David K - 2-8-2004 at 06:41 PM
Well, here is that map so heavily discussed in the Lost Mission of Santa Ysabel thread... http://community-2.webtv.net/Baja4Me/1757
[Edited on 2-9-2004 by David K]
Venegas
academicanarchist - 2-8-2004 at 09:00 PM
There is a manuscript version of Venegas's history in the Bancroft Library at my alma mater. I have this on microfilm. It has also been published in
Mexico. There was also a version published in London in the late 1750s, that has been published in facsimilie, which means 18th century type which is
different from today. The general misson reports prepared in the 1740s-1760s are found in different archives, and I have them on microfilm, including
the individual mission reports from 1744. As I have said, there is nothing about Santa Ysabel. There may have been discussion of placing a mission
around there, or more likely the site on the Gulf was considered for what eventually would become Calamajue/Santa Maria. The expedition of Gardner and
the stories that came from it are interesting in of themselves, but there is no substance to the Lost Mission.
There are also local records, such as baptismal and burial registers for Sta Gertrudis and San Francisco de Borja. If there had been plans for a Santa
Ysabel, it is likely that there would have been references in these records, but there aren't. In 1773 and 1774, the Franciscans and Dominicans
prepared detailed censuses and inventories of the missions. Again, no reference to the mythic Santa Ysabel. David, as we previously discussed, the
Venegas map for me was a form of propaganda to interest the Spanish government in providing more support to the Peninsula mission, and also a
blueprint for possible expansion. From Choral's photos, it would not have been an acceptable mission site. There could have been a mission-related
structure here, but not a mission.
I think it unlikely that there would have been a mission on the Gulf Coast for another reason. Seri from the opposite coast raided the missions on a
number of occasions. A Gulf location for a mission would have been risky.
David K - 2-9-2004 at 11:15 PM
Two photos (enlarged) taken at the ruins discovered by the Gardner expedition have been added to the Venegas map web page. The ruins are in the area
where the map places a Mision Santa Maria Magdalena 'started'. Choral Pepper has additional details in her final Baja book, yet unpublished...
Venegas
bajalera - 2-11-2004 at 06:45 PM
Miguel Venegas, a Mexican Jesuit, was told to write a history of his order's peninsular efforts in 1734 or earlier, and sent questionnaires to current
and past Jesuits who had worked there, and also used existing reports. His manuscript was approved and sent to Jesuit hq. in Madrid in 1739.
Andres Burriel, a Spanish Jesuit who had long been curious about the peninsula, edited the ms. and in 1752 sent it to the Jesuits' Procurado General,
who turned it over to three censors selected by the Royal Academy of History. It was published three years later--18 years after Venegas (now 77)
finished it.
Burriel's name doesn't appear anywhere in the books, and until recently it wasn't widely known that the work wasn't that of Venegas. Burriel is
credited with having revised more than 2,000 documents in four years--more than one a day (all handwritten, incidentally) and the speed shows.
The title implies the work is about the peninsula, but what has been called Burriel's "exceptional world view and knowledge of geography" intrudes
throughout and sometimes completely takes over.
The Venegas/Burriel work was printed in English in 1758, French in 1767, German in 1769, Dutch in 1777. A Spanish edition was published in Mexico City
in 1944.
The books of Johann Jakob Baegert and Miguel del Barco--both of whom were peninsula missionaries--were written in protest of the Burriel butchery.
The Huntington library has most of a copy of the Venegas original, which Homer Aschmann told me differs considerably from the edited version. I don't
know whether the Berkeley copy is complete.
AA, if you can work with 1700s handwriting, getting the Venegas original into print would be a wonderful thing for those of us who can't decipher
script. I don't think Miguel Leon-Portilla is going to get around to adding Venegas to Clavijero and Miguel del Barco.
bajalera
Baegert and Del Barco
academicanarchist - 2-11-2004 at 09:38 PM
Both Baegert and Del Barco also wrote their texts while in exile, after having been expelled in 1768. As I recall, the most recent published version
of Venegas was from the Berkeley manuscript, and that was published in Mexico. The version published in London in 1758 is not complete, when compared
to the Berkeley manuscript.
[Edited on 2-12-2004 by academicanarchist]
Venegas
academicanarchist - 2-11-2004 at 09:46 PM
It was published in 1979 as five volumes in Spanish, and was edited by Michael Mathes.
bajalera - 2-12-2004 at 08:35 PM
AA - I already have the photo-copied 2- volume English edition and the 3-volume Spanish one done in DF in the '40s. The bajacalifology biblio says the
Mathes Venegas includes a reprint of the 3 DF books. Since it totals only 5 volumes, this doesn't sound like it could include very much of the
original Venegas ms., which Harry Crosby says adds up to 680 some pages. Have you seen the Mathes books?
bajalera
Mathes Books
academicanarchist - 2-13-2004 at 07:48 AM
I think I looked at them a long time ago, but did not buy copies. Mathes and I don't get along. Years ago, he wrote to the editor of a journal where I
had published several articles, claiming that he had the exclusive right to publish data from certain Baja California mission records. I had
previously met with Mathes, who gave me citations to some of the records available on microfilm in The Bancroft Library at Berkeley, which is a public
library. Needless to say, the response to Mathes was not very kind.
