Anza, California: PEOPLE----Juan Bautista de Anza

Juan Bautista de Anza, 173588

Juan Bautista de Anza was born at the Presidio de Fronteras, a few miles south of present-day Douglas, Arizona, in either 1735 or 1736. Both his grandfather and father were distinguished frontier soldiers, and young Anza continued the family tradition. He became an accomplished frontier fighter, participating in many campaigns against the Apaches and other Indian peoples who resented the Spanish presence.

Viceroy Antonio Maria Bucareli y Ursua, encouraged by the successful establishment of five new missions, granted Captain Anza's request to find an overland route to Alta California. Anza, leading a party of 34 persons, including twenty soldiers and two padres, set out from the Presidio of Tubac, near today's Tucson, Arizona, on January 8, 1774. He followed Father Kino's trail to the Colorado and crossed the river with the guidance of friendly Yuma Indians. The party painfully traversed the arid wasteland of the lower Colorado Desert, dipping into what is now Baja California, then trudged north along the foot of the Sierra Madre de California.

Of inestimatable help to Anza was an Indian from Mission San Gabriel who knew Spanish and some of the native languages. He was Sebastian Tarabal. Anza called him El Peregrino (The Wanderer). The mysterious El Peregrino --- one of those shadowy characters in history who seem to come from nowhere, shine briefly, then fade into obscurity --- guided the Anza party over the route he had taken the previous year when fleeing from San Gabriel to the Colorado River. Without him, Anza's task would have been far more daunting.

On March 10, 1774 the party reached a watering place at the junction of Carrizo Creek and San Felipe Wash. Sebastian recognized the marshy area as the point where the route turned into the mountains. A thankful Anza named it San Sebastian in El Peregrino's honor. (It is now Harper's Well, located a few miles east of Anza-Borrego State Park.)

The party then turned west and followed the rocky bed of San Felipe Creek into the broad Borrego Valley. Ahead lay Coyote Creek and the pathway over the mountains promised by Sebastian. Anza recounted his joy:

Monday, March 14 --- A little before daylight we set forth toward the north, and having traveled about six leagues... arrived at a spring or fountain of the finest water, which runs for about two leagues, having many willows... At its head we halted for the night, and to the place I gave the name Santa Catharina. Here was found much grass and other green plants, as well as wild vines and trees, which announce to us an improvement in the country from here forward.

They had conquered the desert.

Plentiful water and forage nourished Anza's men and horses as they ascended Coyote Creek. They encountered numerous Indians, who by their jerking gyrations and loud chatter seemed to resent the Spanish presence. Anza called them Jecuiches; They were probably Cahuilla , as we call them today. After six leagues, the party came to the forks of Nance and Tule canyons. Until then the grade had been easy. Now, they struggled up the ridge between these two tributaries to a campsite just below a boulder-strewn gap on the mountain crest.

Next day, Anza climbed to the gap and marveled at the scene before him:

"Right here there is a pass which I named the Royal Pass of San Carlos. From it are seen most beautiful green and flowerstrewn prairies, and snow-covered mountains with pines, oaks, and other trees which grow in cold countries. Likewise here the waters divide, some flowing this way toward the Gulf and others toward the Philippine Ocean. Moreover, it is now proved that the sierra in which we are traveling connects with the sierras of lower California. In the course of the journey made today we have seen an improvement in the country in every way and have concluded from its moisture that it may be suitable for seasonal crops and the planting of fruit trees, and that there are pastures sufficient for maintaining cattle."

Anza had arrived at the edge of Cahuilla Valley, dotted with oaks and pines, with the snow-capped San Jacinto on the horizon.

[from: John W. Robinson and Bruce D. Risher. The San Jacintos. Big Santa Anita Historical Society. 1993.]

MARCHING WITH ANZA

Al Newhart

From: High Country Magazine #7, winter 1968

In this account of a memorable odyssey the author has succeeded in bringing to life two fascinating characters who have been too often looked upon simply as names preserved from a glamorous past. Who is to say that this narrative depicting the friendship and conversations between de Anza and Garces is not exactly as it happened?

