Date of Birth: 
About Francis Bennon Ducrue
- Francis Bennon Ducrue was a missionary in Mexico, b.
- in Munich, Bavaria, of French parents, 10 June 1721; d.
- there 30 March 1779.
- He became a member of the Society of Jesus in 1738, and ten years later was sent to California, where he worked until the expulsion of the order in 1767.
- At the time, Ducrue was the superior of all the California missions.
- He submitted to the decree of expulsion and cooperated with the royal commission in enforcing its provisions.
- The Jesuits withdrew, taking with them only their clothes and a few books; these were the belongings they carried away from California after seventy years of work in its missions. Ducrue eventually returned to his native land.
- He wrote A Journey from California through the district of Mexico to Europe in the year 1767 in Latin.
- The book was translated into German for the Nachrichten von verschiedenen Ländern des spanischen Amerika of Christoph Gottlieb von Murr (vol.XII, p.
- 217-276), and was translated into French and published by Fr.
- Carayon in his Documents Inédits (Paris, 1876).
- Murr also gives some interesting specimens of the language of California, which were communicated to him by Ducrue.
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