Rosendo Porlier belongs to that class of men who are called to do great things when, suddenly, life is twisted and great things do not come, but the exceptional ones arrive.
Porlier's story is, because for that it was Spanish, incredible and something, say, unexpected . In September 1819 we have our intrepid man bending Cape Horn aboard a ship called San Telmo with 644 crew on board. They were heading to Peru, where they were instructed to quell the incipient revolts that would eventually lead the country to independence. The Navy commanding Porlier was made up of three ships and thank God. They were so just of strength that they themselves did not have them all with them and they realized that the mission they had entrusted to them looked more than bad.
So there they are, with the bows on the cursed end , when, suddenly, an atrocious temporary unleashes. The wind hits from everywhere, the waves rise powerful before them and the west currents prevent them from moving forward. The Spaniards of 1819 would not have the highest morale in the world, but they knew what to do when they were aboard a ship. Thus, the 644 of San Telmo are rolled up and give everything during anguishing hours. However, the storm increases and Porlier verifies that, unfortunately, they have broken the helm . In theory, this is a major problem , but those people knew they were made of another paste and knew how to rule a beast the size of San Telmo using the rig . It is not an infallible system, although a good handful of good sailors can make it get out of the mess with relative efficiency.
Wind and currents drag San Telmo to the southeast, that is, in the opposite direction to which they intend to go. Porlier knows that there is nothing there, that nobody has sailed before in those wild and unknown waters . From that moment, we surmised what they should have thought: "Go ahead, we have come out worse."
For several days they remain adrift , until the San Telmo embarks . That is, it touches the ground with the keel, the helmet jumps to pieces and the brutal impact devastates a few of those suffered crew members. "Where are they?" They ask, immediately. They do not have the slightest idea, and it is not for less, because they are preparing to set foot not in an unknown country or territory, but in a continent that nobody has previously stepped on: Antarctica .
This is when it should be repeated, so that it is very clear: a continent that nobody has stepped on before.
They have run aground on the island of Livingston , which is part of an archipelago called South Shetland. The San Telmo beach , researchers believe, near Cape Shirreff, in the northern part of the island. It is not a crazy possibility, because if someone puts a drifting ship at the exact point where the San Telmo was last sighted , it will end up on the island of Livingston. The currents are constant enough to ensure it, as are the winds that blow during storms . It was a stroke of luck , good or bad, that they ended up there. But it's over and that's the key to everything. It is not necessary for one to know where one is going to claim the honor of having discovered a place. The Spaniards know it well, but also the English, the French, the Dutch and any other people who have walked, for centuries, navigating these worlds of God.
Porlier and his men, then, disembark. We know it for two reasons . The first, because a later English expedition will discover the wreck of San Telmo. Some English people stand on that infamous beach and say: "Wow, the Spaniards have advanced us." "Again?". "Yes, again." "And what if we run a thick veil and pretend that nothing has happened here? After all, we are English and we will not enter history thanks to our honesty in the seas."
Said and done, the captain of that crew that second stepped on Antarctica ordered that a San Telmo log be recovered to make a coffin with him and they left where they had come. On their way back to their base in Valparaíso , they called themselves Andana and explained that they had not seen anyone and that England should claim the honor of having discovered the frozen continent.
There is, however, a second reason to firmly believe that the San Telmo landed in Livingston and, with it, its unfortunate crewmen: archaeological remains have been found. Apparently, minors: remnants of Spanish footwear, a wedge to hold a cannon and even remnants of the food they had on board and that, in light of the findings, managed to disembark.
On Livingston Island, Porlier and his men encounter an extremely hostile environment in which winds get worse, there is no vegetation to shelter and temperatures always fall below zero degrees Celsius. They go with a garment that we would call halftime: at no time have they considered the possibility of arriving at a similar place, so that they are covered with clothes that, clearly, are insufficient in the Antarctic territory .
