Pimeria: exploration and evangelization
The heart of the Great Desert of Sonora, the Pimeria Alta is today divided between Arizona (USA) and Sonora (MEX), but then it was part of the Nueva España. Despite numerous shipments (hitherto unsuccessful), it was still almost totally unknown; furthermore, every attempt at evangelization had hitherto substantially failed.

Father Kino arrived there on March 15, 1687, fort of the Cédula Réal (decree passed by Charles II of Habsburg-Spain in 1686, which for twenty years forbade the exploitation of Indians converted to Catholicism, exempting them from the payment of taxes) and of a portrait of Our Lady of Sorrows, settling in the village of Cosari, where the mission of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (dedicated, precisely, to Our Lady of Sorrows), whose name (abbreviated to Dolores) was extended after the church was consecrated inhabited area, of which Father Kino made his own headquarters.

In the next 24 years Father Kino founded in Pimeria 24 missions, including the famous one of San Xavier del Bac, just outside Tucson (AZ, USA), converting as many as 30,000 souls (practically the entire Indian population of Pimeria) resorting not to force, but passing through their culture, imparting their catechism language and adapting themselves to the customs of the Indians, which, under the Cédula Réal proper, defended against the arrogance of the Spanish hidalgos, but also by the apaches, which, especially during the harvest period , raided the Pimeria, teaching the Pima and Papago (main ethnic groups in the region) to defend themselves using firearms and turning them into skilled knights; not only that, but he taught them to cultivate the land (abusively barren) and raise livestock (especially cattle and horses).
An apparently trivial episode was nevertheless decisive in his exploratory activity.

The discovery of the peninsular nature of Baja California
In 1694 he went to a Yuma village, where, in addition to a valuable crucifix, an Indian chief gave him some abacuses, or blue shells, which Padre Kino had already noticed during the unfortunate California expeditions that are found exclusively in the Baja California. When asked how they had them; the answer is that they had been taken away by land, which is apparently impossible, since - as we said - California was then considered an island: Father Kino decided, therefore, to verify the thing, even more than his own geography teacher had supported the peninsular nature of Baja California, but had been denied by a learned Franciscan and, above all, by Francis drake, who claimed to have "circumnavigated California". Alone or with friend cap. Juan Matéo Manje, Father Kino accomplished nine expeditions in seven years, until in 1701, from the top of the Cerro di Santa Clara (an ancient extinct volcano) he finally discovered the welding point, representing it in the Paso por Tierra wing California, paper that in Europe was initially greeted with amazement and mistrust, and even rejected by the British, because (as a good Catholic) Father Kino had branded Drake (notoriously Protestant) as a liar and heretic.

Thanks to these discoveries, Father Kino tried in vain to reach California to resume the interrupted work, but never succeeded; nevertheless, his work was universally appreciated, even though many confreres accused him of devoting himself more to human exploration and promotion than to evangelization (the truth is that they expected to enjoy the fruits of the work of Father Kino and his collaborators), accusations that the same missionary, anaune, disdainful, never answered.

The latest explorations and death

If the Paso por tierra in California had been his greatest success, Father Kino is not only famous for this: without ever setting foot on a ship, he also discovered the islands of Santa Ines and San Felipe (today Angel de la Garda and Tiburon), in addition to the Pozzi della Luna and the Camino del Diablo (exalted in many stories and western movies).
Now elderly, tired and sick, Father Kino was invited to preside over the consecration of the mission of Santa Magdalena de Sonora. During the function he felt ill: immediately rescue, he died just before midnight on March 15, 1711 just over 65 years old, and was buried at the main altar of the church.
His successors (especially Swiss and German) did not prove to his height; immediately afterwards the Jesuits were expelled from Nueva España and later suppressed. All of Father Kino's work was lost mainly because of the Indian rebellions caused by the resumption of Spanish arrogance (the Cédula Réal had meanwhile expired) and by the incursions of the Apaches, which also destroyed many of the Chinian missions: the same Dolores, now become unhealthy , was finally abandoned, and today only the facade of the church and the cemetery perrennemente invaded by weeds.

Father Kino's legacy
But Father Kino was far from forgotten (his Indians still remember him as a saint even though the Church has not yet canonized him).
In 1902 the American historian Herbert Eugene Bolton rediscovered his major work, Favores Celestiales (real mission diaries), on the shelves of the Central Archive of the city of Mexico, and, after a brief biographical essay [The Father on horseback (1932 , tr. it.) The father on horseback)] wrote the biography Rim of Christedom (At the borders of Christianity, 1936-80).
In 1965, Arizona (full membership of the United States in 1912) chose Father Kino as his second founding father (the first was Gen. John Campbell Greenway, 1872-1926, first governor of the state) and ordered the statue, created by Suzanne Silvercruyse, born in Belgium from a noble family, who used the portrait created by the painter Frances O'Brien, who realized it by comparing those of her descendants, given that coeval or immediately subsequent portraits of Father Kino they existed; the statue was then inaugurated in the Campidoglio of Washington by Giuseppe Chini, a distant descendant of the missionary, on February 14th 1965.
In 1966, during the preparatory work for the Summer Olympic Games (1968) and the World Soccer Championships (1970), both held in Mexico, three Jesuit tombs were found; one of these was almost immediately forgotten as that of Father Kino:overlapping the front profile of the skull the portrait of O'Brien they matched, so it was decided to pay tribute to the Jesuit of Segno by placing it inside a mausoleum inaugurated in 1971, when the city of Magdalena de Sonora definitively changed its name to Magdalena de Kino (in Sonora there is also the coastal city of Bahia de Kino). At the same time numerous monuments, especially equestrian, were erected to Father Kino, the last of which (created by Julian Martinez and twin of those of Tucson and Magdalena de Kino) inaugurated on June 16, 1991: on that occasion the Chinian Committee was transformed ( 1992) in the "Eusebio Francesco Chini" Association, which in the building behind it has obtained a small but well-stocked museum dedicated to him and in which numerous relics are gathered, including many testimonies of Indian culture and culture, a mass corporal belonging to Father Kino and a beautiful embossed copper water bottle dated 1706 (but probably later) dedicated to Father Kino as an Arizona missionary and explorer.
The bones of the friar

Unlike abroad, and although there is no lack of previous studies and monographs (three of which the "Genealogia dei Chini d'Anaunia" by Marco Benedetto Chini, stops - however - to 1938), Padre Kino has been rediscovered only recently, that in 1986 an international conference dedicated to him was held in Trento; in this circumstance, the Celestial Favors (1986-91) have been reissued, but have long since been exhausted.