Esteban Tápis

Who was Esteban Tápis?

Father Esteban Tapis, O.F.M., was a Spanish missionary to the Americas.

Tapis was born in Santa Coloma de Farners in the Catalan Province of Girona, and entered the novitiate of the Order of Friars Minor at Girona on 22 January 1778. He was sent to New Spain in 1786, where he attended the Colegio San Francisco in Mexico City to train for missionary work among the Native Americans. He then was assigned to Alta California, arriving in 1790, where he worked at the following missions:

Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa

Mission Santa Barbara

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo

Mission La Purísima Concepción

Mission Santa Inés

Mission San Juan Bautista

When the President of the Spanish missions in California, Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, O.F.M, died in 1803, Tapis took over as acting President, a post to which he was subsequently elected three times, holding the office from 1803 to 1812. During his administration, Tapis directed the founding of Mission Santa Inés in 1804. In addition to his authority over the missions, he also served as the local Rural Dean of the Diocese of Sonora which covered that region in that period, responsible for Church matters of any Catholic there.