Venegas Manuscript
academicanarchist - 2-13-2004 at 07:57 AM
I guess the copy at Berkeley is that long. It is more complete than the version publisned in London. It has good background information, but I really
prefer to work with the original reports and other related documents by the Jesuits. The reports in particular, such as the ones from 1744, say much
more about what was going on in the missions than Venegas. Clavigero relied on Venegas in his history as well. Venegas presents a narrative which, as
I have said, is useful for context, and some events such as the collapse of the Guadalupe church in the 1740s. There are, however, other references to
the collapse of the church in other reports. In my approach to the study of the missions, I am more interested in how the missions actually worked,
and look at such records as censuses and parish registers, accounts, inventories, etc.
bajalera - 2-15-2004 at 05:32 PM
I'm not exactly a member of the WMM fan club. The Ethnography of Baja California includes some papers by a relative of mine for whom I did maps and
illustrations. I don't object to people putting together material that isn't copyrighted, but they ought to at least find a competent printer. Some
of my best work ever is smudgy beyond belief.
And then there's the scholarship. The translation of Guillen's two expeditions notes their arrival at San Andres Tiguana, which isn't far from the San
Luis Gonzaga mission, and a footnote says: "The earliest reference to this rancheria, which apparently gave its name at a later date to the present
city of Tijuana."
That's what I'd call a stretch!
bajalera
Unless You Fly
academicanarchist - 2-15-2004 at 06:44 PM
Some of the missionaries reported aparitions among the Indians of St. Thomas or nuns who claimed to have been carried to the Americas while in
trances. It is possible that Guillen put himself in a trance, and was transported to TJ. Keep an open mind about this one. Not!
Your Relative
academicanarchist - 2-15-2004 at 06:46 PM
Who was your relative who did Baja ethnography?
bajalera - 2-15-2004 at 06:54 PM
Bill Massey
bajalera
Of Course
academicanarchist - 2-15-2004 at 06:59 PM
I am familiar with his works. They were among the first things I read when I began serious research on the Baja California Missions.
[Edited on 2-16-2004 by academicanarchist]
bajalera - 2-16-2004 at 10:47 AM
Thanks, Robert, for interpreting that footnote--the possibility of flight just never occurred to me. What a great subject for a children's book: The
Little Tribe that Flew North.
There are quite a few other places in the Guillen paper that I could use some help with. For example:
"They saw following them a squad of Indian friends adorned with their quivers which they carried, respectable more for their supply of arrows than for
their curious painting, they admired, in the middle, our carriage guarded by Spaniards and surrounded by another squad of Indian friends, they were
frightened seeing the rearguard with the herd of horses and mules surrounded by Spanish presidial soldiers. It was an agreeable spectacle of which,
even in a painting, they had not seen a like representation. The fact is that they now saw with fear what they hoped (if that was the cause for their
lies) to see with delight, and they were detained by good discretion from the act and hoped for natural jubilation."
Maybe you can translate that? I do okay right up to the painting, but after that sort of get lost.
bajalera
Translation
academicanarchist - 2-16-2004 at 04:07 PM
I would want to see the original text, but what it sounds to me is that the Spanish were accompanied by Indian allies, and that the whole retinue
startled or scared the natives. Or at least that is what is implied.
Then again
academicanarchist - 2-16-2004 at 04:08 PM
...they could be levitating again to TJ.
Venegas = Venecas ?
Steve in Oro Valley - 3-8-2004 at 07:35 PM
Hi all:
I had a thread with David K some weeks back, I can not remember which discussion group, regarding the hill - LAS VENECAS- near the llano/Valle de San
Pedro between Bah?a de Los Angeles and Bah?a de San Francisquito.
A Veneca is a girl from Venezuela.
Could Venecas be a corruption of Venegas? I know jesuits would never name something for themselves. HOWEVER we do have KINO bay in Sonora!!
This Venegas thread tells me we have knowledgeable historians and map students on this board..
Any guesses?
Steve in Oro Valley
Probaly Not
academicanarchist - 3-9-2004 at 06:54 AM
Venegas never set foot in Baja California, so I would say no. Check the dictionary of the Real Academia, to get possible archaic definitions of the
word.
Las Venecas Photos
David K - 3-9-2004 at 07:39 AM
Here is a picture of Cerro las Venecas and photos at Arroyo las Venecas (incl. Paulina, Neal Johns, Desert Rat, and El Camote: http://davidksbaja.com/van1/page8.html (if you click on the previous page, you will see some of the giant cardons in Valle La Bocana/ Llanos de
San Pedro). Photos taken July 4, 2001.