IN THE YEAR 1774 in this part of the country there were no trails to speak of. True, there were the Indian paths that led nowhere and were to be avoided. And there was one other that he was sure of.

Juan Bautista scratched his russet beard with one hand and poked some more warmth from the campfire with the other. From a squatting position he shifted his body around full circle to peer into the dimming light. Twenty of his men sat, stood or sprawled, fixing their gear, waiting the time to flatten their blankets and roll up for the night. Juan Bautista checked the positions of the guards at the four corners of the campsite and made sure the two horsemen were upright in their saddles and moving around the string of loose cattle and tethered horses.

Juan Bautista spoke to his companion across the fire. "Only one trail in all this land, Father Garces, and it is yours---you made it all the way from Sonora. Two years ago." The young priest replied, "The one is all we shall need. It is close now. We will find it. Perhaps tomorrow, God willing."

Juan Bautista de Anza filled his pipe. Tall he was, even hunkered down; ramrod straight at thirty-seven, bronzed and lean as leather. The first thing to be noticed about him was the size of his hands. Huge they were, rough and hairy, like those of all men accustomed to pushing obstacles out of their way. The two tiny military insignia on his jacket collar proclaimed him a captain of Charles III, serving in the frontier army of New Spain, as indeed he had for the past twenty years.

His companion, Father Francisco Garces, at twenty-eight already had the face of a saint and the body of an athlete. Over a month ago, at the start of their journey and out of sight of the presidio of Tubac in the province of Sonora, he had doffed his Franciscan cassock and donned the more practical clothing of the trailsman he was.

Captain Anza spoke. "It was two years ago you marked the trail. Perhaps---" The priest's eyes sparkled in the fireglow as he interrupted, "I marked it well. Tomorrow or next day we will see rich pasture and the first trees. Twenty of them; a rod apart. I blazed their trunks. Like the missions they stood." His face took on an even more saintly look. "Missions. I thought it a sign from heaven. You will see. Soon."

The features of Juan Bautista de Anza turned handsome when he grinned. "Father, you are not a priest. You are an adventurer."

Father Garces leaned forward, choosing to ignore his captain's remark. "After we pass the trees the ground starts to rise. Soon there are more trees and much water. We climb a little and then you see such a sight as you have never seen before. Ahhh!" Father Garces paused to bless himself. "The biggest mountain! Covered with snow---half way down. Like a miracle before your eyes! It must have a name, I said. I called it in honor of the saint of the most beautiful miracles----Saint Hyacinth---San Jacinto."

ANZA'S EXPEDITION was now more than a month out of Tubac in Old Mexico bound to open an inland route to Monterey, Alta California, over which the colonists would later come to establish Spain's outposts of civilization in this fabulous land. There was some urgency in the matter. Viceroy Bucareli, who had been captain-general at Havana just prior to the Seven Years' War with England, was appointed in charge of the vice-regal government of Mexico in 1771. Anza's expedition had finally been approved by the viceroy after long and strong urging by Anza, Father Serra, Ortega and Portola, not to mention the subtle suasion of young Father Garces.

All pointed out that the sea route by supply ships was so long and hazardous as not to be relied upon to carry colonists, livestock and supplies to Alta California with safety and dispatch. If the truth were known, Bucareli wanted a strong outpost in the north for three main. reasons: (1) as a barrier to the increasing British power in North America; (2) to discourage Russian expansion southward from Alaska, and (3) because Alta California presented a vast and ideal field for the growth and solidification of the population by the missionaries and their methods. All this to be followed, of course, by the secularization of the missions, which is to say, the transfer of property from church use to private ownership.

Anza and Garces talked of these things as they sat before the fire in the quiet evening. The party had reached the Borrego Valley and a fairly comfortable campsite at a spring. Twenty-six men, most of them soldiers; two hundred animals---saddle horses, pack horses) mules and cattle. The captain and the priest talked in low tones of the experiences behind them. The exasperating delays of preparation and departure, climaxed by a well-planned raid on the supply camp by a band of Apaches who had run off all the best horses. The necessary change of route through Caborca to pick up new and inferior mounts. The march along the two -hundred-mile stretch of El Camino Diablo east of Yuma.

