Jose De Galvez was the most influential figure to enter Baja California in the eighteenth century. He envisioned a future for California and Spain's entire northwestern frontier. Galvez was born on January 2, 1720 in the village of Macharaviaya on the southern coast of Spain. He attended the University of Salamanca. His competency in French opened up a career for him with the Spanish Minister of State.

Galvez saw the big picture.

He understood his assignment as a mandate to formulate an overall strategy for the northern borderland. In his eyes the area of greatest concern in the region was Sonora, not California. And one of his first priorities was to quell an Indian uprising there.³¹ Although Galvez exhibited a fresh approach to the region, he viewed the area with a traditional mercantilist mind set. In this case it meant that the mining potential of Sonora must be protected by a secure borderland in California.³²

Upon his arrival in New Spain in mid 1765, Galvez immediately initiated new plans for more efficient collection of taxes and the creations of new local militias. But in mid 1767, when Galvez intended to implement the order of taxes and conscription, he received instructions to arrest the Jesuits in New Spain and have them returned to the Mother Country.³³ Rumors had been circulating that such an event might take place. Such an expulsion had taken place in Portugal in 1759 and in France in 1764.

Even though the Jesuits had their critics in Baja, their activities there had little to do with their removal. Opponents saw the Jesuits as creating their own independent empire, complete with an independent Indian labor force and a black market economy. Proponents of the Enlightenment in Spain sought to reduce the power of the Church over civil affairs, and to many, the Jesuits represented the pinnacle of ecclesiastical domination. To Spanish nationalists, the European makeup of the mission communities called into question the Jesuits commitment to Spanish imperial policy.

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