Wenceslaus Linck (german: Wenzel Linck) (29 March 1736 – 8 February 1797) was the last of the outstanding Jesuit missionary-explorers in

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

. Born in Neudek, Bohemia, he entered the Jesuit order at age 18 and studied at Brno and

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

. In New Spain, he continued his studies in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

and Puebla between 1756 and 1761. In 1762 he was sent to Baja California, initially to Santa Gertrudis, at that time the northernmost Jesuit establishment. After preparing under Santa Gertrudis' missionary, Georg Retz, Linck moved north in the same year to found San Francisco de Borja Adac among the northern

Cochimí The Cochimí were the indigenous inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south. Information on Cochimí customs and beliefs has been preserved in the brief observati ...

. In addition to administering the mission at San Borja, over the next five years Linck undertook a series of exploring expeditions to scout future mission sites and resolve geographical puzzles. His travels included journeys to the peninsula's west coast, to Isla Angel de la Guarda, and to the north in an ambitious but failed attempt to reach the lower

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

and settle once and for all the geographical question of whether Baja California was an island. When the Jesuits were expelled from Baja California in 1768, Linck returned to Bohemia, where he died in 1797. Linck's geographical and ethnographic contributions have been preserved in a series of letters and reports, as well as accounts by his contemporaries, and his key role in the exploration of the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula has been recognized (Aschmann 1959; Linck 1966, 1967; Barco 1973; Bendímez and Laylander 1985).

References

* Aschmann, Homer. 1959. ''The Central Desert of Baja California: Demography and Ecology''. Iberoamericana No. 42. University of California, Berkeley. * Barco, Miguel del. 1973. '. Edited by

Miguel León-Portilla Miguel León-Portilla (22 February 1926 – 1 October 2019) was a Mexican anthropologist and historian, specializing in Aztec culture and literature of the pre-Columbian and colonial eras. Many of his works were translated to English and he was ...

. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City. * Bendímez Patterson, Julia, and Don Laylander. 1985. "Wenceslaus Linck y la última frontera jesuita en Baja California". ''Meyibó'' 2(6):73–85. * Linck, Wenceslaus. 1966. ''Wenceslaus Linck's Diary of His 1766 Expedition to Northern Baja California''. Edited by Ernest J. Burrus. Dawson's Book Shop, Los Angeles. * Linck, Wenceslaus. 1967. ''Wenceslaus Linck's Reports and Letters, 1762–1778''. Edited by Ernest J. Burrus. Dawson's Book Shop, Los Angeles.

References

See also