Then the critical point of the whole journey: the crossing of the Gila River, followed next day by the more dangerous crossing of the Colorado. It could never have been done as peacefully without the presence of Anza and the Yuma Indian legends of himself, his father and his grandfather as just and fearless warriors on the frontiers of New Spain for more moons than could be counted. Nor would the river crossings have been half the fun without Father Garces whom the Yumas instinctively liked and trusted.

Anza spoke of this now. "It was well, Father, that you could speak to Chief Palma and convince him of our friendship. He will be valuable to us."

Father Garces shrugged. "Palma is a good man. But it was your speech of the brotherhood between Indians and Spaniards that inspired him to make a speech---even longer than yours---and to accept Christianity." Here the priest stopped to laugh. "I must have made a sorry sight the day we crossed the Colorado. My Indian friends found I could not swim, so nothing would do but they must carry me through the torrent on upraised arms, and me face up and struggling in fear of my life." Anza laughed with him.

The pair recounted the party's ten-day battle with the sand dunes west of the Colorado; the near despair of ever getting all of the men, animals and supplies to Monterey; the timely assistance of Chief Palma who had been following them with a band of Yumas simply interested in the expedition's welfare, and who took charge and care of the sad pack animals and in good time returned them to the train in better condition.

Only a nightmare now were the many dry camps behind them; the wells that turned to salt after the animals drank a little, and the deadliest of all desert stretches over what is now the Anza-Borrego. To dismiss the thoughts of their hardships the pair told again the story of Garces crossing the Colorado on the heads and hands of the Indians, adding some embellishments for the future telling of the tale, and when satisfied of its perfection, fell silent and let the night come on.

NEXT DAY the weary expedition passed through Borrego Valley and found sparse forage along the way. Anza broke trail upgrade through Coyote Canyon and at its head beheld the pass of San Carlos (La Puerta, the door to the desert behind them.) * On the downslope they came upon Father Garces' two-year-old trail.

First there were the twenty trees strangely in a row, the blaze marks on their trunks. The captain, reining his horse for a closer look, smiled his dark smile, for they did indeed bring to mind Serra's maps and plans of the California missions. Almost evenly spaced, the huge oaks stood in quiet patience, seeming to point the way ahead. As Father Garces had said, the trees stood on a slight upslope which topped a steeper rise and there in the distance, spread before all eyes, appeared such an expanse of luxuriant forage as they had never seen.

The party slowed its pace through the waist-high grasses, some of the soldiers barefooted, letting the animals graze at will in the vast meadow. Slowly they came into Cahuilla Valley, traveling over the gentle foothill rises. Atop the highest one Captain Anza sat his horse, motionless. He signaled Father Garces to his side. Pointing off into the distance, he said:

*This campsite of the expedition is marked by 2 plaque on the Art Cary Ranch on Coyote Canyon Road near Anza.

"Look! The green nests in the rolling hills. See the water. There are many springs. There is a place I would like to live when my work is done; when I have had enough of rock and sand and pushing things out of my way. There, some day, will be a place where people will gather together and live in peace---a quiet place. Maybe I will live there. Maybe somebody else. I do not know." He spurred his horse and made for the shade of the trees. Anza had pointed out the future ground of Aguanga, Anza, Cahuilla and Sage.

That night the diarist of the party wrote: "This land is created of the most beautiful green and flower-strewn prairies and snow-covered mountains with pines, oaks and other trees which grow in cold countries."

In jubilant haste, which is to say that there were many stops for rejoicing over the discoveries within the discovery of this fresh new land, the party proceeded into San Jacinto Valley and soon made night camp. Next day on the early morning trail, suddenly appeared Father Garces' magnificent mountain of Saint Hyacinth: San Jacinto. It seemed to happen without warning. The bright sun swiftly unveiled the mists from the huge crags as time and men stood still, as in a miracle.

