This history of Patagonia covers the era of its discovery in the 16^th Century, up to the era of the majority of European explorations, in the 19^th 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 39º49’ 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 17^th 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 16^th 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 19^th 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 16^th 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 40º 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.

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 to ask whether it is correct to establish Patagonian frontiers based on the era before or after the arrival of the Europeans.

This book explores the delineation for Patagonia from both perspectives. From the sources that I have gathered in the libraries of Madrid, Seville and Paris, one can see that until now, the main objective of the Argentine and Chilean republics has been centered on the recognition of their own frontiers and, in particular, of those related to the border between the east and west, between the Atlantic Ocean, the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

The analysis presented here does not pretend to be an investigation or compilation of references. The challenge here is the search for knowledge in a wider perspective, looking at the subject through a different and more contemporary prism, in order to discover the original and natural frontiers of Patagonia and thus get closer to the reality of its territorial boundaries for those who lived in this vast area for over 14,200 years.

My starting point in this book is therefore a look at the indigenous territories of Patagonia as a whole, because I believe these clearly define the region, not the definitions imposed by Europeans, who exterminated the indigenous population of the southern continent, specifically during the ‘Conquest of the Desert’ carried out in the Argentine Republic under General Julio Argentino Roca. This was a military campaign against the Tehuelches (Patagons) in 1879 that resulted in the elimination of Eastern Patagonia’s largest indigenous race. Thousands of native Indians died, 13,000 were made prisoners, and another 3,000 were separated by sex and sent to Buenos Aires, where the women were distributed like slaves across the various neighborhoods of the capital city of Argentina, and the men were either conscripted into the military and the navy or forced to work in the sugar plantations. “In this way, after having separated families, physical and cultural reproduction and continuity was effectively eliminated.”⁽¹⁾ It was these atrocities carried out by the White Man against the Patagonian natives for the purpose of taking their land that effectively established Eastern Patagonia by means of the incorporation of those territories into the Republic of Argentina.

Since the geographical borders between Argentina and Chile are not the subject of analysis here, this book will focus on the question of the borders of Patagonia specifically, and other subjects that develop from that, in relation to both countries.

How far did the Patagons reach towards the south and the north? The western and eastern limits were always set by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, while the imposing Andean Mountain Range is responsible for the natural border created by its water courses and its high mountain peaks that are universally recognized as the frontier between Chile and Argentina. It only remains, therefore, to establish where exactly the northern limit of Patagonia should be within the general territory of both modern countries.

With respect to this new question on the delimits of Patagonia, this book has something new to offer by achieving a balance between pre-Hispanic sources and historic research covering the 16^th Century to the present; and also by questioning modern delineations to develop a new theory based on solid foundations relating to the natural history of the inhabitants, whose roots date back to 14,200 BC, and which agree with contemporary and traditional assessments provided by historians and geographers in their day. I will say now, therefore, that I believe the configuration of the northern and southern boundaries match the natural outline of the region of Patagonia.

Among the diverse historians that defined the boundaries of Patagonia, one can quote Frederic Lacroix, from his book ‘A History of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands,’ published in 1841:

“Geographic position. General configuration and boundaries. Patagonia stretches from north to south, covering a distance of around 465 leagues, between 35º and 38º and 53º and 54º of southern latitude. Its western side begins at 38º and the eastern side at 42º latitude.”

This clearly states the geographical boundary to the north, on the western side, which corresponds to the Chilean Province of Valdivia, on the Pacific Ocean, and to Carmen de Patagones on the eastern side, in Argentina, at the mouth of the Río Negro that empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

Likewise, one must quote the historian Raúl Rey Balmaceda, from his work Geografía Histórica de la Patagonia (The Historical Geography of Patagonia), published in 1976, in which he concludes the following, in relation to the boundaries for Patagonia:

“If we look at a map of South America, we can note that the region designated with the name Patagonia covers the narrow strip on the Chilean coastline south of Valdivia, the Patagonian Mountains, and the ledges and terraces that descend from them towards the Atlantic Ocean.”

It is also worth quoting the Chilean historian Enrique Campos Menéndez from his book El Alma de la Patagonia (The Soul of Patagonia), published in 2002, which refers to the boundaries of Patagonia and concludes that it is located between:

…39º and 59º of southern latitude in South America, made up by one million square meters of mainland territory and surrounded by two great oceans –the Atlantic and the Pacific– and an archipelago of channels and fjords that make up the bottom cone of the continent.

The contribution made by this last historian is that he situates the northern and southern boundaries of Patagonia with greater precision –between 39º and 59º of southern latitude that is to say, Valdivia, Neuquén and Cape Horn.

