José Menéndez
José Menéndez Menéndez (1846–1918) was a Spanish businessman based in Argentina and Chilean Patagonia. He was the initiator of large companies that remain to this day. Twenty-first century scholarship has uncovered the history of Menéndez and his business partners in the Braun family in the genocide of the Selk'nam people of Patagonia. Biography Early years Menéndez was born in Santo Domingo de Miranda (Avilés), Spain, on November 2, 1846. Second child of seven, the marriage of Manuel Menéndez Cañedo and Alvarez, and María Menéndez Granda, peasants of modest means. The field work prevented him from receiving formal education, but he managed to acquire the rudiments of literacy and numeracy, thanks to his maternal uncle Joseph who was a teacher. At a young age he left his homeland in search of opportunity in America, after passing through the island of Cuba, until finally settling in Argentina. In 1866 José Menéndez Menéndez arrived in Buenos Aires. He was employed as a bookkeeper in signatures Corti Riva y Cia. and then Etchart and Co. firm. These jobs familiarized him with the shipping business, a sector that years later would develop in Patagonia, where he worked as a merchant, businessman and cattle shipping. Marriage and family On March 19, 1873, he married María Behety Chapital, born on May 24, 1848, in Montevideo, the daughter of the French Basque couple Félix Behety and María Chapital. The wedding was held at the Church of La Merced, Buenos Aires, a city where the family settled for a while. Menéndez had nine children: Alexander and Josephine, born in Buenos Aires; Jose, Julio and Maria, born in Punta Arenas. María died as an infant of pulmonary ailments. Mary (II), Alfonso, Charles and Herminia, were born in Punta Arenas. Josephine married Maurice Braun, a businessman and associate of Jose Menéndez, and Charles, a lawyer, married to Cristina García González Bonorino. Mary married businessman Francisco Campos Torreblanca. During the military revolt in Punta Arenas known as the Mutiny of the Gunners (1877), the city suffered damage and acts of barbarism. Among the acts committed, is the loss of a leg to gangrene by Maria Behety because of a wound by a stray bullet in the forest, amputated by a doctor who had fled the city with them. In Patagonia In 1874 José Menéndez moved to Punta Arenas, Chile, which later became his residence and base of their core business. In 1876, he began the business of sheep farming, carrying sheep from the Falkland Islands, under the company "José Menéndez and Co." and the Estancia San Gregorio, now historic site of the Chilean commune, under the same name. In September 1892 the steamship Amadeo arrived in Punta Arenas on its maiden voyage, carrying bricks to build the family home. It was the first of the ships of their property. The Amadeus has been declared a National Monument by the Chilean Government, and its remains are on the beaches of the bay of San Gregorio (Chile), on the Strait of Magellan. In 1894