Last of the famed Jesuit missionary explorers of Baja California, Wenceslaus Linck came to Mexico in 1756 at the age of twenty years. In 1761 he went to Santa Gertrudis mission in the peninsula for eight months of study in the Cochimi language. The next year he was sent to San Borja, the last durable, important mission begun by the Jesuits in Baja California. In his six years at San Borja Linck carried out several explorations, seeking sites for missions to connect the peninsular stations with the Kino outposts in Pimería Alta. Also, he sought vainly a bay to serve as a port of call for the Manila Galleon. In the preceding volume of this series Father Burrus covered in detail the expedition of 1766 which took Linck to near the Colorado River on an exploration lasting fifty-eight days. The present volume contains brief accounts of other explorations between 1765 and 1767, the work at San Borja itself, 1762-68, and writings appearing within ten years of the Jesuit expulsion, along with brief notes on his own work in the peninsula. The account was taken from a manuscript history of Baja California by Miguel del Barco, found in Rome by Burrus and photostatted for the Bancroft Library.
In 1765, hoping to find natives for conversion, Linck and an exploring party went to Bahía Los Ángeles and Isla Ángel de la Guarda in the Gulf of California. They found neither natives nor water, but did learn much from the difficult winds and currents between the island and the mainland. Another expedition in the spring of 1765, reported by letter to Jorge Retz of Santa Gertrudis, was a brief pursuit of marauding Indians to the north. In another letter, dated November 20, 1765, Linck described an extensive sweep to the north which lasted one hundred fifty days. Of special interest is his casual reference to the mission at “San Luis” which was his advance base. As Burrus notes, this would suggest that the mission was founded before 1765, and it may have revealed to us one of the hitherto unrecorded Jesuit establishments in the peninsula.
A letter to Armesto in 1767 briefly summarizes four other expeditions of 1765-67 to the west coast seeking in vain a port for the Manila Galleon. Though Segismundo Taraval had removed all the inhabitants of Cedros Island to San Ignacio in 1732, Linck believed there were settlers on the island as he studied it from the peninsula. Annual reports on San Borja give detailed accounts of conversion efforts, native population, aboriginal customs, and the like. Much space is devoted to the struggle for survival, with data on climate, soil, water supply, crops, and the like. Linck’s last report, summarized in a work by Father Benno Ducrue (1784), touches on the epidemic at San Borja which preceded departure of Linck and Arnes (down from Santa María) early in 1768.
The last section of the book, “Linck’s Reminiscences of the Peninsula,” contains a letter of 1778 to Ducrue and an account of peninsular geography. In this Linck ably and candidly described the aridity, poverty, and misery characteristic of the peninsula and ridiculed those who ignorantly expressed interest in the wonders of the peninsula. As is noted, the writings are from unpublished manuscripts and materials found in Spanish, Italian, Mexican, British, Californian, and Texan archives. Excellent monographs, articles, and secondary accounts fill in between letters, reports, etc. and tie them into an intelligible and fascinating account of Linck’s active years in central and northern Baja California.
Of special importance is the reference to the Barco manuscript, which Burrus calls “the most exact and complete history of colonial Baja California” resulting from Barco’s thirty-one years in the territory (pp. 11-12). It should be edited and published; perhaps Burrus is already at work on it. Further, the “San Luis” mission north of San Borja is intriguing, and more information on it is needed.
