Chilean Antarctica in colonial times For many years,
cartographers and European explorers speculated about the existence of the
Terra Australis Incognita, a landmass potentially of vast size located south of the
Strait of Magellan and
Tierra del Fuego. On 7 June 1494, the
Treaty of Tordesillas was signed between Spain and Portugal. This treaty gave rights to newly discovered territories to the two countries according to a line running from pole to pole; at 46° 37'W in the Spanish classical interpretation and farther west according to the Portuguese interpretation. The areas of Antarctica claimed by Chile today fall within the region granted to Spain by this original treaty. In 1534, the Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V divided the South American territory of Spain into three governorates:
New Castile or
Peru (to
Francisco Pizarro),
New Toledo or
Chile (to
Diego de Almagro) and
New León (to
Simón de Alcazaba y Sotomayor) also known as the Magellanic Lands and subsequently extended to the Strait of Magellan. the first territorial claim over the lands near the South Pole; later it was incorporated into the
Governorate of Chile. This consisted of the land south of the Strait of Magellan, i.e.
Tierra del Fuego, and onward unexplored land to the South Pole. At the time, the existence of the
Drake Passage was not known and Tierra del Fuego thought to be part of the Antarctic mainland. A Royal Decree of 1554 states: Later, in 1558, the Royal Decree of
Brussels prompted the Chilean colonial government to "take ownership in our name from the lands and provinces that fall in the demarcation of the Spanish crown", referring to the land "across the Strait", i.e. Terra Australis. One of the most important works of Spanish literature, the
epic poem La Araucana by
Alonso de Ercilla, is considered by Chileans to give encouragement to their territorial claims in Antarctica. In the seventh stanza of his Canto I: A circle located '27 degrees from the South Pole' corresponds to a latitude of 63 degrees south, on the southern side of the
Drake Passage and just north of the
Antarctic Peninsula. However, ambiguity suggests that a misplaced
Strait of Magellan may be referred to. There are other stories and maps, both Chilean and European, indicating that Terra Australis and Antarctica were claimed by the
Captaincy General of Chile for the
Spanish Empire. In March 1603, the Spanish navigator
Gabriel de Castilla sailed from
Valparaiso entrusted with three ships belonging to the
viceroy of Peru,
Luis de Velasco y Castilla. The goal of this expedition was to repress the incursions of Dutch privateers in the Southern Seas as far as 64 degrees south latitude. No documents confirming the latitude reached or land sighted have been found in the Spanish archives. However, a story told by the Dutch sailor Laurenz Claesz (date unknown, but probably after 1607), gives interesting details. Claesz said:
from 1646 depicts Terra Australis Incognita'' to the east of
Tierra del Fuego. In 1622, a Dutch document was published in
Amsterdam stating that at 64 degrees south there was land which was "very high and mountainous, snow cover, like the country of Norway, all white, land. It seemed to extend to the Solomon Islands". This could be the first recorded sighting by a European of the
Antarctic Peninsula. Other historians attribute the first sighting of Antarctic land to the Dutch mariner
Dirk Gerritsz. According to his account, his ship was diverted from its course by a storm after passing through the
Strait of Magellan as part of a Dutch expedition to the
East Indies in 1599. Gerritsz may have sighted the
South Shetland Islands, though there are doubts about his trustworthiness. Other authorities place the first sighting of mainland Antarctica as late as 27 January 1820 by an expedition of the
Imperial Russian Navy led by
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen. Open ocean south of South America was reported by the Spanish navigator
Francisco de Hoces in 1525 and by Sir
Francis Drake in 1578. The existence of Drake Passage was confirmed when the Dutch navigator
Willem Schouten became the first to sail around
Cape Horn en route to the East Indies in 1616. In 1772, the
British explorer Captain
James Cook circumnavigated the
Southern Ocean.
19th century After the colonies in the Americas had gained their independence, the new Spanish republics agreed amongst themselves to recognize the principle of
uti possidetis, meaning new states would have the same borders as their predecessor Spanish colonies. Thus the
Republic of Chile included all lands formerly belonging to the
Captaincy General of Chile, including claims over portions of Antarctica, according to Chilean historians. In 1815, the Argentine-Irish
Admiral William Brown launched a campaign to harass the Spanish fleet in the
Pacific Ocean and, when passing
Cape Horn with the Argentine vessels
Hércules and
Trinidad, his ships were driven down into the Antarctic Sea beyond 65° south latitude. Brown's report indicated the presence of nearby land, though he did not see any portion of the continent and no landings were made. On August 25, 1818, the government of Argentina, then called the
United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, granted the first concessions for hunting
earless seals and
penguins in Antarctica to Juan Pedro de Aguirre, who operated the ship
Espíritu Santo based on
Deception Island.
