Pre-Columbian Patagonia (10,000 BC – AD 1520) Human habitation of the region dates back thousands of years, with some early archaeological findings in the area dated to at least the
13th millennium BC, although later dates around the
10th millennium BC are more securely recognized. Evidence exists of human activity at
Monte Verde in
Llanquihue Province, Chile, dated to around 14,500 years
Before Present (~12,500 BC). in Última Esperanza in southern Patagonia, and
Tres Arroyos on Tierra del Fuego, that support this date. At several sites these points have been found associated with extinct megafauna, including the large ground sloth
Mylodon and the native equine
Hippidion. site in Santa Cruz, Argentina The
Cueva de las Manos is a famous site in Santa Cruz, Argentina. This cave at the foot of a cliff is covered in wall paintings, particularly the negative images of hundreds of hands, believed to date from around 8000 BC. It is possible that
Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego was connected to the mainland in the
Early Holocene (c. 9000 years
BP) much in the same way that
Riesco Island was back then. A Selkʼnam tradition recorded by the
Salesian missionary
Giuseppe María Beauvoir relate that the
Selkʼnam arrived in Tierra del Fuego by land, and that the Selkʼnam were later unable to return north as the sea had flooded their crossing. Agriculture was practised in Pre-Hispanic Argentina as far south as southern
Mendoza Province. Agriculture was at times practised beyond this limit in nearby areas of Patagonia but populations reverted at times to non-agricultural lifestyles. The Atlantic coast of Patagonia was first fully explored in 1520 by the
Spanish expedition led by
Ferdinand Magellan, who on his passage along the coast named many of its more striking features – San Matías Gulf, Cape of 11,000 Virgins (now simply
Cape Virgenes), and others. Magellan's fleet spent a difficult winter at what he named
Puerto San Julián before resuming its voyage further south on 21 August 1520. During this time, it encountered the local inhabitants, likely to be
Tehuelche people, described by his reporter, Antonio Pigafetta, as giants called
Patagons. The territory was claimed as part of the
Governorate of New Léon,
granted in 1534 to Governor
Simón de Alcazaba y Sotomayor, part of the
Governorates of the Spanish Empire of the Americas. The territory was redefined in 1534 and consisted of the southernmost part of the South American continent and the islands towards Antarctica.
Rodrigo de Isla, sent inland in 1535 from San Matías by Simón de Alcazaba y Sotomayor (on whom Patagonia had been conferred by
Charles I of Spain, is presumed to have been the first European to have traversed the great Patagonian plain. If the men under his charge had not mutinied, he might have crossed the
Andes to reach the Pacific coast. .
Pedro de Mendoza, on whom the country was next bestowed, founded
Buenos Aires, but did not venture south.
Francisco de Camargo (1536),
Alonso de Camargo (1539),
Juan Ladrilleros (1557), and
Hurtado de Mendoza (1558) helped to make known the Pacific coasts, and while
Sir Francis Drake's voyage in 1577 down the Atlantic coast, through the
Strait of Magellan and northward along the Pacific coast, was memorable, yet the descriptions of the geography of Patagonia owe much more to the Spanish explorer
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1579–1580), who, devoting himself especially to the south-west region, made careful and accurate surveys. The settlements that he founded at
Nombre de Jesús and San Felipe was neglected by the Spanish government, the latter being abandoned before
Thomas Cavendish visited it in 1587 during his
circumnavigation, and so desolate that he called it
Port Famine. After the discovery of the route around Cape Horn, the Spanish Crown lost interest in southern Patagonia until the 18th century, when the coastal settlements Carmen de Patagones, San José, Puerto Deseado, and Nueva Colonia Floridablanca were established, although it maintained its claim of a
de jure sovereignty over the area. The district around
Puerto Deseado was explored and claimed in 1670 by Sir
John Narborough for King
Charles II of England, but the English made no attempt to establish settlements or explore the interior.
Patagonian giants: early European perceptions The first European explorers of Patagonia observed that the indigenous people in the region were taller than the average Europeans of the time, prompting some of them to believe that Patagonians were giants. According to Antonio Pigafetta, This book, published in 1512, was the sequel of the romance
Palmerín de Oliva;it was much in vogue at the time, and a favorite reading of Magellan. Magellan's perception of the natives, dressed in skins, and eating raw meat, clearly recalled the uncivilized Patagón in Vázquez's book. Novelist and travel writer
Bruce Chatwin suggests etymological roots of both Patagon and Patagonia in his book,
In Patagonia, noting the similarity between "Patagon" and the
Greek word παταγος, which means "a roaring" or "gnashing of teeth" (in his chronicle, Pigafetta describes the Patagonians as "roaring like bulls"). , from ''Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Océanie'' by French explorer
Jules Dumont d'Urville The main interest in the region sparked by Pigafetta's account came from his reports of their meeting with the local inhabitants, whom they claimed to measure some in height – "so tall that we reached only to his waist" – hence the later idea that Patagonia meant "big feet". This supposed race of Patagonian giants or
Patagones entered into the common European perception of this then little-known and distant area, to be further fueled by subsequent reports of other expeditions and famous travelers such as Sir Francis Drake, which seemed to confirm these accounts. Early charts of the
New World sometimes added the legend
regio gigantum ("region of the giants") to the Patagonian area. By 1611, the Patagonian god Setebos (Settaboth in Pigafetta) was familiar to the hearers of
The Tempest. The concept and general belief persisted for a further 250 years and was to be sensationally reignited in 1767 when an "official" (but anonymous) account was published of
Commodore John Byron's recent voyage of global
circumnavigation in
HMS Dolphin. Byron and crew had spent some time along the coast, and the publication (''Voyage Round the World in His Majesty's Ship the Dolphin'') seemed to give proof positive of their existence; the publication became an overnight bestseller, thousands of extra copies were to be sold to a willing public, and other prior accounts of the region were hastily republished (even those in which giant-like folk were not mentioned at all). However, the Patagonian giant frenzy died down substantially only a few years later, when some more sober and analytical accounts were published. In 1773,
John Hawkesworth published on behalf of the
Admiralty a compendium of noted English southern-hemisphere explorers' journals, including that of
James Cook and John Byron. In this publication, drawn from their official logs, the people Byron's expedition had encountered clearly were no taller than , very tall but by no means giants. Interest soon subsided, although awareness of and belief in the concept persisted in some quarters even into the 20th century.
