Sidebar by Ed Quillen
History – August 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
When Juan Bautista de Anza moved into the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fé in early 1779, the Spanish hold on the province of New Mexico was threatened by Comanche raiders who came from the Great Plains, crossed the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and took captives from the upper Rio Grande Valley to be sold as slaves. The provincial government was supposed to protect them, and it didn’t.
Further, Spanish foreign policy in New Mexico was based on maintaining friendly relations with the Utes to the north – using them as a sort of buffer state to repel incursions by the French. If the Utes saw that the Comanche were winning, they might change their allegiances.
From 1767 on, the Spanish had fought an all-out war against the Comanche, but without much success. The raiders could strike at will, then ride east. The Spanish governor could round up an army and pursue them, but out on the Plains, the Comanche had no trouble outrunning the Spanish until they gave up and returned to Santa Fé.
Anza came up with a new plan. Instead of trying to chase the Comanche, he would bottle them up and force them to fight a set battle where his army would have the advantage.
So when his scouts in the mountains saw the Comanche approaching in the late summer of 1779, Anza assembled an army. But this army wouldn’t chase the Comanche. Instead, it would march north in the San Luis Valley, cross Poncha Pass, go east across the south edge of South Park and emerge on the Great Plains, then go south until they found the Comanche emerging from the mountains. There, they could block the Comanche and force them to battle on Anza’s terms.
It happened as Anza planned. The Comanche were routed in two battles on Sept. 2 and 3, and their war chief, Cuerno Verde (Green Horn) was killed. A treaty followed, and the Comanche raids on the upper Rio Grande came to an end.
The town of Greenhorn, as well as Greenhorn Peak (highest of the Wet Mountains at 12,347 feet) commemorate the battle, whose exact site remains a matter for discussion (although Wilfred Martinez of Pueblo may well have figured it out; some archæology is in order).
There are two De Anza peaks in Colorado; one sits about 15 miles east of San Luis and is 13,333 feet high; the other is 13,380 feet on the Saguache-Custer county border. According to Don Garate, the authority on Anza, the name is properly Anza, not De Anza, and the z is soft like an s, so it should be pronounced AHN-sah, the way a snooty New Englander might pronounce answer.
