Anza's California

Who was Juan Bautista De Anza?

Juan Bautista De Anza, the man from whom De Anza College takes its name, was a Spanish military officer and governor of the province of New Mexico. He is most well known for establishing a land route between what is now Arizona and "Alta California," the Spanish name for the area north of the Baja peninsula. He is also known for bringing Spanish settlers to the San Francisco Bay Area and scouting the site of what would become the city of San Francisco.

The well-known account of Anza and his exploits, though, obscures the disaster that he and other Spanish colonists brought upon indigenous peoples. Anza saw himself as a loyal servant of the Spanish empire, and the De Anza Name Exploration Project feels that his vision of a California under Spanish rule bears characteristics that people in the wider De Anza College community might find troubling. Below are quotations from Anza's diaries and correspondence that illuminate both his vision for Spanish rule in California and the role of indigenous peoples in the colony. The De Anza Name Exploration Project invites you to read the quotations with the following points in mind:

Anza's willingness to kill Natives who would not submit to Spanish rule, most often grouped under the name "Apache"
Anza's willingness to divide and conquer indigenous peoples by enlisting some of the Natives to fight against the "Apaches"
Anza's desire to destroy cultures, religions, and livelihoods of Native peoples, and instead make them into Spanish peasants and workers who would serve Spanish settlements
Anza's desire to extract wealth (especially gold and silver) from the land
Anza's desire to seize places from indigenous peoples where water, trees made into timber, fertile land, and pasturage for cattle could support Spanish settlers

Quotations from Anza's diary of his expedition to the Bay Area

It was almost completely destroyed by the common enemy, the Apaches, because their habitations are so nearby that in less than fifteen leagues from this place to the northeast and east in preceding years I have several times attacked and made captures in their villages. ("Anza's Diary of the Second Anza Expedition")

These heathen told me that when a large number of them were hunting the day before, they encountered a band of Apaches who were coming at once, bent on their accustomed robberies, but having had the good fortune to surprise them they were able to kill two and to cause the rest to flee and retire to their own country. ("Anza's Diary of the Second Anza Expedition")

This mining camp, as is well known, and that of San Antonio de la Huerta, are the only ones in the province of Sonora which continue their production of gold, because both of them are free from the piracies of the Apaches. ("Anza's Diary of the Second Anza Expedition")

Quotations from Anza's diary of his first expedition to California

This place has the advantage of good gold and silver mines which were worked until the year 'sixtyseven, when they were abandoned because of greater persecution by the Apaches. ("Anza's Complete Diary, 1774")

They likewise would be able to raise and maintain any kind of stock which they might wish, since there are advantages for every species, as well as for obtaining good timber of various kinds, all of which are unused because at present this is one of the places most plundered by the Apaches. ("Anza's Complete Diary, 1774")

It enjoys nearby, up the river, a beautiful marsh with much pasturage, and in the same region there are silver mines which in another country, free from the plague of Apaches, would afford their workers some advantages. ("Anza's Complete Diary, 1774")

Quotations from Anza's correspondence

This presidio, together with mine, at the time of their establishment by the governors of the provinces, was founded with the purpose of restraining the general uprisings of these Pima and Seri tribes, and having achieved this, to advance to new conquests towards the Jila and Colorado rivers ; but this purpose has been frustrated by reason of the advance of the Apaches, especially to the presidio in my charge, for their irruptions against the others are not a third as bad as against this one. (Anza to Bucarelli, March 7, 1773)

Indeed, in the year 1756, when another officer and I, on mounting our horses in the pueblo of Sonoitaj, which the Reverend Father Garzes mentions in his diary, to go with a small party to explore the way to the Colorado, in order afterward to do it with all the troops led by the Colonel and Governor Don Juan de Mendoza, the soldiers named to guide me raised so many objections that the plan was given up. This behavior they learned from their conductors mentioned, who, whenever it suited them, exaggerated their deeds, as is seen by this case. For a poor friar, with only an inferior horse and what he carried in his saddle bags, was able to make the journey in a very few days, and lived among those tribes long enough to learn that those unhappy people, although they are so numerous, are incapable of doing any evil if they are treated with the kindness which is due their simplicity.

Lack of this kindness, so I was often told by Don Antonio Olguin, formerly alferez of the presidio of Terrenate, who died in this presidio a few years ago, and who accompanied the last Jesuit who went in to those rivers, was the cause of their turning against our people and trying to steal their horses, as we are told by the diaries of the last expedition, in order by this means to get rid of such vexatious guests. The alferez told me that in the villages, or with the people with whom they dealt, whether with bad or good interpreter, all they did was to tell them that the king would send them fathers, but that for the support of the church, the missions, and the fathers, they would have to plant many crops and labor in other crafts, as was done by those of the pueblos already reduced, from which slavery, being informed, they fled, as is to be expected from any free tribe that is indolent by nature. Although it is necessary to correct this defect in all Indians, it is also necessary to take time for it, for if it is done otherwise it will be an entire failure. (Anza to Bucarelli, March 7, 1773)

For more information about the California missions and the one closest to De Anza College, please see Santa Clara University's web page, "What is the Role of Mission Santa Clara in Ohlone History."

The content of this webpage is maintained by the California History Center.