Father Garces fell to his knees in prayers of thanksgiving. Captain Anza came to kneel beside his friend and at once all the men were on their knees in silence. Here at the foot of Saint Hyacinth they rested.

Refreshed, they traveled the length of the valley and at its head Anza ordered a turn west through Alessandro Valley. By now Father Garces was aglow with excitement. Anza had told him that San Gabriel and civilization were but four days ahead. Now afoot and still attired in his adventurer's garb, the young priest strode in and out among the men and horses, conversing excitedly yet trying his best to appear calm in imitation of his captain.

Anza led his column past the site where the city of Riverside would have its beginning more than a century from now. The way west was easy going for animals and men until they reached the raging Santa Ana River (Rio de los Temblores.) Although the sun was still fairly high above the horizon, Anza called the order for night camp on the bank of the river downstream from an Indian village. He confided to his men that the crossing looked dangerous and took several of them with him to sound the depths and study the currents. His mind made up to take no chances at this stage, Anza ordered the construction of a rough log bridge which was accomplished after sundown.

Once across the Santa Ana, it was but two days' journey to San Gabriel, passing over the future sites of La Verne, San Dimas and Covina. It was the twenty-first of March, 1774, and Misión San Gabriel Arcángel, scarce three years old, proved a haven of rest for Anza and his men and surely a foretaste of heaven for Father Garces who had resumed his priestly habiliments the instant "civilization" came in sight.

SOME THREE WEEKS after their arrival, the captain and the priest met for a talk in a monks-cove. Anza, looking more worried and serious than on the trail, spoke, "I have come to a decision."

Father Garces said, "It was difficult to make. I know."

"Yes; the mission is poor, as you have seen. There are not enough supplies here for our journey to Monterey. They say that El Camino Real is now much traveled and the way would be easy for us-compared to the way we have come." He smiled in his frustration. "But there is not enough for all of us to go on. Days ago I sent to San Diego for supplies---for better horses, too. Courier Valdes came back today. Empty-handed. The supplies; the horses; everything we need is not to be had. The supply ships have not come. They may have been lost. I feel they will never come."

The priest prompted him, "So you have decided---"

"I have decided there is nothing for me but to send you back to Chief Palma at the Colorado. But first we must send a small train to San Diego on the chance the ships have arrived. You will follow the train by two days. Serra is there. He will come back here with you. That done, you must go back to the Yumas at the Colorado. Wait for me there and we will go home together. I will give the order for my best soldiers and my best horses to accompany you. You may take Father Diaz with you if you wish. I must take a few men and go on to Monterey. I must meet with Father Paloú and together plan for the chain of missions along the trail we have just come. Also the mail service from Sonora to Monterey. Then we must bring the people, hundreds of people, into this great land."

Anza was dreaming his dream. Dead silence fell between the two men. At long last the padre said what he had to say. "I will go, of course, my captain. At first light. "

Anza clasped the priest's hands in his own huge ones and knelt for his blessing.

"Vaya con Dios."

From: High Country Magazine #8, Spring 1969

Second and final installment of author Newhart's story of the Anza expeditions.

AFTER THEIR GOOD-BYES Anza stood a while in the early evening watching Father Garces go down the path and enter the mission chapel. Frank admiration for his young adventurous friend gave way to a wide smile. As though to apologize for such a show of emotion, Anza muttered to himself, "He is a man to make anyone smile."

Captain Juan Bautista de Anza breathed deeply of the April night of 1774, clasped his great hands behind him, flexed his muscles and tilted his short russet beard straight up at the cold half moon. Now it was time for planning the steps ahead. Obstacles were looming. Somehow he must push them out of his way. By such means had he performed the feat of bringing a sizeable military party through aboriginal country from Mexican Sonora to Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, Alta California, without serious incident. His accomplishment, now nearly completed, would ever after be known as The First Expedition. All that remained was the trek to Monterey; but suddenly, as always with Anza, there were the obstacles. And so he mused to himself:

Everything in short supply here ... Trouble at San Diego ... no ships no supplies . . . Garces must go there ... he has a way with him he will get what we need if it is there ... he will guide the supply train back here ... good ... Serra will come with him . . . he has much work to do in the north ... poor man; his legs trouble him so. . .

