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