The Last Conquistador, a new documentary premiering on PBS’s P.O.V.explores how one man’s dream and one community’s hero has divided the city of El Paso, Texas. John Houser was commissioned to erect a larger-than-life statue of Spanish Conquistador Juan de Oñate and decided to build the largest bronze equestrian statue in the world. But the project comes up against the contours of history.
Oñate, a revered figure among the city’s Hispanic community, is also remembered for his devastation of Native culture across the region. The film documents El Paso’s struggle to come to terms with its past and with the divisions that the sculpture has opened. The film premiers this week.
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A similar thing happened in Utah. A statue of John D. Lee, early Mormon pioneer, was commissioned by the city of St. George, Utah, the biggest city in the southern part of the state. A 7-foot bronze statue of Lee, by local sculptor Jerry Anderson, was completed and ready to be put in place in the city’s central historic square. However, Lee was also the only figure tried, convicted, and executed for the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre, on Sept. 11, 1858, in which over 120 emmigrants were murdered by Mormons and their bodies left to rot. As soon as the news came out about the statue, there was an outcry that resulted in a change’o’plans; the sculptor bought the statue back and now it’s being put in place in Washington City, Utah, a small town that Lee founded that is bascially a suburb of St. George.
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