The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Winter 1979, Volume 25, Number 1
Thomas L. Scharf, Managing Editor
Book Review
Richard H. Peterson, Book Review Editor
Baja California and Its Missions. By Tomas Robertson. Glendale: La Siesta Press, 1978. Bibliography. Illustrations. Maps. Appendix. 96 pages. $3.50
Reviewed by R. Coke Wood, Director Emeritus, Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies, University of Pacific, Stockton, California; who directed fourteen annual tours to the Franciscan Missions.
Author Tomas Robertson has spent over fifty years roaming Baja California and exploring it by foot, horseback, auto or by boats along the shore. He has a love for it due to this familiarity and speaks of it as an old friend.
Two years ago the idea came to him to explore the mission sites-Jesuit, Franciscan and Dominican-and write something of their history as a part of his duties as president of the committee for conservation of these missions. This excellent paperback history of these missions, their location and a description of the remains has resulted.
Anyone who is interested in the significant history of Baja California, its similarity and yet its difference should purchase this study of the Missions of Baja California. Much of the significant history of the peninsula occurred at the missions or in the process of establishing them. Author Robertson gives much of the background history for each of the three eras of mission founding and, therefore, this booklet is a good history of Baja California. It certainly will be of value to anyone who is studying the twenty-one Franciscan Missions in Alta California.