Espíritu Santo was joined by the American
brig Hercilia. The fact that the Argentine sealers were able to sail directly to the island can be regarded as evidence that its location was already known. Between 1819 and 1821, the Russian ships
Vostok and
Mirny, under the command of the German
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen in
Russian service, explored Antarctic waters, as already noted. In 1821, at 69°W 53'S, he sighted an island which he called
Alexander I Land, after the
Russian Tsar. Although von Bellingshausen circumnavigated the continent twice, no member of his crew ever set foot on Antarctica. In 1819, the British mariner
William Smith rediscovered the South Shetland Islands, including
King George Island. The American
Nathaniel Palmer spotted the Antarctic Peninsula that same year. Neither of them went ashore on the actual continental landmass. However, in 1821, Connecticut seal hunter
John Davis reported setting foot on a southern land that he believed was a continent. mentions the
South Shetland Islands in his notion of inherited Chilean lands from the Spanish Empire (
uti possidetis juris). In 1823,
James Weddell claimed to have discovered the sea that now bears his name, lying inside the Antarctic Circle to the east of the Antarctic peninsula. The hunting of baleen whales and
South American sea lions began to increase in the following years. In 1831, Chile's liberator
Bernardo O'Higgins wrote to the
Royal Navy, saying: In 1843, a Chilean expedition founded
Fuerte Bulnes, taking possession of the
Strait of Magellan, just days before British and French ships arrived with the same objective. Years later Chile founded the city of
Punta Arenas in 1848. In 1856, a treaty of friendship between Chile and Argentina recognized boundaries and was enacted
uti possidetis juris. The growth of Chilean settlements in the
Magallanes Region and especially the city of
Punta Arenas allowed the founding of companies for the hunting and exploitation of whales in the Antarctic seas, which required authorization from the Chilean government. By supreme decree, the Government of
Chile approved in 1906 the statutes of the
Magellan Whaling Company, organized by Captain Andresen and Pedro A. de Bruyne, which since the previous year had been carrying out its operations in
Whalers Bay of Deception with the
factory ship Gobernador Bories. Other whaling companies followed, with several hundred men residing in Deception during the Antarctic summers. In 1906, several decrees were
promulgated, including some from the
National Congress of Chile, offering mining permits in the Antarctic area. In that same year, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile mentioned on September 18 that the delimitation of Chilean Antarctic territory would be the subject of a preliminary investigation. Also, President
Germán Riesco created an Antarctic Commission dependent from that ministry, with the aim of organizing the first Chilean Antarctic Expedition and building a weather station to strengthen sovereignty in these territories through an effective presence, however the
1906 Valparaíso earthquake made it impossible for the project to receive funding. and established a coaling station. This area was visited by
Jean-Baptiste Charcot in December 1908 to replenish coal. The site was manned during the summer seasons until 1914. In 1908, the British ship
Telefon, which was carrying coal for the supply of whalers on
King George Island in the
South Shetland Islands, ran aground on the reefs of
Admiralty Bay (now known as Telefon Rocks) and was abandoned by its crew due to severe damage. Upon learning of the incident on Deception Island, several ships set sail for the site. Captain Andresen, aboard the Chilean whaler
Almirante Valenzuela, arrived first, boarded the abandoned ship in a dangerous maneuver, raised the Chilean flag and claimed it according to maritime law. He towed it to Deception Island, beaching it in a cove (now Telefon Cove) for repairs. The following spring, the factory ship
Gobernador Bories repaired it successfully, allowing the
Telefon to sail again under the Chilean flag. The whaling society acquired the steamship
Telefon that belonged to the Lloyds company in 1910, which had been put up for auction after the accident. The Charter of July 21, 1908, established that: "...the group of islands known as South Georgia, South Orkney, South Shetland, Sandwich Islands, and the territory known as Graham Land, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, south of the 50th parallel south latitude, between 20 and 80 degrees west longitude, are part of Our Dominion...", which led to diplomatic conflict with the United Kingdom. The Corral Whaling Company, created in 1910 with Chilean and Norwegian capital and, from 1915, solely by Adolfo Andresen, operated on the southern coast and in Antarctic waters, in the South Shetland Islands and South Orkney Islands. It had bases of operations in Caleta San Carlos in Corral and on Deception Island. == Sovereignty and the Antarctic Treaty System ==