Discover Baja Travel Club Blog: Detailed History Articles on the Spanish Missions in Baja. New stuff added!

In 2013 I started writing a series of articles on the missions of 'Old' California (Baja). They appear in the Discover Baja Travel Club Blog and Newsletter. The goal is to have articles on all 27 missions plus other articles of related interest. As of mid 2014, 23 missions articles are published plus an intro to the missions and a chart of all the California missions, a list of my history sources and maps showing the mission locations. Here are links to the ones already placed online by Discover Baja:

http://www.discoverbaja.com/category/missions-of-baja-califo...

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Introduction to the missions

Chart of all 48 California Missions

Resources for Mission History and Mission Locations

NEW!: Franciscans at Baja California Missions

Dominicans at Baja California Missions


1) Loreto

2) San Javier

3) Ligui/Malibat

4) Santa Rosalia de Mulege

5) San Jose de Comondu

6) La Purisima

7) Pilar de la Paz

8) Guadalupe de Huasinapi

9) Los Dolores (Apate & Chilla/La Pasion)

10) Santiago

11) San Ignacio

12) San Jose del Cabo

13) Santa Rosa (Todos Santos)

14) San Luis Gonzaga

15) Santa Gertrudis (Dolores del Norte)

16) San Borja

17) Calamajue/ Santa Maria de los Angeles

18) San Fernando de Velicata

19) El Rosario

20) Santo Domingo

21) San Vicente

22) San Miguel

23) Santo Tomas

24) San Pedro Martir

25) Santa Catalina

26) El Descanso

27) Guadalupe (del Norte)

Because these articles are for Baja travelers, they are only covering the 27 missions in Baja California.

Our 2012 'Old Missions of Baja & Alta California, 1697-1834' book covers the founding of all the California missions and they are presented in order, numbered, exactly how they were founded.

After mission #18 (San Fernando de Velicata) was founded by Junipero Serra, he continued north to San Diego, then Monterey and founded more missions between. While the Franciscans were establishing their 21 missions in Alta (Upper) California, the Dominicans assumed jurisdiction of the entire peninsula of Baja (Lower) California, as well as founding 9 missions of their own during the same period.

Alta and Baja California were not separated politically until March 26, 1804, a point when all but 5 missions were already operating. All 48 missions (or at least the 43 until 1804) were simply 'California missions', and is why our book is unique in the historically correct manner we include them, together, as they were founded.
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These above articles were refined and updated/ corrected historically to become part of an overall mission history book in 2016:


[Edited on 5-1-2023 by David K]

These articles have more historical details, photos, and stories from the missions than what is found in the book I co-authored in 2012. That was due to space available and the book's purpose (show how all the 48 California missions were founded, not just those on one side of a line drawn after the missions were long closed).

I am currently writing about Santa Gertrudis (#15)... which, as some of you know was originally going to be called 'Dolores del Norte'... and because of the letters and maps from the 1740's mentioning THAT name, it became a 'LOST MISSION' to some writers... Padre Consag even baptized natives for a future Dolores del Norte.

The documentation that Dolores del Norte was changed to Santa Gertrudis is substantial, but missed or ignored by some. The locals at San Francisco de la Sierra had told Choral Pepper that the walls in their village were 'Dolores'... back around 1964, after she and others with Erle Stanley Gardner arrived by helicopter. The extensive adobe visita ruins down in San Pablo Canyon have also been mis-identified as Dolores del Norte by writers, and even INAH! Perhaps San Francisco or San Pablo were early sites for the Dolores project, but actual mission status was only reached at Santa Gertrudis on July 15, 1752.

Stay tuned, lot's more mission fun yet to come!

David, I'm always interested to devour anything you do on the missions. I've fallen out of touch but am still here in La Paz reading your stuff and was delighted to get the new book delivered via my Dad on his last trip. Keep it coming!

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Originally posted by LaPazGringo David, I'm always interested to devour anything you do on the missions. I've fallen out of touch but am still here in La Paz reading your stuff and was delighted to get the new book delivered via my Dad on his last trip. Keep it coming!

Since you ask a personal question, you can call me David, no problem!

Religion has nothing to do with why I write about history, there is just no other huge record of human activity in Baja as great as the writings of the missionaries or about the missionaries for the period from the 1600's through the 1800's. I like reading how Baja was before modern times and why people went to such a rugged place.

I like writing about many things in Baja and documenting my travels. It keeps the greatest times of my life vivid and fresh for the times I cannot be in Baja. Since Max invited me to co-author his mission book in 2012, I have just concentrated my writings on that lately. You can read about other Baja places in my Baja Bound articles or here on Nomad.

Not all the mission sites are 'crumbling', but the locations of all the mission sites (often more than one per mission), of the visitas (satellite sub-missions), and the Camino Real (trail-road built to connect the missions and visitas), are all fascinating to me. I love Baja (Old California) so much that to connect with others who have had such a deep root in the peninsula is rewarding... I mean, look how we travel, in air conditioned SUVs or motorhomes and compare that to people who spent two years just to get to Baja, crossing oceans and gulfs... with all the dangers... then to do what they did here to convert the 'heathens' as the native Indians were called by some from that period. I mean it took days to walk from one mission to the next, and then build such structures... It is comparable to building a base on Mars, today.

What is the draw that so strongly drives us to go to the peninsula with its modern-day dangers and issues. There is some kind of Baja magic going on, and it affects us all!

(No, I am not a member of the Catholic church.)

You are welcome, and I am gaining lots of great data as I research more into the history, using newly found sources and scouring old ones.

I am working on the last California mission article now (Guadalupe) as well as a list of the Dominicans and where they served during their years in California.

One such discovery was finding a letter by Padre Ahumada (of Mission San Miguel from 1809-1815) giving a totally new and earlier date for his founding of El Descanso (actually moving San Miguel to El Descanso)...

The Franciscans in Baja...