Andrés Pérez De Ribas (born at Cordova,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, 1576; died in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, 26 March 1655) was a Spanish

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionary, and historian of north-western Mexico.

Life

He joined the Society of Jesus in 1602, coming at once to America, and finishing his

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

in Mexico in 1604. In the same year he was sent to undertake the Christianization of the Ahome and Suaqui of northern

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities, and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales. It is located in northwest Mexic ...

, of whom the former were friendly and anxious for teachers, while the latter had just been brought to submission after a hard campaign. Within a year he had both tribes gathered into towns, each with a church, while all of the Ahome and a large part of the Suaqui had been baptized. The two tribes together numbered about 10,000. In 1613, being then superior of the Sinaloa district, he was instrumental in procuring the submission of a hostile mountain tribe. In 1617, in company with other Jesuit missionaries whom he had brought from

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, he began the conversion of the powerful and largely hostile

Yaqui The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are an Indigenous people of Mexico and Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe, who speak the Yaqui language, a Uto-Aztecan language. Their primary homelands are in Río Yaqui valley in the no ...

tribe of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, whose population was estimated at 30,000. Within a few years, most of them had been gathered into eight mission towns. In 1620 Ribas was recalled to Mexico to assist in the college. He was ultimately appointed provincial, which post he held for several years. After a visit to Rome in 1643 to take part in the election of a general of the order, he devoted himself chiefly to study and writing until his death.

Works

He left numerous works, religious and historical, most of which are still in manuscript, but his reputation as an historian rests upon his history of the Jesuit missions of Mexico published at Madrid in 1645, one year after its completion, under the title: ''Historia de los Triunfos de Nuestra Santa Fe entre gentes las más bárbaras ... conseguidos por los soldados de la milicia de Ia Compañía de Jesús en las misiones de la Provincia de Nueva-España''.English translation 1999 by Daniel T. Reff, Maureen Ahern, and Richard K. Danford as ''History of the Triumphs of Our Holy Faith Amongst the Most Barbarous and Fierce Peoples of the New World''. Of this work,

Hubert Howe Bancroft Hubert Howe Bancroft (May 5, 1832 – March 2, 1918) was an American historian and ethnologist who wrote, published, and collected works concerning the Western United States, Texas, California, Alaska, Mexico, Central America, and British Colum ...

says: :"It is a complete history of Jesuit work in Nueva Vizcaya, practically the only history the country had from 1590 to 1644, written not only by a contemporary author but by a prominent actor in the events narrated, who had access to all the voluminous correspondence of his order, comparatively few of which documents have been preserved. In short, Ribas wrote under the most favourable circumstances and made good use of his opportunities."

References

*Alegre, ''Historia de la Compañía de Jesús'' (Mexico, 1841); * * * *

Notes

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perez De Ribas, Andres 1576 births 1655 deaths 17th-century Spanish Jesuits Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries 17th-century Spanish historians Jesuit missionaries in New Spain