"Who's there?"

A brown-robed shape came to a halt before him. It spoke, "Captain, it is Father Diaz."

"Have you seen Father Garces?"

"I have. He is readying his trail clothes for San Diego and will be on his way before dawn. He tells me you have ordered him back here with the horses and goods and then to the Yumas at the Colorado."

"He is the only man who understands what must be done. Here, let us sit down, Father; I must put some thoughts into words and you are a good listener."

The pair sank to the stone bench. Anza filled his pipe and when it glowed continued: "We say that we have been through many hardships, but we have not yet encountered our worst danger."

Father Diaz seemed surprised. "Surely there can be no greater danger than---"

Anza pointed his pipe stem at the priest. "One. One most deadly one. Look you; man was born to test Nature, but if he can get along with her, she will be kind. We have no need to fear the heat or cold; the desert or the mountains; the thirst or wind or rain or snow or anything in Nature. But there is another kind of nature."

Diaz looked into the captain's face. "I still don't see---"

Anza interrupted, "I speak of human nature. Look; you would be the first to say that the Indians are human beings. Now we are friends, but if we lose their friendship----, indeed if we fail to nourish it and make it grow, they will turn against us. This can happen overnight and for the slightest cause. The savage mind, turned enemy, thinks only of death and massacre as an end to friendship. If this should happen, all our work will be at an end, perhaps for another generation. This is why I send Garces back to the Yuma Nation. They love him. He makes them smile. Moreover, the Apaches are overrunning Sonora and will some day come into this land, covet it and try to take it for their own."

The padre kept his peace. Anza sat silent. His thoughts had cleared.

NEXT MORNING, after an impatient sleep, Captain Anza organized a small party for the uneventful journey up the well-traveled El Camino Real to Monterey. Here conferences with Father Palou afforded a few days' pleasant respite and ended with both men in agreement with Anza's plan for a chain of missions and mail service along the route of the First Expedition. Nine days after their departure, the captain and his men returned. Father Diaz came out of the mission in greeting and rode alongside Anza whose first question was, "What of Garces?"

"You will be surprised to know that he has very likely reached the Colorado by this time "

"Impossible. Are you sure?;'

Father Diaz beamed. "We have it by courier that Garces found a shorter route. Instead of going around the sand dunes, it seems he cut straight through the middle. [Imperial Valley.] Stifling hot it must have been, but it saved a distance of nineteen leagues."

Anza grinned and mopped his brow. "I will follow him soon."

Thus Juan Bautista de Anza, son and grandson of two illustrious military leaders on the burgeoning frontiers of New Spain; himself captain in the service of Charles III, set out to retrace the trail of the First Expedition. First to the Colorado and Father Francisco Garces, his emissary to Chief Salvador Palma, then on to Mexico City to report to Viceroy Bucareli and to organize the grand plan for the Second Expedition which would bring the settlers into this virgin land of Alta California. God willing.

In Mexico City Anza was to learn that government, conceived by man, is a ponderous creature designed to move maddeningly slow. He must perforce cool his heels while the viceroy and his junta met and adjourned endlessly in deliberations over the plans for the new colony. Finally, but not until July of the following year, 1775, approval was given and along with it Anza's promotion to lieutenant-colonel. Immediately the new colonel and his lieutenants sprang into action with their long prepared plans: the recruiting of men and women settlers; the purchase of saddle and pack horses, mules and cattle; gifts for the Indians, equipment, seeds, supplies; everything to keep a veritable small town moving to its destination fifteen hundred miles away.

Anza scheduled their start from Horcasitas for early September. but again a large band of Apaches swooped down on the supply camp and ran off some five hundred fine horses. As before, these had to be replaced hurriedly with inferior mounts. On September 29th the "town" moved out and quickly reached Tubac where it was joined by more emigrants, muleteers, horses, livestock and provisions. The expedition now numbered 211 men, 29 wives, some 400 cattle and 700 horses and mules.

