Juan Bautista de Anza I | |
---|---|
Born | June 29, 1693 |
Died | May 9, 1740 −48) Santa María Suamca - Terrenate Presidio | (aged
Nationality | Spanish |
Occupation | explorer |
Juan Bautista de Anza I (June 29, 1693 - May 9, 1740) was a Spanish Basque who explored a great part of what is today the Mexican state of Sonora and the southwest region of the United States. [1]
Born on June 29, 1693, in the Basque village of Hernani, Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain. Juan Bautista de Anza (he spelled it Anssa; his son of the same name spelled it Anza) was the eldest son and second child of Antonio de Anza (1666-1737), the town pharmacist, and Lucia de Sassoeta (1658-1735). Barely able to speak a word of Spanish, [1] at the age of nineteen, in 1712, he migrated to New Spain, going first to Culiacán, Sinaloa, where his mother had relatives already established. However, Anza did not stay there long, and was soon involved in silver mining in Álamos, Sonora. From there he became involved in the discovery and exploitation of two important silver mining camps, or boomtowns, between 1716 and 1720, at Aguaje southeast of present-day Hermosillo, Sonora, and at Tetuachi, south of Arizpe. He bought other mining properties, such as the Real de San Jose de Basochuca, Sonora, east of Arizpe [2] and by early 1721 he had become a lieutenant in the Sonora militia. Shortly after that, on August 2, 1721, he joined the regular cavalry as an alférez, or second lieutenant, at the Janos Presidio, under Captain Antonio Bezerra Nieto. As a soldier he was described as being "of sound body, white [and] bearded, with faded auburn hair." Soon after beginning his military career at Janos, about the year 1722, he married the Captain's daughter, Maria Rosa Bezerra Nieto, and quickly rose to the rank of first lieutenant.
In November of 1726, Pedro de Rivera y Villalón promoted Anza to the rank of captain and assigned him to take the place of Captain Gregorio Álvares Tuñón y Quirós at Fronteras, [3] who had been at odds with the citizens of Sonora for years and had just been removed from office and ordered to Mexico City to stand trial for fraud and misuse of the king’s resources. Anza quickly set about whipping the Caballería de las Fronteras (Cavalry of the Frontier) into shape and providing protection to the communities of Sonora from the Apaches. He assigned soldiers to the San Luis and upper Santa Cruz River Valleys in the Pimería Alta, and settlers began to move into the area. He, himself, established the Guevavi, San Mateo, Sicurisuta, and Sópori Ranches, the first livestock operations in what is today southern Arizona.
At the time of the fabulous silver discovery near the Arizona Ranch in 1736, he was not only the captain of the sole presidio in Sonora, but he was justicia mayor, or chief justice, of Sonora as well. Thus, it fell to him to decide what course to take in establishing legalities at the new site. Because of his impounding of all the silver while Mexico City made the determination of to whom it belonged, and because of his using the house of Bernardo de Urrea , his good friend and deputy chief justice, at the Arizona Ranch as a base of operations, he inadvertently elevated the name Arizona into prominence. Thus, he and his escribano, or scribe, Manuel José de Sosa, who wrote all the documents pertaining to the silver, were indirectly responsible for the forty-eighth state of the United States having the name Arizona.
Anza continued as a soldier and statesman for the next few years, petitioning the viceroy for permission to discover and establish a route between Sonora and Alta California. Unfortunately for him, however, his dreams were cut short following a routine supply trip to Suamca, Guevavi, Tumacácori, and San Xavier del Bac. Returning home from that expedition on May 9, 1740, he evidently rode a little too far in front of his soldiers and was ambushed and killed by Apaches somewhere between Santa María Suamca and the ranch that would become the Terrenate Presidio. It would be left to the next generation of soldiers and his own son, Juan Bautista de Anza, of the same name to discover the route between Sonora and California.
Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire. He is credited as one of the founding fathers of Spanish California and served as an official within New Spain as Governor of the province of New Mexico.
A presidio was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire between the 16th and 18th centuries in areas under their control or influence. The term is derived from the Latin word praesidium meaning protection or defense.
The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail is a 1,210-mile (1,950 km) trail extending from Nogales on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, through the California desert and coastal areas in Southern California and the Central Coast region to San Francisco. The trail commemorates the 1775–1776 land route that Spanish commander Juan Bautista de Anza took from the Sonora y Sinaloa Province of New Spain in Colonial Mexico through to Las Californias Province. The goal of the trip was to establish a mission and presidio on the San Francisco Bay. The trail was an attempt to ease the course of Spanish colonization of California by establishing a major land route north for many to follow. It was used for about five years before being closed by the Quechan (Yuma) Indians in 1781 and kept closed for the next 40 years. It is a National Historic Trail administered by the National Park Service and was also designated a National Millennium Trail.
Tumacácori National Historical Park is located in the upper Santa Cruz River Valley in Santa Cruz County, southern Arizona. The park consists of 360 acres (1.5 km2) in three separate units. The park protects the ruins of three Spanish mission communities, two of which are National Historic Landmark sites. It also contains the landmark 1937 Tumacácori Museum building, also a National Historic Landmark.
The Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert are a series of Jesuit Catholic religious outposts established by the Spanish Catholic Jesuits and other orders for religious conversions of the Pima and Tohono O'odham indigenous peoples residing in the Sonoran Desert. An added goal was giving Spain a colonial presence in their frontier territory of the Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and relocating by Indian Reductions settlements and encomiendas for agricultural, ranching, and mining labor.
Tubac Presidio State Historic Park, located in Tubac, Arizona, US, preserves the ruins of the Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac and various other buildings, thereby presenting a timeline of European settlement in this Southern Arizona town. The park contains a museum, a number of historic sites, an underground archeology exhibit displaying the excavated foundations of the Tubac Presidio, and a picnic area. Various cultural events are held on-site throughout the year, including Anza Days (October), Los Tubaqueños living history presentations, archeological tours, and nature walks. Until recently, the park was administered by Arizona State Parks but is the first park in the Arizona state park system. As a result of budget cutbacks, the Tubac Presidio was scheduled to be closed in 2010, but was rescued by local residents and the Tubac Historical Society. It is now operated by The Friends of the Presidio and staffed with dedicated volunteers.
La Misión de San Gabriel de Guevavi was founded by Jesuit missionary priests Eusebio Kino and Juan María de Salvatierra in 1691. Subsequent missionaries called it San Rafael and San Miguel, resulting in the common historical name of Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi.
Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas, also known as Calabasas, is a Spanish Mission in the Sonoran Desert, located near present-day Tumacacori, Arizona, United States.
Arizpe is a small town and the municipal seat of the Arizpe Municipality in the north of the Mexican state of Sonora. It is located at 30°20'"N 110°09'"W. The area of the municipality is 2,806.78 sq.km. The population in 2005 was 2,959 of which 1,743 lived in the municipal seat as of the 2000 census.
Bacoachi is a small town in Bacoachi Municipality in the north of the Mexican state of Sonora. The area of the municipality is 487 square miles (1,260.65 km2) and the population was 1,456 in 2005, with 924 inhabitants residing in the municipal seat. The elevation of the municipal seat is 4,429 feet above sea level.
Fronteras is the seat of Fronteras Municipality in the northeastern part of the Mexican state of Sonora. Frontera translates as Border. The elevation is 1,120 meters and neighboring municipalities are Agua Prieta, Nacozari and Bacoachi. The area is 2839.62 km2, which represents 1.53% of the state total.
Planchas de Plata, sometimes called Bolas de Plata is a historic silver-mining district near Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and a few miles south of the border with the US state of Arizona. Native silver was discovered here in 1736 by Antonio Siraumea, a Yaqui Indian, on the Rancho Arizona of Bernardo de Urrea. Historian Donald Garate believes Urrea's Arizona Ranch to be the likely source of the name of the present US state of Arizona, and he claimed the origin of the name of the ranch was the Basque phrase "aritz ona". Other historians have, however, debated this. For more detail on the etymology of the name Arizona, see Arizona.
Toward the end of last October, between the Guevavi Mission and the ranchería called Arizona, some balls and slabs of silver were discovered, one of which weighed more than one hundred arrobas, a sample of which I am sending to you, Most Illustrious Lord. --Captain Juan Bautista de Anza to Bishop Benito Crespo, January 7, 1737.
The Presidio of San Ignacio de Túbac or Fort Tubac was a Spanish built fortress. The fortification was established by the Spanish Army in 1752 at the site of present-day Tubac, Arizona. Its ruins are preserved in the Tubac Presidio State Historic Park.
Real de San Juan Bautista de Sonora was the location of one of the first silver mines in Sonora, then part of New Spain. Now ruined, it lies near to the town of Cumpas, founded in 1643 by the Jesuit missionary Egidio Monteffio.
Calabasas is a former populated place or ghost town, within the census-designated place of Rio Rico, a suburb of Nogales in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States.
Ignacio Xavier Keller was a Jesuit missionary to Mexico at Mission Santa María Suamca. His treatment of Pima leader Luis Oacpicagigua was an inciting factor in the Pima Revolt of 1751.
Joseph Garrucho (1712–1785) was a Jesuit missionary to Mexico, who served at Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi and Mission San Miguel Arcángel de Oposura. He was implicated in the events leading up to the Pima Revolt of 1751.
Francisco Xavier Pauer was a Jesuit missionary to Mexico. He replaced Joseph Garrucho at Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi after the Pima Revolt of 1751, and worked in the area until the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767.
Cristóbal de Cañas was a Jesuit missionary in New Spain.
Gregorio Álvarez Tuñón y Quirós (1683–1728) was a presidio captain and alcalde mayor in New Spain. Historian John L. Kessell describes Tuñón y Quirós as a "provincial entrepreneur", while David Yetman says he was "widely known as the most corrupt official in the region".
[The] family moved to the family holdings at Basochuca after the death of Juan Bautista de Anza.