Before the arrival of the missionary Jesuits and the establishments of the first missions at the peninsula of Baja California, several expeditions had already been made guided with the idea that these lands were rich in gold, silver, pearls, and amber.

Since the year 1535, there had been a great interest to occupy this land and to exploit its supposed riches as well, but several circumstances enabled the success of the colonizing projects. The great dryness of the major parts of the territory and the difficulties that the colonizers had in introducing and developing the crops, where great factors which placed the colonizers in a very difficult situation. They faced even a worst situation, because they didn't have an opportunity to obtain acquaintance with the natives products, given the fact that their economy was based on hunting, fishing, and gathering which made it impossible to create any support on the survival of the colonizers.

According to the failure in establishing a permanent colony in California a concession was created in order to have a mission amendment at the peninsula to the Jesus Company in 1679, with a condition which consisted that all expenses of the journey and maintenance of the colony would run by the religious expense.

On a document given by the Viceroy Jose Sarmiento y Valladeres on February 6 in 1697, there was an authorization for the priests Eusebio Francisco Kino and Juan Maria de Salvatierra to arrive at the peninsula and establish them selves in order to evangelize the native population. Also the document included that Jesuits could be escorted by a group of armed men, which the priests had the authority to select and remove according to their judgmental convenience.

Relaying on this manner the missionaries, which had the responsibility to be in charge of the religious affairs, would be authorized to interfere freely to everything related to the civil government at the peninsula.

The first mission established on California, was the mission of our lady of Loreto, founded by the priest Salvatierra at the late 1697. During the sixty years of the Jesuit period eighteen missions were founded, which had extended them selves periodically to the far south and up north, were Santa Maria de Los Angeles Kabujakaamang was the last mission built, founded in 1767.

The procedure that was followed to found a mission consisted first in finding a site that had water, and land that counted with good soil, also the ones in which there was a considerable amount of native population that lived nearby. Once the localization of the land with these characteristics was found, cabins were constructed for the homes of the missionaries and soldiers that escorted them. As soon as possible the church would be rebuilt, since at the beginning it was only a little shack made of hay and adobe.

During the traditional strategy missionary work, the conquest of the Californian aborigines took place. In each encounter, the religious people would try to approach the Indians in a pacific attitude and win their trust little by little with all kinds of gifts, especially food.

The Jesuits had to confront great problems on Californian lands especially what is referred to the crop production. Besides the great efforts that were done to increase the crop production in the missions the physical conditions of the land, particularly the lack of superficial water deposits, made it impossible to increase the crop production, in order to secure the missionary food supplies. The small crop production made the regional Jesuit economy dependent, supported by grain and other merchandise that where brought from outside the country, which were bought by the resources obtained on donations of people, who named the so called Fondo Piadoso (Merciful Funding), and with the contribution of the crown that began to grant since 1701 for the support of the troops.

The increased reduction of the native population caused a great problem to the Jesuit priests. The major causes for the decrease in native population were the drastic changes in the lives, experienced by the natives. Also the outbreak of diseases by soldiers and sailors caused many deaths. Since the natives didn't have the natural defense organisms in their bodies to fight the diseases.

A decree of expulsion dictated in 1767 against the Jesuits put an end to their labor in California. The Jesuits left the first days of February in 1768, because of the forced exile. The Jesuits left the peninsula the first days of February in 1778 from the forced exile, which condemned the general decree of expulsion dictated the year before by the Spanish monarch Carlos III (Charles III) that concluded, with the exit of the ignacianos an enterprise and function of a colonial nucleus, particularly by the fact that the Jesuits had the possibility to implant and sustain at the whole province a regiment of mission style of tendency of a solely exclusive colony.

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