Original scientific paper
CROATIAN AND SLOVENE MISSIONARIES AS INVENTORS AND EXPLORERS OF THE AMERICAN WEST AND MIDWEST
Ivan ČIZMIĆ
Matja KLEMENČIČ
Abstract
In this paper we examine the works and lives of some Croatian
and Slovene Catholic priests who worked as missionaries
among American Indians. The American missionaries not only
brought Christianity to the American Indians, they also became
known as inventors and explorers, traveling especially in the
American West and Midwest. The Croatians, Rev. Ivan Ratkaj
and Rev. Ferdinand Konšćak, were explorers of the American
and Mexican West from the 1680s until the late 1760s. Father
Konš}ak's detailed observations and measurements definitively
confirmed that Baja California is not an island but a peninsula,
which enabled further expeditions and discovery of the territory
of what is today the State of California. The Slovenes, Bishop
Frederick Baraga and Rev. Franz Pirc, worked among American
Indians in the Midwest from the 1830s until the 1870s.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
19677
URI
Publication date:
31.10.2002.
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