"TOMORROW we will cross the Colorado." It was Anza speaking many days later; a leaner, much older looking man than the Anza here less than two years ago. Cheekbones showed through his drawn skin. Gray streaked his thatch of hair and beard. Across the open campfire from him sat Father Pedro Font, diarist of the party, and beside him Garces, priest, trailsman, adventurer and old friend who had been laughing at something and now turned to Anza, saying, "It brings back a memory, Colonel?"

The colonel smiled, thinking back to their first crossing of the Colorado last year when Garces' Indian friends, laughing and shouting, had carried the priest across the river on upraised arms. Anza said, "No doubt when you cross you will put your faith in the Indians rather than horses and rafts."

"Indeed I will. But it is you, Father Font, we should worry about. See, Colonel, how be shakes with the ague. He should stay behind."

Font raised his head wearily. "Yes, it is the ague, but I am feeling better from the tea the Indians brewed. The dizziness is almost gone. No; I will go on. with the colonel to write the record of our expedition. Perhaps my writings will become a part of the history of this land which will one day be great. These are only the early days. Much is yet to come." The ailing priest fell to coughing and trembling. Garces brought him another warm blanket from the fire.

Anza spoke now to Garces. "Font is right. It is true: Land, as well as man, can have good breeding. And now, Father Garces, you must stay here for reasons we both understand. Father Eixarcb will stay with you. The cabin we have built is well stocked---a four months' supply. For the Indians there is everything---tobacco, fancy clothes, food, dishes, beads---"

Garces beamed. "Fancy clothes, yes. Palma is beside himself with delight. He talks of nothing but a mission here. He is grieved to know that your party is going on to Monterey."

Anza interrupted to say, "In confidence, our real objective is San Francisco."

"In confidence, of course. But after that, remember that the grandest of the missions could be built right here in the heart of the Yuma Nation." Anza nodded, "I know."

Thus assured, Garces turned to lighter things. "Palma will never forget the king's birthday celebration. The gifts from Bucareli. The blue cape with the gold braid; the velvet hat; the shirt and trousers; the jacket. Was he not magnificent! Whatever will you do with his gift of the watermelons? There must have been three thousand of them."

At this, Font poked his head from his blankets to say, "My diary will say, Colonel, that all this was truly magnificent. It will also say that it was not quite so magnificent of you to issue a pint of aguardiente to each of your soldiers. There was more than a little drunkenness and carousing."

The colonel smiled at the priest. "These are good strong men. There is little enough of pleasure for them on this journey. I will tell you something else, Father. just before we start across the desert, I will order another issue of brandy all around and I am sure you will set down in writing that there was even greater carousing. Then you will go on to say that there was little sign of repentance."

Font, now aroused, came halfway out of his blankets. The fireglow heightened the ascetic zeal in his features. "Yes, my colonel, and I have written something else you might as well know." Shifting his gaze from Anza, he spoke directly to Garces. "Perhaps it is the dizziness in my brain which makes me say this, but say it I will. Father Garces, we are in the company of a great man. He is strong and he is a rare one. Beyond that, he is brave, and he is brave because he lives in the shelter of his own belief."

Garces offered, "But don't we all?"

"Not all. And not always. Most of us depart from this shelter of ours when it is convenient to do so. But not our colonel. He wears it as a shield---always---under all provocation. No one has ever seen him without it. It makes him believe that nothing is impossible. It makes him believe the best, not the worst, of a man. If the colonel has faith in the strength of aguardiente for the good of his soldiers, then so have I. I speak the truth."

Anza's response was a gruff, "It grows late. We must sleep for tomorrow."

