
Eusebio Francisco Kino (10 August 1645-15 March 1711) was a Tyrolean Jesuit missionary and polymath who preached to the Native Americans of the Sonora desert and explored Baja California.
Biography[]
Eusebio Chini was born in Segno, Bishopric of Trent, Holy Roman Empire in 1645, the son of Italian noble parents. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1665 after recovering from a serious illness and assumed "Francesco" as a second name for devotion to Saint Francis Xavier, and he was ordained as a priest in 1677. Chini was sent to New Spain as a missionary, and he became known to the Spanish as "Eusebio Francisco Kino". He led expeditions to Baja California from 1683 to 1685 and proved that the peninsula was not an island during his overland trek. He became a missionary to the Native Americans in March 1687, establishing 24 missions and visiting stations and opposing the slavery and compulsory hard labor in the silver mines that the Spaniards forced on the native people. Kino became a polymath, writing books on religion, astronomy, and cartography. He died from fever in 1711 at the age of 65.