Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto (July 6 or 7, 1736[1] – December 19, 1788) was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire.

This was approved by the King of Spain and on January 8, 1774, with 3 padres, 20 soldiers, 11 servants, 35 mules, 65 cattle, and 140 horses, Anza set forth from Tubac Presidio, south of present-day Tucson, Arizona.

Anza heard of a California Native American called Sebastian Tarabal who had fled from Mission San Gabriel to Sonora, and took him as guide.

This expedition was closely watched by Viceroy and King, and on October 2, 1774, Anza was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and ordered to lead a group of colonists to Alta California.

The expedition got under way on October 23, 1775, and arrived at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in January 1776, the colonists having suffered greatly from the winter weather en route.

On his return from this successful expedition in 1777 he journeyed to Mexico City with the chief of the lower Colorado River area Quechan (Yuma) Native American tribe who requested the establishment of a mission.

On August 24, 1777, the Viceroy of New Spain appointed Anza as the Governor of the Province of Nuevo México, the present-day U.S. state of New Mexico.

With his Ute and Apache Native American allies, and around 800 Spanish soldiers, Anza went north through the San Luis Valley, entering the Great Plains at what is now Manitou Springs, Colorado.

Circling "El Capitan" (current day Pikes Peak), he surprised a small force of the Comanche near present-day Colorado Springs.

He found the main body of the Comanche on Greenhorn Creek, returning from a raid in Nuevo México, and won a decisive victory.

[9] In late 1779, Anza and his party found a route from Santa Fe to Sonora, west of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.

In 1963, with the participation of delegations from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco, he was disinterred and reburied in a new marble memorial mausoleum at the same Church.

The park contains a long and difficult stretch of the Anza trail, traveling west from the Imperial Valley to the coastal mountain passes northeast of San Diego.

[14] The de Anza Country Club and its 18-hole championship Golf course is located within the village of Borrego Springs, California, which is entirely surrounded by the park.