Alonso Ignacio Benito Espinosa

Alonso Ignacio Benito Espinosa (1720–1786) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary to New Spain.

Biography

Espinosa was born on February 1, 1720, in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. He was ordained at age twenty-one in Mérida, Yucatán, and subsequently moved to Michoacán. After recovering from a serious illness during a visit to Guanajuato, Espinosa entered the Society of Jesus on August 14, 1750. He completed his novitiate on August 15, 1752, and was assigned to the Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert.

In May 1754, Espinosa was assigned to Mission La Purísima Concepción de Nuestra Señora de Caborca. He traveled there together with Governor and Father Visitor Carlos de Roxas, but returned to San Ignacio due both to his poor health and to unrest among the Caborca natives. In June, the provincial superior, Joseph de Utrera, reassigned Espinosa to Mission San Xavier del Bac. The residence there was not yet complete, so Espinosa relocated temporarily to the nearby Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi.

Early in 1756, Espinosa moved into the mission in Bac, where he attempted to suppress native rituals involving ceremonial dance and intoxication. This provoked unrest among the natives, and that October, native leader Jabanimó led an uprising at the mission. Many of the Jesuits died on the way, but a few, including Espinosa, survived to reach Cádiz in Spain. Espinosa went on to spend the last seventeen years of his life in the Monastery of Yuste, and died on September 21, 1786.