Sale 2455 - Printed & Manuscript Americana, September 28, 2017

317 c   (MEXICO—BAJA CALIFORNIA.) Kino, Eusebio. Father Kino’s signed Jesuit profession of faith. Document Signed in Latin “Eusebius Franciscus Kinus.” One page, 10 x 7 3 / 4 inches, with docketing on verso; folds, cropped on right edge with minimal loss of text, otherwise minimal wear. San Bruno Mission, Baja California, 15 August 1684 [10,000/15,000] The Jesuit missionary Eusebio Kino (1645-1711) began his career in Baja California in 1683, and went on to pioneer European settlement in what is now southern Arizona. His first mission was San Bruno in southern Baja California, which he founded in 1683. After eight months of complete isolation from European society, a relief ship finally arrived on 10 August 1684, bearing another Jesuit missionary, Jean-Baptiste Copart, as well as supplies, letters, and twenty additional men. Five days later, Copart led Kino in his formal profession of faith, the vows which made him a true Jesuit. We offer here those vows, signed by Kino. This document, written entirely in Latin, is written under Father Copart’s authority. It discusses the Jesuit vows of poverty and obedience (pauperta and obedientia), and concludes “Sancti Brunonis, “Insularum Californiarum” with the date spelled out in Latin. It is docketed on verso “Profes’n del P. Eusebio Fran’co Kino 1684.” See Bolton’s “Rim of Christendom: A Biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino,” page 168, for an account of Copart’s arrival and Kino’s profession. No other Kino manuscripts have appeared at auction since a Swann sale, 21 May 1998, lot 28.