IN CAMP at the wells of Santa Olaya, before the desert crossing, Anza ordered the promised issue of "grog" to his soldiers, along with a feast of watermelons and fried fish. When the "carousing without repentance" had subsided two days later, Anza ordered his party separated into three divisions traveling at twenty-four-hour intervals. The weather turned fierce. Instead of the expected heat, all three divisions encountered bitter cold, high winds and unceasing flurries of snow. Water sources had sunk too deeply into the ground to be reached. The sand dunes, calm enough in time of heat, transformed themselves into tormenting devils, whipping icy sand and snow against the plodding bodies of men, women and animals alike. The third day of the march, thirty-five miles to Santa Rosa, was one to try the spirit of humans. The soldiers, the settlers, the muleteers worked all through the night frantically digging to deepen the wells for priceless water.

On the march, Anza never rested. Constantly on the move, he rode back and forth on both sides of the column, exhorting the men and women to greater effort. Many, for a time, became deaf from exposure. Cattle and horses fell in exhaustion and died. Beyond San Sebastian, while camping without water in Borrego Valley, the cattle stampeded. Some fifty head got away and ran in panic back over the trail to San Sebastian, there to mire down and die.

Christmas Eve found Anza and his first division camped at the Royal Pass of San Carlos. Cheer mounted as the campfires were lit and gaiety took life as the brandy was passed around again amidst the half-hearted protestations of Father Font. Suddenly an excited murmur welled through the crowd, mounting into shouts of "Where is Anza? Quick, somebody get the colonel!" Men and women were pointing to a rude shelter of poles and willows.

Anza, on the run, selected two women from the crowd and pulled them after him into the hut. There, doctor-midwife Juan Bautista de Anza brought into the world the first white child to be born in California. Father Font christened the boy Salvador Ygnacio Lindares, son of soldier Ignacio Lindares and his wife, Gertrudis Rivas Lindares. The christening celebration knew no bounds and no night. The celebrants were more than glad to spend Christmas Day in sober, restful wait for the mother and child to join the march.

On New Year's Day the division reached the raging Santa Ana River and made the crossing. Beyond, at San Antonio Creek, on the ground of the future city of Ontario, the "town on the move" was surprised and delighted to meet a welcoming detachment from Mission San Gabriel with a relay of fresh horses. So, on to the mission and a joyous welcome. But with the hard part of the journey behind and a mere five hundred miles ahead over the wide El Camino Real, more obstacles were waiting to hurl themselves in Anza's path.

THE MISSION INDIANS at San Diego chose this day to rise again in rebellion, killing Father Jayme and two soldiers. Anza went at once to Governor Rivera in his office at Mission San Gabriel and insisted that the two of them, with Font and seventeen soldiers, ride at once to San Diego to restore order and punish the rebels.

This done, on the return journey, Rivera informed Anza that he strongly disapproved the selection of San Francisco as a site for the new colony. Anza could hardly believe his ears. Long debate ensued with many stops along the way for argument. Anza produced Viceroy Bucareli's written orders for the settlement at San Francisco. Rivera stood adamant, became angry and recounted with wild shouts all the sordid details of the uprising at San Diego, finally building the event into an excuse for not obeying Bucareli's orders to lend all possible assistance to Anza in establishing the new colony.

By this time the magnet of San Francisco had drawn its share of explorers. Portola and Ortega had been there in 1769; Fages in 1772. Rivera himself, with Father Palou from Monterey, had planted a cross on Point Lobos in 1774. just last year, 1775, Ayala had sailed through the Golden Gate and spent more than a month exploring the region. Rivera had promised to send a land party to join Ayala but somehow managed to find excuses for delays, with the result that Ayala simply sailed away for new horizons.

Back at San Gabriel, Anza spent a day and night in thought. Summoning his staff in conference, a plan was designed for surmounting the obstacle of Governor Rivera. Anza's dream had been to personally lead the colonists into their new home at San Francisco, but this was not to be. To speed events, next day, February 21, 1776, Anza set out for Monterey with half the party. Leaving them at Monterey, Anza with Font and a few soldiers, rode north to San Francisco determined to find a site for the new mission.

After thoroughly reconnoitering, and with Font in enthusiastic agreement, Anza chose as the site for the new presidio a place the Spanish called Cantil Blanco (White Cliff) ---the future Fort Scott; and for the mission, Arroyo de los Dolores.