Spanish outposts The failure of the Spanish colonization of the Strait of Magellan made the
Chiloé Archipelago play an essential role as a Spanish base for protecting western Patagonia from the intrusion of other powers.
Valdivia, reestablished in 1645, and Chiloé acted as sentries, being hubs where the Spanish collected information and rumors from all over Patagonia. As a result of the privateer and pirate menace, Spanish authorities ordered the depopulation of the
Guaitecas Archipelago to deprive enemies of any eventual support from native populations. José Miguel Carrera ultimately planned to cross the Andes into Chile and oust his rivals in Chile. The last royalist armed group in what is today Argentina and Chile, the
Pincheira brothers, moved from the vicinities of Chillán across the Andes into northern Patagonia as patriots consolidated control of Chile. The Pincheira brothers was an outlaw gang made of Europeans Spanish, American Spanish, Mestizos and local indigenous peoples. This group was able to move to Patagonia thanks to its alliance with two indigenous tribes, the Ranqueles and the
Boroanos. and Chilean historians respectably as
uti possidetis iuris in Patagonia. In the early 19th century, the
araucanization of the natives of northern Patagonia intensified, and many
Mapuches migrated to Patagonia to live as nomads that raised cattle or pillaged the Argentine countryside. The cattle stolen in the incursions (
malones) were later taken to Chile through the mountain passes and traded for goods, especially alcoholic beverages. The main trail for this trade was called
Camino de los chilenos and runs a length around from the
Buenos Aires Province to the
mountain passes of
Neuquén Province. The
lonco Calfucurá crossed the
Andes from Chile to the pampas around 1830, after a call from the governor of
Buenos Aires,
Juan Manuel de Rosas, to fight the
Boroano people. In 1859, he attacked
Bahía Blanca in Argentina with 3,000 warriors. As in the case of Calfucura, many other bands of Mapuches got involved in the internal conflicts of Argentina until
Conquest of the Desert. To counter the cattle raids, a trench called the
Zanja de Alsina was built by Argentina in the pampas in the 1870s. In the mid-19th century, the newly independent nations of Argentina and Chile began an aggressive phase of expansion into the south, increasing confrontation with the Indigenous peoples of the region. In 1860, French adventurer
Orelie-Antoine de Tounens proclaimed himself king of the
Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia of the
Mapuche. Following the last instructions of
Bernardo O'Higgins, the Chilean president
Manuel Bulnes sent an
expedition to the Strait of Magellan and founded
Fuerte Bulnes in 1843. Five years later, the Chilean government moved the main settlement to the current location of
Punta Arenas, the oldest permanent settlement in Southern Patagonia. The creation of Punta Arenas was instrumental in making Chile's claim of the Strait of Magellan permanent. In the 1860s, sheep from the
Falkland Islands were introduced to the lands around the Straits of Magellan, and throughout the 19th century, sheepfarming grew to be the most important economic sector in southern Patagonia.
George Chaworth Musters in 1869 wandered in company with a band of Tehuelches through the whole length of the country from the strait to the Manzaneros in the northwest, and collected a great deal of information about the people and their mode of life.
Conquest of the Desert and the 1881 treaty , the
Conquest of the Desert extended Argentine power into Patagonia Argentine authorities worried that the strong connections araucanized tribes had with Chile would allegedly give Chile certain influence over the pampas. Argentine authorities feared that in an eventual war with Chile over Patagonia, the natives would side with the Chileans and the war would be brought to the vicinity of Buenos Aires. During the first years of the 20th century, the border between the two nations in Patagonia was established by the mediation of the British crown. Numerous modifications have been made since then, the last conflict having been resolved in 1994 by an arbitration tribunal constituted in
Rio de Janeiro. It granted Argentina sovereignty over the
Southern Patagonia Icefield,
Cerro Fitz Roy, and
Laguna del Desierto. Until 1902, a large proportion of Patagonia's population were natives of
Chiloé Archipelago (Chilotes), who worked as peons in large livestock-farming
estancias. Because they were
manual laborers, their social status was below that of the
gauchos and the Argentine, Chilean, and European landowners and administrators. Before and after 1902, when the boundaries were drawn, Argentina expelled many Chilotes from their territory, as they feared that having a large Chilean population in Argentina could pose a risk to their future control. These workers founded the first inland Chilean settlement in what is now the
Aysén Region;
Balmaceda. Lacking good grasslands on the forest-covered Chilean side, the immigrants burned down the forest, setting fires that could last more than two years. ==Economy==