KINO (Chino), Eusebio Francesco. - One of the most famous Italian missionaries in America, b. at Segno in Val di Non (Trento) in Aug. 1645, d. at S. Magdalena (Mexico) on 15 May 1711. Having entered (1665) the Society of Jesus, he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Ingolstadt, also initiating himself into 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, under which he is better known outside Italy.
What he accomplished in 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 with opening it to the Gospel. Because of the extreme poverty of the region, C. had to abandon, in 1686, the stations at La Paz and then at S. Bruno, but he had had time to explore a good part of the country, to trace its first maps and to prepare the future resumption of the mission. In 1687, C. entered definitively into his field of apostolate, upper Pimeria, in the present-day states of Sonora (Mexico) and Arizona (United States). A zealous and able missionary (in 24 years he baptized nearly 5000 Indians), he revealed himself above all as a pioneer and organizer. Not only did he secure economic autonomy for the flourishing central mission of N. Señora de Dolores and its immediate branches, but he also made it contribute to other foundations (among them the mission, later famous, of S. Francisco del Bac); indeed he wished the missions of Pimeria to help those far poorer ones of lower California. All this was obtained through a prudent organization of cultivation and especially of cattle raising. On the other hand, a rider of prodigious endurance, he frequently visited the neighboring tribes, pushing ever further north, winning the friendship of the Indians, baptizing the children and causing the authority of the king of Spain to be recognized by them, together with the escorting officer. After the revolt of 1695, which cost the life of the young p. Francesco Saetta, an important part fell to him as pacifier. Of C.'s great explorations the most noted for its results was the one pushed in 1700 as far as the mouths of the Colorado, to demonstrate that lower California is not an island but a peninsula; the journey had to be repeated several times to convince the skeptics.
In 1705, C., charged, now in his sixties, with the temporal organization of all the missions of Pimeria, multiplied his activity, especially as a builder of churches. He had in fact gone to the dedication of one of them at S. Magdalena, when death overtook him.
He left very valuable contributions to the history and geography of colonial America. Among the 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 of Aveiro (manuscript at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, Cal.), the diaries of the individual explorations (some printed in various Mexican collections), the unpublished account of the martyrdom of p. 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 rediscovered and published in English by prof. H. E. Bolton: Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimerie alta (2 vols., 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. kept perfecting from journey to journey, the most famous are the first ones of California, one of which was splendidly published in the Geographia hierarchica of p. 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), suppressing the author's name; then the maps, repeatedly reprinted from 1705 onward, of the overland passage through Pimeria to California. The originals in Bolton, Rim of Christendom.
Bibliography5 works
Edmondo Lamalle