Mission days in old Los Cabos: the Jesuit Era

Mission days in old Los Cabos: the Jesuit Era

Before Juan María de Salvatierra of the Society of Jesus first landed in Loreto, in what is now Baja California Sur, in October 1697 with a small group of nine soldiers and workers, no successful attempt had yet been made by the Spanish colonizers of Mexico to establish a permanent settlement on the peninsula. Hernán Cortés had tried at La Paz in 1535, and so had Sebastián Vizcaíno in 1596, and both failed in under a year.  Baja California, or C…