Benjamín Muñoz Gamero was one of the best-trained officers in the Chilean Navy of his day. He served two years in the British Royal Navy, knew the southern channels as few did, and in 1849 hacked his way with machetes to explore Lakes Llanquihue and Todos los Santos. He wrote, too: a naval dictionary and studies of the Strait's climate.
In April 1851, aged 34, he became governor of Magallanes. Punta Arenas was then a penal colony of a few hundred people, every house built of wood, around an open patch called Plaza Esmeralda. He soon drew a plan of the town and warned the government that you could not build a colony out of convicts. Nobody listened.
On 21 November Lieutenant Miguel José Cambiaso led the garrison in mutiny. Muñoz Gamero escaped in a boat with a single oar; the wind threw him onto Tierra del Fuego, and he came back. He was captured, and in early December he was shot in the back, together with the chaplain Gregorio Acuña. His body was burned on a bonfire.
Years later Governor Óscar Viel gave his name to the main square, still the heart of Punta Arenas.
