Robert H. Jackson

Epidemic disease and population decline in the Baja California Missions, 1697-1834.

Following the establishment of the first successful mission in 1697, the Baja California Indians found themselves exposed to Euro-Asiatic diseases to which they had no natural immunity. As the missionaries expanded the missions and included more Indians in the system, the aboriginal population declined to the point of near extinction. At the time of the secularization of the missions in 1835, only some 1,000-1,500 Indians remained in the peninsula. By far the one factor, which more than any other contributed to this decrease, was disease. Writing in 1730, Jesuit missionary Juan Bautista Luyando reported: