, 1576; died in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, 26 March 1655) was a Spanish Jesuit 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

Novitiate

Novitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....

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

Ahome

Ahome is a municipality on the coast of the Sea of Cortez in the northwestern part of the Mexican state of Sinaloa; it is adjacent to Higuera de Zaragoza, Sinaloa, and the southern border of Sonora state. It reported 388,344 inhabitants in the 2005 census. Ahome is also the name of the...

 and Suaqui of northern Sinaloa

Sinaloa

Sinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....

, 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

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, he began the conversion of the powerful and largely hostile Yaqui tribe of Sonora

Sonora

Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....

, 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. Of this work Hubert Howe Bancroft

Hubert Howe Bancroft

Hubert Howe Bancroft was an American historian and ethnologist who wrote and published works concerning the western United States, Texas, Mexico, Central America, British Columbia and Alaska.-Biography:...

 says:

"It is a complete history of Jesuit work in Nueva Vizcaya

Nueva Vizcaya

Nueva Vizcaya is a province of the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital is Bayombong. It is bordered by, clockwise from the north, Ifugao, Isabela, Quirino, Aurora, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, and Benguet.-History, people and culture:The name was derived from the...

, 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."

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia article