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countryside. On February 13 Anza left Yuma
country behind, heading west and becoming
lost for 10 days in the sand dunes of Imperial
Valley in southeastern California. “Seeing the
generally disastrous condition of all of our
riding animals and the impossibility of con-
tinuing the march with them,” Anza wrote in
his diary, the expedition returned to Yuma
territory to forge a new plan.
To get around the vast, shifting dunes,
Anza’s company went southwest into Baja
California, eventually turning north to enter
Alta California west of Mexicali, near Signal
Mountain. Struggling alternately through
more hot, water-starved deserts and winter
snow in the San Jacinto Mountains on the
way northwest, Anza arrived at San Gabriel
Arcángel mission (east of the present city of
Los Angeles) on March 22, 1774. Supplies
there were too meager for the entire expedi-
tion to continue, so Anza and four soldiers
continued northwith guides, reaching Mon-
terey on May 1. The rest of the expedition
returned to Yuma. Typically, Father Garcés
set out on his own, seeking a shortcut back to
Sonora.
RETURN TO CALIFORNIA
Opening a supply route to California earned
Anza a military promotion and the confi-
dence of his superiors, who asked him to
organize a second expedition, aimed at colo-
nizing the San Francisco Bay area. The expe-
dition embarked on October 23, 1775. That
night, a woman died from childbirth compli-
cations, but all of the other 240 colonists and
48 soldiers survived the 62-day trek. The sur-
vival rate was incredible, given the unpre-
dictable supplies of water and food, violent
winter weather, and bad roads. The colonists
arrived at Monterey on March 10, 1776. After
briefly exploring the countryside, in April
Anza departed Monterey for Tubac, leaving
his lieutenant, José Joaquin Moraga, to lead
the colonists the rest of the way to the settle-
ment they would build at San Francisco.
Fray Garcés traveled with Anza’s out-
bound 1775 colonizing group, but only as far
as the future site of Yuma, Arizona. After
founding a mission there, Garcés set off
alone on muleback. He reached the San
Gabriel mission, then headed back to the
Colorado River to see if he could reach New
Mexico by following the river upstream.
Garces’s journey back to the mission at San
Xavier del Bac took him through the moun-
tains of southern California, across the
Mojave Desert, and to the Grand Canyon. He
was the first European to see the canyon-
lands since Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s
officer, García López de Cárdenas, visited
them 135 years earlier.FOUR CORNERS
Friars Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Sil-
vestre Velez de Escalante thought they could
find an easier route to Monterey. Their plan
was to travel inland north to Monterey’s lati-
tude and head west, thus avoiding the difficult
terrain and hostile Indian tribes. On July 29,
1776, the two Franciscans set out from Santa
Fe, New Mexico, with 14 men, including a car-
tographer, Captain Bernardo de Miera y
Pacheco. They returned to Santa Fe on Janu-
ary 2, 1777, without ever seeing California, but
having accomplished an 1,800-mile journey
through the previously unexplored territory
known today as the Four Corners, the region
where the states of Arizona, New Mexico,
Utah, and Colorado meet.
Their northerly route took them to the
vicinity of modern Rangely in northwestern
Colorado. The group then headed west as far
as Utah Lake. There Escalante noted his(^154) B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
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