Early History of the Southwest through the Eyes of German-Speaking Jesuit Missionaries: A Transcultural Experience in the Eighteenth Century by Albrecht Classen (review)

Jesuit missionaries from various European Catholic regions contributed to evangelizing the frontiers of Spanish America. In most cases, their prolific writings provide a unique window into the regions and the peoples where they missionized. Professor of German Studies Albrecht Classen’s Early History of the Southwest through the Eyes of German-Speaking Jesuit Missionaries explores a sample of German writings by Jesuits who ministered on the Pimería Alta (now southern Arizona and northern Sonora) from the 1690s until the Jesuit expulsion in 1767. Classen contends that we have not yet fully grasped the value that these sources bring to understanding the cultural and physical landscapes of the Pimería Alta; however, he fails to convey what that value ultimately is. While Classen offers new insight into lesser-known German documents, he misses the opportunity to critically assess these sources and instead takes a descriptive rather than analytical approach, making the book seem incomplete.

In the first chapter, Classen contextualizes the Jesuit ministry in New Spain’s northwestern frontier within the Jesuit global missionary. Classen follows this with an informative chapter detailing a series of biographical sketches of sixteen major German writers of the Sonora frontier, including Heinrich Ruhen, Bernard Middendorf, and Johann Nentuig. The rest of the book focuses on five Jesuit missionaries: the celebrated Eusebio Kino, Joseph Stoecklein, Ignaz Pfefferkorn, Joseph Och, and Philipp Segesser. Classen includes excerpts that focus on the rich Sonoran flora and fauna as much as on native peoples. It is in these chapters that the book takes on a distinct celebratory tone. Kino, founder of the Sonora missions, emerges as a successful peacemaker and cattleman as well as an altruist missionary who helped Sonora’s indigenous communities with a convincing approach to conversion. In contrast, nomadic peoples are portrayed as almost pitiable, “with little to no educational development comparable to . . . the sophisticated Jesuit schools and colleges. There is little wonder that deep intellectual, mental, and cultural gulfs separated both groups from each other” (89). In lieu of addressing the indigenous side of the story, Classen appeals to methodological difficulties, since Sonora native peoples left no written records, overlooking the numerous anthropological and enthnohistorical works on the Sonora-Arizona colonial frontier. And while Classen acknowledges that German Jesuits were racist, ethnocentric, and contributors to the erosion of indigenous cultures, he also says Jesuits had “their best intentions” in mind (85) and that ultimately their “purpose of being in Sonora was to help the Indians” (127).

The book rests on a wide spectrum of Jesuit writings, including contemporary German published sources—a few of which have English translations—and manuscript collections. These sources comprise Joseph Stoecklein’s published compilation of cartas edificantes, or missionary reports; Ignaz Pfefferkorn’s also published encyclopedic study of northwestern New Spain; and the lesser-known Philipp Segesser’s personal letters from the state archive in Lucerne, Switzerland, which Classen has translated into English elsewhere. The author further relies on numerous studies on Jesuits in German and Spanish. However, his proficiency on the rich secondary bibliography on the Sonora-Arizona frontier is lacking. He would have benefitted from the works by authors such as Cynthia Radding, Edward H. Spicer, and David Yetman. From a scholarly standpoint, a major reservation is his reliance on Wikipedia articles for historical context. More work is needed on German sources from the Sonora frontier, and Classen’s book and his recent publication of Segesser’s private letters are starting points for English readers.