Juan Bautista de Anza I (June 29, 1693 - May 9, 1740) was a Spanish Basque who explored a great part of the Sonora state and the southwest region of the United States. Biography Born on June 29, 1693 in the Basque village of Hernani, Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain. Juan Bautista de Anza (he spelled it Anssa; his son of the same name spelled it Anza) was the eldest son and second child of Antonio de Anza (1666-1737), the town pharmacist, and Lucia de Sassoeta (1658-1735). Barely able to speak a word of Spanish, at the age of nineteen, in 1712, he migrated to New Spain, going first to Culiacán, Sinaloa, where his mother had relatives already established. However, Anza did not stay there long, and was soon involved in silver mining in Álamos, Sonora. From there he became involved in the discovery and exploitation of two important silver mining camps, or boomtowns, between 1716 and 1720, at Aguaje southeast of present-day Hermosillo, Sonora and at Tetuachi, south of Arizpe. He bought other mining properties, such as the Real de San Jose de Basochuca, Sonora, east of Arizpe and by early 1721 he had become a lieutenant in the Sonora militia. Shortly after that, on August 2, 1721, he joined the regular cavalry as an alférez, or second lieutenant, at the Janos Presidio, under Captain Antonio Bezerra Nieto. As a soldier he was described as being "of sound body, white [and] bearded, with faded auburn hair." Soon after beginning his military career at Janos, about the year 1722, he married the Captain's daughter, Maria Rosa Bezerra Nieto, and quickly rose to the rank of first lieutenant. Military career In November of 1726, he was promoted to captain and assigned to take the place of Captain Gregorio Álvares Tuñón y Quirós at Fronteras, who had been at odds with the citizens of Sonora for years and had just been removed from office and ordered to Mexico City to stand trial for fraud and misuse of the king’s resources. Anza quickly set about whipping the Caballería de las Fronteras (Cavalry of the Frontier) into shape and providing protection to the communities of Sonora from the Apaches. He assigned soldiers to the San Luis and upper Santa Cruz River Valleys in the Pimería Alta, and settlers began to move into the area. He, himself, established the Guevavi, San Mateo, Sicurisuta, and Sópori Ranches,