Juan Bautista de Anza grew up on the Sonoran frontier in a family of proud Basques.
Both his father and his grandfather were killed by Apaches, his father when he was
four years old. By the time de Anza was 25, he was in command of the presidio at
Tubac, south of Tucson, Arizona. In 1774 he blazed a trail from Sonora to San Gabriel
Mission in Alta California, near today’s Los Angeles. In 1775-76 he led 240 settlers
north to Monterrey, the stepping stone to settlement of San Franciso Bay. In 1777,
Teodoro del Croix, Commander General of the Internal Provinces, appointed de Anza
Governor of New Mexico in hopes that he could do something about the Comanche problem.
Upon his arrival in Nuevo Mexico, de Anza quickly determined that previous forays
against the Comanche all failed for the same reason: the Spaniards always took the
same route east over the Sangre de Cristo’s and then north over the Ratons. The
Comanches saw them coming and just retreated to wait for a better day. De Anza determined
to use a completely different route to the plains of Colorado, to sneak up on the
He left New Mexico with some 600 men: soldiers, settlers and allied Pueblo Indians.
De Anza mustered his force at San Juan de los Caballeros, near the junction of the
Chama and Rio Grande rivers. He then marched north at night along the western edge
of the San Luis Valley over Poncha Pass, across South Park, then east to Ute Pass
(north of Pike’s Peak).
De Anza’s scouts reported an encampment of Comanches on the plains near today’s
Wigwam, Colorado (south of Colorado Springs). He attacked them immediately, successfully.
However, Cuerno Verde and his warriors were absent on a raid against Taos. So de
Anza and his men hurried south along an ancient trail later known as the Trapper’s
Trail to the area we know now as Pueblo. From there they headed down the flank of
the Wet Mountains (Sierra Mojada) heading for Sangre de
Somewhere just east of Greenhorn Mountain the Spaniards met up with Cuerno Verde’s
raiders returning from their unsuccessful raid on Taos. The two groups skirmished
a bit, then separated and regrouped. The next day the Comanches came up very close
against the Spaniards and fired their muskets. The Spaniards identified Cuerno Verde
by his headdress and cut off him and his closest warriors, trapping them in a gully.
Cuerno Verde dismounted and, from behind his fallen horse, made his final defiance
of the Spaniards. A hail of lead balls claimed his life and those of his followers.
When it was all over, the Spaniards scoured the field for useful items and de Anza
claimed the distinctive headdress as proof of his endeavors. He forwarded the headdress
to Teodoro del Croix, who, rumor has it, forwarded it to his superiors who forwarded
it all the way to the Vatican.
De Anza finally made a lasting Spanish-Comanche peace in 1787. That cleared the
way for the Arapaho and the Cheyenne to move onto the plains and trade peacefully
with the Spanish comancheros and ciboleros riding out of Santa Fe and Taos.
What’s left of Cuerno Verde adorns a mountain: Greenhorn Mountain, and a valley:
Greenhorn Valley. Neither signifies the location of the battle in which the Comanche