25 Facts About Eusebio Kino

Eusebio Kino explored the region and worked with the indigenous Native American population, including primarily the Tohono O'Odham, Sobaipuri and other Upper Piman groups.

Eusebio Kino proved that the Baja California Territory was not an island but a peninsula by leading an overland expedition there.

Eusebio Kino's parents were Francesco Chini and Margherita Luchi who belonged to the local noble families.

Once Father Eusebio Kino arrived in the Pimeria Alta, at the request of the natives, he quickly established the first mission in a river valley in the mountains of Sonora.

Subsequently, Eusebio Kino traveled across northern Mexico, and to present day California and Arizona.

Eusebio Kino followed ancient trading routes established millennia prior by the natives.

Eusebio Kino's maps were the most accurate maps of the region for more than 150 years after his death.

Eusebio Kino was important in the economic growth of the area, working with the already agricultural indigenous native peoples and introducing them to European seed, fruits, herbs and grains.

Eusebio Kino taught them to raise cattle, sheep and goats.

In other cases, Father Eusebio Kino traveled into their lands to meet with them.

The tribes Eusebio Kino met with are the Cocopa, Eudeve, Hia C-ed O'odham, Kamia, Kavelchadon, Kiliwa, Maricopa, Mountain Pima, Opata, Quechan, Gila River Pima, Seri, Tohono O'odham, Sobaipuri, Western Apache, Yavapai, and the Yaqui.

Eusebio Kino opposed the slavery and compulsory hard labor in the silver mines that the Spaniards forced on the native people.

Eusebio Kino was a writer, authoring books on religion, astronomy and cartography.

Eusebio Kino built missions extending from the present day states of Mexican Sonora, northeast for 150 miles, into present-day Arizona, where the San Xavier del Bac mission, near Tucson, a popular National Historic Landmark, is still a functioning Franciscan parish church.

Eusebio Kino constructed nineteen rancherias, which supplied cattle to new settlements.

Eusebio Kino practiced other crafts and was reportedly an expert astronomer, mathematician and cartographer, who drew the first accurate maps of Pimeria Alta, the Gulf of California, and Baja California.

When Eusebio Kino proposed and began making a boat that would be pushed across the Sonoran Desert to the Mexican west coast, a controversy arose, as many of his co-missionaries began to question Eusebio Kino's faculties.

Eusebio Kino had an unusual amount of wealth for his vocation, which he used primarily to fund his missionary activities.

Eusebio Kino remained among his missions until his death in 1711.

The discovery of Eusebio Kino's grave took place May 19,1966 by a team of anthropologist and historians.

Eusebio Kino lie buried next to Father Ignacio Iturmendi, and Father Manuel Gonzalez.

Eusebio Kino's skeletal remains can be viewed in his crypt which is a national monument of Mexico.

Eusebio Kino has been honored both in Mexico and the United States, with various towns, streets, schools, monuments, and geographic features named after him.

In 1965, a statue of Eusebio Kino sculpted by artist Susanne Silvercruys was donated to the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall collection, one of two statues representing Arizona.

An equestrian statue featuring Eusebio Kino, donated in 1967 by the Mexican state of Sonora, stands in Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza across from the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.