Visitas

Visitas served missions and were much smaller than the main missions with living quarters, workshops and crops in addition to a church. They were typically staffed with a small group of clergymen and a relatively small group of indigenous neophytes in order to maintain the complex. Particularly strategic visitas were later elevated to the status of a full mission. This typically included an expansion of existing facilities to support a larger clergy and indigenous neophyte population, improvement of basic infrastructure such as roads, and rechristening under a new Catholic saint. , an asistencia of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, is located in Pala, California In Spanish Florida, visitas were mission stations without a resident missionary. Church buildings at visitas were simple, or sometimes absent. Visitas were often in satellite villages associated with a town with a doctrina (a mission with one or more resident missionaries). == History ==

The first visita that was founded and documented seems to be a visita established in the village of Soloy (in modern day Florida). Pedro Menéndez de Avilés designated it to become a blockhouse in 1567, but it became a visita to Mission Nombre de Dios in the beginning of the 1600s. More visitas were established in Spanish Florida during the early 1600s, but the only ones that seem to have been documented were four visitas to Mission San Pedro de Mocama and nine visitas to Mission San Juan del Puerto. Missions stopped being founded after 1772, when Father Juan Crisóstomo Gil de Bernabé founded the mission Carrizal (also known as Carrizel Starting in 1684 with the founding of Mission San Bruno in Baja California Sur by Spanish admiral Isidro de Atondo y Antillón and Father Eusebio Kino, missions started to be founded in Baja California and Baja California Sur, along with visitas. The first visita founded there was San Juan Bautista Londó in 1699, which served Mission Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó. The final visita in Baja California and Baja California Sur was established in 1798 as San Telmo, which served Mission Santo Domingo de la Frontera. In 1692, San Agustín del Tucson was established by Kino as a visita to Mission San Xavier del Bac, but became a mission in 1768 as Mission San Cosme y Damián de Tucsón. In 1749 and 1750, along the Lower Rio Grande Valley, there was a large colonization effort, mainly led by José de Escandón. The towns of Reynosa, Camargo, Mier, and Guerrero were established in present-day Mexico, along with missions. The first asistencia in California, Santa Paula, was founded around 1782 to Mission San Buenaventura. More asistencias were established to 6 out of the 21 missions in California. ==America==

The following are lists of visitas in America, sorted by year of establishment. California Arizona New Mexico Texas Spanish Florida ==Mexico==

The following are lists of visitas in Mexico, sorted by year of establishment. Baja California Baja California Sur Sonora ==See also==