The first maps to include the islands were prepared by
Abraham Ortelius and
Gerardus Mercator around 1570. The islands were described as "the Galopegos Insulae" (Turtle Island). The Galapagos were used by pirates hideout in English as trips to plunder Spanish galleons carrying gold and silver from America to Spain. The first known pirate to visit the islands was
Richard Hawkins, in 1593. From then until 1816 many pirates came to the archipelago.
Alexander Selkirk, (1676 – 13 December 1721), also known as Alexander Selcraig, was a
Scottish sailor who was the man whose adventures on the islands of
Juan Fernández (explorer), () was a
Spanish explorer and navigator in the
Pacific regions of the
Viceroyalty of Peru and
Captaincy General of Chile west of colonial
South America who inspired
Daniel Defoe to write
Robinson Crusoe, visited the Galapagos in 1708 after he was rescued from the island of Juan Fernández by the privateer Woodes Rogers. Rogers was at the archipelago to repair their ships after sacking
Guayaquil. resting on a park bench in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. The first scientific mission that visited the Galapagos was the Malaspina expedition, a Spanish expedition led by Alejandro Malaspina, who arrived in 1790. However, the records of the expedition were never published. In 1793,
James Colnett, (1753 – 1 September 1806) was an officer of the British
Royal Navy, an explorer, and a
maritime fur trade described the flora and fauna of the islands and suggested they could be used as base for the whalers operating in the Pacific Ocean. Collnet also drew the first charts of the Galapagos. These whalers captured and killed thousands of tortoises in the archipelago because the tortoises could survive for months without food or drink. The gigantic Galapagos tortoises were transported inside the holds of whaling ships. A phrase "living cupboards" could be desortugas would be kept alive and killed when fresh meat was required by the whaling crews. Tortoises provided fresh protein on the long journeys typical of whaling ships. Hunting of these tortoises was the cause of the large decrease of their population, and in some cases the destruction of certain species of the Galapagos Tortoise. . ==Political divisions==