THE VENERABLE DON BOSCO
mission. Later, in 1881, announcing the departure of twelve priests and brothers and eight Sisters, he continues: "Agriculture is especially developed in our Patagonian institutions; we have erected churches, opened schools, built residences for priests and teachers, and hospitals for wandering Indians on both banks of the Black river. These savages are docile, easily taught arts and trades, and, above all, agriculture, which is still unknown among these wandering tribes." General Roca, president of the Argentine Republic, held Don Bosco and the Salesians in the highest esteem, and favored and supported them with the respect and generosity that their self-denying services to the State merited.
In 1883 the court of Rome created two ecclesiastical provinces in Patagonia: the north and center of the country formed an apostolic pro-vicariate and Don Cagliero was appointed pro-Vicar Apostolic; the south, with Tierra del Fuego and the neighboring islands became an apostolic prefecture with Don Fagnano as Prefect Apostolic.
The present Archbishop of Buenos Ayres in a pastoral letter on the centenary feast of Don Bosco (1915) says of the first Salesian missionaries in Patagonia: "By their intrepid zeal and conspicuous ability they reaped an immense harvest of souls and laid the foundations of a flourishing Christian civilization…… In our own province," he continues, "the two Salesian Institutes
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