Magallanes . . .

The monument to Ferdinand Magellan sits in the middle of the main square (Plaza de Armas Muñoz Gamero) in Punta Arenas. He stands at the very top looking out towards the future and the Strait, with a sword handy and his right leg resting on a cannon: a powerful figure, master of his domain. Below him on the same monument are two native Fuegians sitting, legs crossed and looking subdued, like they have nowhere to go and plenty of time to get there. Magellan was the first of a long string of Europeans that went to Tierra del Fuego, spread deadly deceases (small pox, influenza, etc…) hunted down and killed a good many natives, then subjugated the rest of the population until they were completely vanquished. The few remaining were then eradicated ‒ I know this is the correct word, I looked it up, it means to “pull up by the roots”. Roots that were thousands of years old. Now there are no more native Fuegians, the language, the culture, the knowledge, all lost.

I enjoyed thinking that I would commission a monument where Ulises S. Grant is standing on top, his foot on a cotton bale, with General Lee and Stonewall Jackson at his feet, dressed in rags and begging for mercy. A hundred years from now people would be looking at it and asking themselves “what was he thinking?” Basically the same question I ask every time I walk by Magellan’s monument or see a picture of it.

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