Mission 2000 Database

Notes: “Benito Crespo y Monroy was officially instated as bishop of Durango on December 20, 1723 in Mexico City. It had been many years since a prelate representing the Holy See had visited the far north, but Bishop Crespo made it one of his top priorities, to learn firsthand what was needed on the frontier. His official visit to Sonora occurred in 1725. One of the new Bishop’s first actions was to repeal the rule not allowing Jesuits to minister to the Spanish communities. He soon became the most ardent supporter of the missions in the north and vigorously promoted mission expansion. It was he who, later, in 1732, assigned the three missionaries to begin work at Santa María Suamca, Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi, and San Xavier del Bac in the northern Pimería Alta. It was he who Juan Bautista de Anza praised for his foresight in providing those three missionaries, and for establishing the cabeceras at Suamca and Guevavi, so close to the Spanish communities of the San Luis and upper Santa Cruz River Valleys. Bishop Crespo … [was] promoted to the office of Bishop of Puebla de los Ángeles. Although he had set about providing hospitals and doing other great works there, the dreaded matlazahuatl, or "plague," broke out in the summer of 1737. It spread quickly east to Puebla, and by August 13, 1737, Bishop Crespo was numbered among its estimated 50,000 victims in that city” Quoted from “Juan Bautista de Anza: Basque Explorer in the New World, 1693-1740”