In the 1700s, this area of southern Colorado became a significant cultural crossroads for Indian tribes of the high plains as Apaches, Kiowas, Utes, and Comanches pressed in to take advantage of abundant buffalo and other game, fueling substantial intertribal warfare that continued well into the 19th century. By the 1700s, this area also marked the northernmost edge of the Spanish empire, and from Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, Spanish soldiers, explorers, and clergy ventured north to form trading alliances with plains people, spread Christianity, and suppress destructive raids on settlements in the Upper Rio Grande Valley. After driving the Utes and Apaches off the plains in the mid-1700s, the Comanches began making increasingly destructive raids on settlements in northern New Mexico. In 1779, Governor of New Mexico Juan Bautista de Anza led about 600 Spanish soldiers and their Ute and Apache allies north to stop those attacks, especially those led by the Comanche chief Cuerno Verde, called Green Horn for the headdress he wore in battle. Although Anza's exact route is debated, he and his men ascended the San Luis Valley, crossed the mountains to the Arkansas River, and moved east to the high plains, where they intercepted Cuerno Verde's band somewhere in this area. After a two-day struggle at the base of Greenhorn Mountain, later named for Cuerno Verde, the chief and several of his principal warriors were killed, and Anza then established a fragile peace that lasted until the early 1800s.