This decided, and after further exploration around the southern arm of the bay, Anza finally gave up his last faint vestige of hope of leading his people into their new land and headed back for Monterey. There, in April, 1776, he turned his command over to Lieutenant Moraga and set out for San Gabriel. Half way there, the colonel and his few soldiers met up with Governor Rivera and his somewhat larger, more pompous regiment marching north. On sighting Anza, the governor's anger rose even higher than at their last meeting and with the merest perfunctory salute, Rivera kept his column moving at its pace.

After three days' camp at San Gabriel, sure that his plans for the settlement at San Francisco would be carried out, Anza took his next steps: return to Sonora by way of Garces' outpost with the Yumas, then on to the capital to enlist stronger support from the viceroy for the plan to build a solid empire in Alta California upon the foundations already laid.

A glorious day for Anza dawned in Mexico City in the fall of 1776 when word came that Lieutenant Moraga, accompanied by Fathers Palou and Cambon, had led the settlers to the chosen site, founded the presidio on September 17th and dedicated the mission on October 9th.

On the heels of the good news, a political reorganization swept through the government of Mexico. For reasons unclear, a new commandante-general was appointed in the person of Teodoro de Croix who, a few months later, ordered Anza to the post of governor of New Mexico at Santa Fe. If Anza was disappointed, he gave no sign. Accepting his new orders with good grace, he arranged for the courier service to keep him informed of all news of Spanish California.

The new governor colonel was content that Garces remained at his post with Chief Palma, unceasingly pleading by letters to Croix for a mission at the Colorado. Anza was aware that Croix had no grasp of the California problems and that he had failed to augment the development of the routes of the First and Second Expeditions.

It was clear that Croix had simply put off the matter of a mission at the Colorado until, in 1780, he finally came up with a makeshift plan for two tiny missions on the Calfornia side of the river. Each would be part mission, part presidio and the rest a collection of shacks to house a horde of "colonists" dredged from the most poverty-stricken people of Mexico. Anza's objections were futile in the face of a new government austerity program. Inevitably, the budget was further cut by practically eliminating the appropriation for "foreign aid" to the Indians.

Anza thought of these things as he sat alone in the patio of the home provided for him as the governor of New Mexico. He had learned only yesterday that friction was mounting at the Colorado; that the settlers were working at cross purposes with the Yumas and that Governor Rivera was leading a party of emigrants up the Anza trail.

IT WAS EARLY EVENING of a July day of 1781. A now gray Anza paced back and forth in his patio garden, puffing his pipe, planning how he might obtain leave from his post to go again to the Colorado for talks with Garces and Palma and, most important, to have his confrontation with Rivera. His pacing was interrupted by the galloping hoofbeats of a horse. The gate flew open. Anza grabbed the man. "Domingo; it is you! What news?"

"The worst, your excellency." The courier was out of breath.

"Out with it, man!"

"At the Colorado. The Yumas. Massacre. All is lost."

Anza could not speak. Domingo went on, "They, the Indians, as you have said, put an end to friendship. Rivera angered them. It was seventeen July. Rivera and his soldiers were across the river, rounding up cattle. Like the wind, the Indians attacked the two little missions. Tore them down. Took all the women and children for slaves. Killed all the men except Father Garces and one other; Father Barreneche, I think. They saved these two to kill next day. Across the river, Rivera heard nothing. Next day the Yumas ambushed and killed them all. That is when they killed Garces and Barreneche."

Anza sank to his knees. He clasped his hands until his huge knuckles turned white. He lifted his face to the heavens and tilted his grizzled beard to the pale moon. The Anza trail was broken. Father Garces, the adventurer, was off on the greatest adventure of all. Anza wept. He murmured, "Vaya con Dios, amigo."

Was it the wind that whispered as softly, "Vaya con Dios."?

Anza served two terms as governor of New Mexico. His last day of life came at age fifty-three in 1788 while, still following orders, he was serving as head of the Tucson Presidio. He was buried in the yard of old San Augustin Church at Tucson.