IMPOSSIBLE TO REFLOT
Porlier orders that food and tools be landed. We know this because of the remains found and, also, because it is the most logical decision. A sailor knows when his ship is doomed. Once a ship of the size of San Telmo embarks, it is already impossible to refloat it. So they would rescue as much as they could and get ready to endure. They did not sail alone at Cape Horn, so sooner or later they would miss them and someone would send a ship in their search .
But precisely because they know very well what has happened to them and what have been the distances they have covered in the days of drift, there are no illusions. The relief , if it arrives, will take. They won't know, but the months went by and nobody came to his aid . Porlier, who was a very experienced sailor, would be told: "From this one, we go out alone or nobody gets us".
They tried to leave alone, then. It is difficult to get an idea of what the weather conditions are in Antarctica. In September, there is still winter and the cold is freezing. Luckily, Porlier has an almost inexhaustible source of fuel with which to keep fires lit: San Telmo itself. For a sailor, ordering his own ship to be dismantled must be devastating . However, it was about that or dying . The hundreds of men who have been able to reach the beach and who are still under the command of Rosendo Porlier, would be heated in bonfires lit with the San Telmo's own timbers , his ship. You can't imagine a more devastating scene .
Luckily for them, if Livingston something can be called that, the food was not lacking. In addition to those who could recover from the ship, at any beach on the island there were, at the very least, huge colonies of penguins that a man had never seen. The San Telmo is a warship, so they carried enough muskets, bullets and gunpowder to stock up indefinitely. He did not give them time and the hypothesis that they starved to death should be discarded.
Months later, a few months later, the English arrive at the place where the Spanish camp was. They inspect it and find no one alive. They succumbed because of the extreme cold and in a slow agony in which they literally froze alive. They turned blue and began to rave , which is one of the main symptoms of severe hypothermia . They have lost their minds , poor people. Rosendo Porlier and his people died alone in the middle of an overwhelming helplessness , forgotten by the rest of the world then and for the next two centuries.
Years later, the Navy dropped them, which is a somewhat administrative way of turning the page and something else. Without honors or memories. Goodbye and something else, it will not be that, by hache or by be, you would not behave as we believe today a man of 200 years ago should do it and we have to repudiate you.
Rosendo Porlier was swallowed by history, no doubt about it, but in his engulfment, external factors also concurred that helped push. On the one hand, English Ladinos, of course, never lose any opportunity to take credit that does not belong to them, particularly if the victims are Spanish. On the other, the Spaniards themselves, the compatriots of Porlier and the men of San Telmo: us. Here is an incontrovertible truth: traditionally, to Spain, the magnificent history behind it makes it grimace. It would take another whole article to go into details about it, but suffice it to say that our sense of guilt has caused us amnesia. In Spain, the past is a facade and deserves to be no longer forgotten, but rewritten, in the purest totalitarian tradition.
And it will be said: "Calm down, fools are counteracted in two kicks." Well, no. Honestly recovering the memory of men like Rosendo Porlier is not only not simple, but also a Herculean effort. For some reason, there is still, in Spain, a sea of substance that, as soon as you get lost , relentlessly drags well-intentioned plans.
Solutions? Several, but one of urgency, of a single paragraph: to expose the reality succinctly. For example: Rosendo Porlier was the sailor who, before anyone else, set foot in Antarctica; thus, it is not incongruous that Spain claims that the discovery of the frozen continent corresponds to it.
And, again, it will be argued: "In this way we lose nuances and fall into an absurd reductionism." Well, yes, but it is what others do and what is going well for them, so let us sign up, for the time being, to that car, because the history of our country is not to launch rockets .
Rosendo Porlier died at 48 years of age. Although his place in history is occupied by an English sailor named William Smith, in Spain there is no doubt that he, along with his men, arrived before anyone else in Antarctica. By chance, but the first. At Cape Shirreff, there is a commemorative plaque that recalls the deeds of our men. The landscape is desolate , almost lunar. The earth, black, contrasts with the white snow and the pasty mist . On the plaque it says: "The first to reach these coasts."
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