This book includes an analysis of the historical sources examined, as well as a study of the individual discoveries achieved by Europeans in the general region of Patagonia, denominated as Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown Southern Land) on maps of the day. I believe these sources will help to understand the origins and customs of this region, its fjords, mountains, lakes, and people, as well as its flora and fauna.
I hope this book can provide a helpful overview of territorial delimits and contribute to clarifying this nebulous topic, with a view to recognizing the true geographical extent of this vast territory called PATAGONIA, including aspects of its exploration, conquest and control.
James Button
This history of Patagonia covers the era of its discovery in the 16th Century, up to the era of the majority of European explorations, in the 19th Century. It describes its geographical borders, its flora and fauna, as well as its indigenous population, their habits and customs, including a dictionary of distinct native languages. The book covers the history of mainland Patagonia from Carmen de Patagones to the Straits of Magellan (Tierra del Fuego) on the Atlantic side, and from Cape Horn to the Río Calle-Calle at Valdivia and the Patagonian Islands, on the Pacific side.
It also includes a chronology of the origins and motives that gave rise to Patagonia’s discovery when the Spanish Crown felt the need to find a new sea route for the Spice Trade. This effort was initiated by Christopher Columbus and followed by Amerigo Vespucci, to be completed by Ferdinand Magellan, who succeeded in finding the maritime passage that unites the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean via southern Patagonia. This was the greatest achievement of the era and was followed by the explorations carried out by Ladrillero, Sarmiento de Gamboa and other explorers, who persevered in their attempts to occupy Tierra del Fuego and the territories of Magellan in the name of the Spanish Crown.
It is important to understand, however, that PATAGONIA is an imaginary region, whose actual geography consists of Argentine Eastern Patagonia and Chilean Western Patagonia. Yet it is a single territory, filling the southern cone of the American Continent, beginning at 39°49’ southern latitude, with a natural division between east and west formed by the Andes Mountains. I have therefore focused on Argentine and Chilean Patagonia, treating the subject as one single territory called PATAGONIA.
It is natural that there are general misconceptions regarding this matter, considering it covers a geographical area that corresponds neither to a political entity nor to an economic one. This also explains the limited interest among the South American population in the region’s history since Spanish Rule came to an end.
This underpopulated land, with its rugged geography of vast highland plains, volcanoes, valleys, islands and fjords, drew me to compare its extent with European countries. I discovered Patagonia is an area of over one million square kilometers, which equals the combined size of France, England and Germany. Its historical spirit is similar to the region occupied by Provence, the ancient province in the South of France.
The Patagonian region of Chile covers a narrow strip south of the city of Valdivia, framed by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Patagonian Andes to the east via the Río Calle-Calle. On the Argentinean side, mountain terraces descend to the Atlantic Ocean via the Río Negro, reaching the mouth of the river at the point known as Carmen de Patagones. To the south, Patagonia extends to Tierra del Fuego and the Straits of Magellan and is known as Continental Patagonia. On the Atlantic Ocean side, the Falkland Islands are included to the south-east of Continental Patagonia, as are all the islands that surround Cape Horn, as well as the fjords and islands reaching north to Valdivia, including the island of Chiloé. This area is known as Insular Patagonia.
Thus, the newly discovered routes opened by navigators paved the way for getting to know this Terra Incognita and it was explored by pirates such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir Thomas Cavendish, followed by scientific explorers, such as Le Maire, Musters and Darwin, and also came under the influence of Jesuit missions in the 17th Century, by fathers Mascardi and Falkner.
The motives that inspired the Medici, Fuggers and Charles V to finance and sponsor exploratory expeditions for a new route to the Indies in the 16th Century are reviewed. The knowledge of the strategic sea channel in Patagonia made exploration rewarding, culminating in German settlement during the era of President Bulnes, which was initiated in Valdivia in 1845, at Osorno and Llanquihue, in Chile. Similarly, we look at Welsh settlement in Argentine Patagonia that was promoted by the teacher Michael Jones and realized in the province of Chubut, at the beginning of 1863, which consolidated the European presence in the region.
The Salesian missionaries sent from Italy to Tierra del Fuego by Don Bosco in the 19th Century helped pacify the indigenous population by means of their religious conversion. The Conquest of the Desert led by General Roca, on the other hand, allowed Argentina to annex an extensive area by more violent means. Attempts to create a French Kingdom in Araucania and Patagonia did not succeed. The development of sheep farming, of industry, and of commerce in the Straits of Magellan, as well as to the dream of discovering the ‘City of the Caesars,’ was the magnet that fuelled this story, from the early 16th Century. It triggered a mystical fever for gold that kept the spirit of adventure burning and endured throughout the southern cone of the American Continent over three centuries.
In a more extensive study of Patagonia by the German geographer Hans Steffen Hoffmann on the general delimits of the region, written between 1892 and 1902 and published in two volumes in Chile under the title Patagonia Occidental, the author proposed that Patagonia can be analysed from many different viewpoints: oreographic, climatic, botanic, geographic and cultural.
From the Straits of Magellan to the south-west and beyond the Río Negro to the north, and up to the last peaks of the Andean Mountain Range to the east, Hans Steffen stated that Western Patagonia is a mountainous region of folded cretaceous rock and basalt lava caps containing a huge mass of intrusive granite rock formations. In contrast, Eastern Patagonia is comprised of continuous shelves. That is to say, for the most part the Tertiary plateau is undisturbed and covered by volcanic shingle. In general, Steffen concluded, the idea of Eastern Patagonia coincides with the Patagonian Mountains that continue south from the Andean Mountain Range, forming an irregular shape rather than a high wall, characterised by elevations and openings between volcanoes, mountains and glaciers.
The Patagonian Mountain Range is separated from the main Andean Chain by a clearly marked depression that crosses the entire body of mountains from west to east, immediately to the south of the 40° parallel. This depression extends from Lake Llanquihue between the volcanoes of Osorno and Calbuco, and also spreads south to the Straits of Magellan via the Todos los Santos Lake, which separates the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego from the American Continent.
INTRODUCTION TO THE EXTENT OF PATAGONIA
The previous section makes clear the need for an investigation to discover a more precise delineation of Patagonia; above all, for the region of Northern Patagonia during its pre-Hispanic era, which dates from 14,200 BC.
The various aspects relating to the history and geography of Patagonia during the Spanish era are well-known. However, the borders of the republics of Argentina and Chile were established with great difficulty because this huge territory knew no frontiers in pre-colonial times and it is therefore appropriate