Pious and scholarly, the Franciscan friars Pedro Font, Juan Cresp , and Francisco Garc s may at first seem improbable heroes.
It brings their exploits out of the shadow of the American Revolution and Lewis & Clark expedition.
This enthralling narrative elevates these Spanish friars to their rightful place in the chronicle of American exploration.
Cresp , who traveled up the California coast with Father Jun pero Serra, kept meticulous journals of an expedition to reconnoiter the San Francisco Bay area, the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the northern reaches of California\'s central valley.
He learned their languages and lived and traveled with them, usually as the only white man, and brokered dozens of peace agreements before he was killed in a Yuma uprising.
Garc s, an itinerant missionary, developed close relationships with Indians in Sonora and California.
Font\'s legacy includes some of the earliest accurate maps of California between San Diego Bay and San Francisco Bay.
Font, the least celebrated of the three, recorded the daily events of the 1775-76 colonizing expedition of Juan Bautista de Anza while serving as its chaplain.
Along the way, they made invaluable notes on indigenous peoples, flora and fauna, and prominent eighteenth-century European colonial figures.
Starting with a harrowing transatlantic voyage, all Three traveled through unCharted lands and found themselves beset by raiding Indians, marauding bears, starvation, and scurvy.
Kittle has woven a seamless narrative detailing the friars\' striking accomplishments.
Drawing on the diaries and correspondence of Font, Cresp , and Garc s, as well as his own exhaustive field research, Robert A.
Each man\'s journey played an important role in Spain\'s eighteenth-century conquest of the Pacific coast, but today their names and deeds are little known.
Beginning in Spain, their adventures encompassed the remote Sierra Gorda highlands of Mexico, the deserts of the American Southwest, and coastal California.
Pious and scholarly, the Franciscan friars Pedro Font, Juan Cresp , and Francisco Garc s may at first seem improbable heroes
