CHINO (KINO), EUSEBIO FRANCESCO. – One of the most famous Italian missionaries in America, born at Segno in Val di Non (Trento) in August 1645, died at S. Magdalena (Mexico) on 15 May 1711. Having entered the Society of Jesus (1665), he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Ingolstadt, also taking up the mathematical and astronomical sciences, with a view to the missions of the East, to which he aspired. He was finally able to embark at Genoa on 12 June 1678, not for the East but for Mexico; detained in Spain by various mishaps, he landed in America in June 1681. From then on he adopted for his name the form Kino, by which he is better known outside Italy.
What he accomplished over thirty years as missionary, organizer, explorer, and cartographer is extraordinary. He was first attached, with the title of royal cosmographer, to the expedition of Admiral Isidoro Atondo, charged with exploring lower California, then believed to be an island, and opening it to the Gospel. Because of the region’s extreme poverty, C. had to abandon the stations at La Paz and then at S. Bruno in 1686, but he had had time to explore a large part of the country, draw its first maps, and prepare for the future resumption of the mission. In 1687, C. entered definitively the field of his apostolate, the upper Pimeria, in the present-day states of Sonora (Mexico) and Arizona (United States). A zealous and capable missionary (in 24 years he baptized almost 5,000 Indians), he first revealed himself as a pioneer and organizer. He not only secured economic independence for the flourishing central mission of N. Signora di Dolores and its immediate dependencies, but also enabled it to contribute to other foundations (among them the subsequently famous mission of S. Francisco del Bac); indeed, he wanted the missions of the Pimeria to assist those of lower California, which were much poorer. All this was achieved through the prudent organization of cultivation and especially of livestock raising. At the same time, a horseman of extraordinary endurance, he frequently visited the neighboring tribes, continually pushing farther north, winning the friendship of the Indians, baptizing the children, and, together with the escort officer, having the authority of the king of Spain recognized. After the revolt of 1695, which cost the young Fr. Francesco Saetta his life, he played an important role as a peacemaker. Of C.’s great explorations, the best known for its results was the one undertaken in 1700 as far as the mouth of the Colorado, to demonstrate that lower California was not an island but a peninsula; the journey had to be repeated several times to convince the skeptics.
In 1705, C., already sixty years old and charged with the temporal organization of all the missions of the Pimeria, redoubled his activity, especially as a builder of churches. He had gone precisely to the dedication of one of them at S. Magdalena when death overtook him.
He left highly valuable contributions to the history and geography of colonial America. Among his principal writings are: the letters to his superiors (some published in various journals, such as the Archivum historicum S. I., 1934), an important group of letters to his benefactress, the duchess d’Aveiro (manuscript in the Bancroft Library of Berkeley, Cal.), the diaries of the individual explorations (some printed in various Mexican collections), and the unpublished account of the martyrdom of Fr. Saetta. The most important is a kind of autobiography, entitled: Favores celestiales de Jesús y de María S.ma... en las nuevas conquistas y nuevas conversiones del Nuevo Reino de la Nueva Navarra. It was discovered and published in English by Prof. H. E. Bolton: Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimerie alta (in several volumes, Cleveland 1919); the original Spanish text was later published by F. Fernández del Castillo and E. Böse under the title Las misiones de Sonora y Arizona (Mexico City 1922).
Of the geographical maps, partly lost, which C. continued to perfect from one journey to the next, the most famous are the first maps of California, one of which was splendidly published in the Geographia hierarchica of Fr. Enrico Scherer, C.’s former teacher (Munich 1703); a large
Teatro de los trabajos apostólicos de la Compañía de Jesús en l'América septentrional (1696), published twice in Paris by N. le Fer (1705 and 1720), with the author’s name omitted; then the maps, repeatedly reprinted from 1705 onward, of the overland passage from the Pimeria to California. The originals are in Bolton, Rim of Christendom.