Julius Popper

Julius Popper
Born(1857-12-15)December 15, 1857
Bucharest, Wallachia
DiedJune 5, 1893(1893-06-05) (aged 35)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
NationalityRomanian
Other namesJulio Popper
CitizenshipOttoman Empire, Argentina
Known forBeing a major perpetrator of the Selk'nam genocide[citation needed]

Julius Popper (December 15, 1857 – June 5, 1893), known in Spanish as Julio Popper (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxuljo poˈpeɾ]), was a Romanian-born Argentine colonial engineer, adventurer, and explorer.[1] He was known as a modern "conquistador" of Tierra del Fuego in southern South America, and was both a controversial and influential figure. Popper was one of the main perpetrators of the genocide against the native Selk'nam people[citation needed] in the islands,[2][3] and the circumstances surrounding his own death remain a mystery.

Life

See also: Tierra del Fuego Gold Rush
Julius Popper posing over a dead Selk'nam killed during fight in 1886
5-gram gold coin
1891 stamp by Popper

Popper was born in 1857 to a Jewish family in Bucharest, Principality of Wallachia, son of professor Neftali Popper, a successful antiques merchant, and his wife Peppi. He studied in Paris, gaining credentials as an engineer.

After working in Europe for several years, he took a job working on the infrastructure for the telegraph in Chile. He arrived in Argentina in 1885, where he was attracted by the possibility of gold mining in Tierra del Fuego. In 1886 he received a permit from the Argentine Government to form an exploration company to mine for gold near San Sebastián. On September 7, he led an 18-man expedition that included a chief engineer, a mineralogist, a journalist and a photographer. They found gold dust on the beach of El Páramo, in San Sebastián Bay. The expedition was rigorously and strictly enforced according to military standards with heavily armed men, with Popper in direct command of everything.

During the expedition, Popper and his men were allegedly attacked by eighty Selk'nam (Ona) armed with bows. The adventurers responded by firing their Winchester rifles, killing all but two of the Selk'nam. After the fight, Popper "posed his men in the attitude of troops repelling a charge, took a position himself astride one of the dead Indians, and then had the outfit photographed for subsequent use."[4]

Popper succeeded in unearthing large amounts of gold and his Compania de Lavaderos de Oro del Sud realized enormous capital gains on the Argentine stock exchange. A mint built to manage the gold was adapted as a museum in 1973, Museo del Fin del Mundo  [es] ("Museum at the End of the Earth"), officially the Museo Territorial (Territorial Museum) of Tierra del Fuego since 1979.

In Patagonia, Popper maintained dominance with his private army. He issued his own coins and stamps to symbolize his power. Two varieties of coins were issued, the 1 gram coin inscribed with El Paramo ("a high and cold region"), and the 5 gram coin inscribed with Lavaderos de Oro del Sur ("Washers of Gold of the south"), referring to gold panning from the river sediment.[5] When the Argentine peso lost its value in the market crash of 1890, his gold coins were regarded as currency. Around this time, he may have produced plans for the modern outline of the city of Havana, Cuba.[6][7]

Popper vigorously fought against his enemies; he punished gold diggers and thieves according to arbitrary law. The most controversial aspect of his life was his participation in the Selk'nam genocide against the native communities on Tierra del Fuego. Sheep farmers and gold miners ruthlessly killed them; the former because the Selk'nam would hunt sheep in their former territories and the latter because of conflicts over mining areas. Together with other bounty hunters, who were paid to kill the Selk'nam, Popper too sent his armed forces to manhunt them.[8][9]

Popper also prepared an expedition to enforce the Argentine claim for parts of Antarctica.[citation needed]

After Popper's sudden death in Buenos Aires at the age of 35, his empire collapsed. The cause of his death has not been established. Contemporary American journalist John R. Spears says that he was poisoned by "men whom he had offended in the south." Popper's death was seen as suspicious due to his relatively young age and good health.[10][11]

Photographic archive

In July 2022 The Wilhelm Filderman Center for the Study of the History of the Jews of Romania mounted in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, an exhibition of Popper's 1886 expedition into the interior of Tierra del Fuego. It consisted of a selection of the hundreds of photographs of the expedition that Popper himself sent to his family in Bucharest at the time and which collection had previously been conserved in the Romanian National Archives.[12][13]

In fiction

  • Daniel Ares wrote a novel about Popper's life called Popper – la Patagonia del oro.
  • Patricio Manns features him as one of the main characters of his novel, El Corazón a Contraluz (1996).
  • Jacob Popper wrote a novel about his great-great-uncle in Romanian called "Estrellita si regele tarei de Foc" (1992).
  • He was played by Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría in the film Tierra del Fuego (2000), where he appears as a Romanian Orthodox man working for Queen Carmen Sylva of Romania.
  • Popper figures in the back-story to the short story "Tierra del Fuego" by Francisco Coloane, on which the film was based.
  • In a play written by Céline Monsarrat, La mère de la mariée, his story is briefly but accurately explained, and emotionally described.
  • The Concepción-based Chilean blues and rockabilly band Julius Popper are named after Popper.[14]

References

  1. ^ Michael, Thomas; Cuhaj, George (2009). Standard Catalog of World Gold Coins. Krause Publications. p. 80. ISBN 978-1440204241.
  2. ^ According to Federico Echelaite's account in the documentary film Los onas, vida y muerte en Tierra del Fuego (by A. Montes, A. Chapman, and J. Prelorán).
  3. ^ Gusinde, Martin (1951). Hombres primitivos en la Tierra del Fuego (de investigador a compañero de tribu) [Primitive men in Tierra del Fuego (from researcher to fellow tribesman)] (in Spanish). Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla. pp. 98–99. Retrieved March 28, 2012.
  4. ^ Spears, John Randolph (1895). The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn. G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 11.
  5. ^ Friedenberg, Daniel M. (1976). Jewish minters & medalists (1st ed.). Philadelphia: The Jewish Publ. Soc. of America. ISBN 978-0-8276-0066-9.
  6. ^ Alem, Leandro N. (May 9, 2011). "Julius Popper – El Emperador de la Patagonia". Taringa! (in Spanish). Archived from the original on November 29, 2014.
  7. ^ Ansel 1970 quotes: "He further maintains that Popper drew up some kind of "plan" for the city of Havana in 1884." "He" means Lewin, Boleslao (1967). Popper, un conquistador patagónico [Popper, a Patagonian Conquistador] (in Spanish). Buenos Aires. p. 13.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Odone, C. and M.Palma, "La muerte exhibida fotografias de Julius Popper en Tierra del Fuego", in Mason and Odone, eds, 12 miradas. "Culturas de Patagonia: 12 Miradas: Ensayos sobre los pueblos patagonicos", Cited in Mason, Peter. 2001. The Lives of Images, P.153
  9. ^ Ray, Leslie (2007). Language of the Land: The Mapuche in Argentina and Chile. Copenhagen: IWGIA (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs). pp. 80, 207. ISBN 978-879156337-9.
  10. ^ Spears, John R. (1895). The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. New Rochelle, NY: Putnam's Sons. p. 10.
  11. ^ Canclini, Arnoldo, Julio Popper, quijote del oro fueguino, Zagier & Urruty Publications, Ushuaia, 2000.
  12. ^ Aurora Israel agency report (in Spanish)
  13. ^ "Vernisajul expoziției "Tierra de Fuego. Expedicion Popper"". Centrul pentru Studiul Istoriei Evreilor din România (CSIER) "Wilhelm Filderman" (in Hungarian). Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  14. ^ "El curioso origen del nombre de la banda Julius Popper" (in Spanish).

Further reading