Mission Guadalupe was founded by the Dominican

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 missionary Félix Caballero

Félix Caballero

Félix Caballero was a Dominican priest. He played an important part in the history of the missions of Baja California.Caballero arrived at Veracruz on December 19, 1812 and traveled to Baja California in July, 1814...

 in June 1834, at the site of the modern community of Guadalupe, Baja California

Guadalupe, Baja California

Valle de Guadalupe , or Francisco Zarco is a village located in the municipio of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, 20 km north of the city of Ensenada...

. This was the last of the new Dominican missions in Baja California

Baja California

Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...

 and the only one begun after Mexico had gained its independence in 1821.

The mission's inland site, about 25 kilometers east of Misión San Miguel

Misión San Miguel Arcángel de la Frontera

Mission San Miguel was established on 28 March 1787 by the Dominican missionary Luis Sales among the Kumeyaay Indians of northwestern Baja California, Mexico...

 was presumably chosen for the agricultural potential of its wide valley. Wheat, olives, pears, and grapes were among the crops that were produced.

Guadalupe may have had about 400 Kumeyaay

Kumeyaay

The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai, Kamia, or formerly Diegueño, are Native American people of the extreme southwestern United States and northwest Mexico. They live in the states of California in the US and Baja California in Mexico. In Spanish, the name is commonly spelled...

 Indians in its care. However, conflicts seem to have been frequent, both with the local groups and with Quechan

Quechan

The Quechan are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the border with Mexico...

 from as far away as the lower Colorado River

Colorado River

The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...

. In 1840, a rebellion under a local leader, Jatñil, forced Caballero to abandon the mission.

Stone foundations and adobe walls from the short-lived mission survived at the site as late as the middle twentieth century.

See also

• Spanish missions in California
  Spanish missions in California
  The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...