About Juan Bautista De Anza

Illustration of Juan Bautista de Anza on Horseback, 19th Century (Image from the Public Domain).

This Chapter was named for Juan Bautista De Anza, a Spanish Captain who was kind and just to his men. Juan Bautista de Anza was the first European to establish an overland route from Mexico, through the Sonoran Desert to the Pacific coast of California. New World Spanish explorers had been seeking such a route through the Desert Southwest for more than two centuries. De Anza was 21 years old in 1756, when he planned an expedition from Sonora, Mexico, to Alta California. He was not allowed to complete his expedition until 1774, when the Governor of Mexico made him a Lieutenant Colonel.

It was a year later in 1775, after discovering the overland route, that Commander Anza led a second group of almost 300 settlers, soldiers, and their families across the Sonoran and Colorado Deserts in search of a better way of life along the edge of the Spanish Empire. Over half of the members of this Anza Expedition were children - none of whom died during this nine-month expedition. These settlers to Alta California represented a broad range of the ethnic groups and cultures that lived along the Spanish frontier. Coming mostly from what is now northern Mexico, these first non-indigenous settlers to California were descended from Spanish settlers, Indian groups from Mexico, and freed African slaves that had migrated across New Spain. This melting pot of cultures marked a new page of history for San Francisco in 1776.

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