The French professor of glaciology and geographer Luis Lliboutry wrote in his book “Nieves y Glaciares de Chile” published by Ediciones de la Universidad de Chile in 1956 the following: “Northern Patagonia. The region of the lakes. We shall beging with Patagonia at Latitude 39º South, where the principal lakes commence with Lake Alumine.” This statement of the beginning of Northern Patagonia starting at Latitude 39

South and at the lake regions of Chile, clearly validates once more the area of Valdivia and its surrounding lakes at that Latitude where the beginning of Chilean Patagonia takes place.

Defining the borders of the Patagonian region

Historically, the traditional boundaries of Patagonia are well known, but the subject continues to be debatable considering recent archaeological discoveries and the availability of a more in-depth and widely publicized investigation in modern times. Therefore, this author considers it is necessary to attempt a clarification of its traditional past and present boundaries, in order to compare them with most recent discoveries, so as to find a new delineation for Patagonia, without considering the distinct indigenous groups that have so far been classified as sub-groups, according to the parameters and standpoints imposed by Europeans and traditional historians.

Serving extraneous objectives for defining internal borders or defending frontiers or causes that are now past, or to serving religious, cultural, climatic or linguistic interests, leads some to artificially position Patagonia’s borders according to those schemes, and they are therefore not considered here. The objective is to leave a diffuse subject behind and recognize that the location of the indigenous populations that inhabited Patagonia is fundamental to recognizing its true extent. This new perspective opens a wide field of investigation for a contemporary way of seeing things.

It is generally agreed that the main rivers enabled the principal human settlements in Patagonia to emerge and that their extent was defined by those same rivers. Furthermore, human populations, flora and fauna on either side of the Andean Mountains are distinct and have clear natural boundaries that can be asserted both historically and archaeologically; and while nothing is definite with this material, an attempt at progress and an updating of history is made here by incorporating new discoveries. Without such an effort, one simply stagnates in the repetition of what is already known.

The appearance of new archaeological sources obliges us to redefine and analyse the position of Patagonia. The borders of a region as ancient as this, that dates from approximately 14,200 BC, merits a more in-depth analysis, taking into account the new sources that force us to redefine its traditional boundaries.

Current history cannot simply advance with discoveries alone, but rather their analysis must be applied to a range of situations, with reference to frontier interests and to the arbitrations that have taken place between Chile and Argentina. For this reason, Patagonia’s true nature requires us to update its history, and advances such as those made at Monte Verde near Puerto Montt and at Pilauco Bajo near Osorno create an opportunity for investigation in a serious context.

Until now, we have had difficulty studying just 500 years of history of Patagonia and have achieved only a vague understanding of its boundaries in the face of a war of maps that continue to define historic demarcations between the republics of Argentina and Chile. What we are faced with now, is a huge gap in the history that awaits discovery.

Given the above, I believe we must change our focus and become receptive to the era that is upon us, with all its technology that will allow us to discover the course of history in this great region with the aid of DNA sampling and carbon dating and other modern techniques –all to serve just one objective; namely to discover our natural history and investigate who really inhabited Patagonia and when. In this way, we will be able to continue making advances and discover this fascinating region of South America. We need to relate our knowledge to reality so we can find the original and definitive boundaries of this indomitable region christened Patagonia by Ferdinand Magellan in 1520.

Archaeological delimits of Patagonia

The initial human habitation of Patagonia indicates a history of around 14,000 years and is characterized by a slow process resulting from the displacement of groups of people looking for new hunting territories for large mammals, such as the mylodon (giant ground sloth), which has been extinct for 10,000 years. In Chile, the presence of early mankind and an organized civilization has been discovered from Punta Arenas to Osorno, where sites such as Pilauco Bajo near Osorno and Monte Verde near Puerto Montt provide us with ample testimony to the facts.

There is a concensus regarding the importance of river courses in determining the location of settlements and the spread of human populations in Patagonia during the pre-Hispanic era, covering the Río Calle-Calle, Río Limay and Río Negro, up to the environs of the Río Chubut and the Río Santa Cruz. Given the above, it is therefore necessary to consider rivers and their waterways that flow from east to west, from the Andes to the sea, as the natural borders of the region under review.

Ethnic delimits of Patagonia

“Equally, it should be made clear that the denomination of Araucania that was given to the region beyond the Andes and comprised the area between the Río Bío-Bío and Río Toltén originates with the Spanish and derives from the word ‘raucos,’ by which they knew the native Indians who lived to the south of Concepción, and who were famous for their resistance to Spanish rule…

It is very important, therefore, to keep in mind, especially, the difficulty of labeling ethnic groups –such as the Tehuelches, Poya, Puelches, etc.– who possibly never existed in reality, but rather were a creation of definitions imposed by others, in this case, the Spanish.”

In this quote, the historian Susana Bandieri defines the boundaries of Araucania according to ethnic settlements located in Chile between the Río Bío-Bío (Concepción) and the Río Toltén (Villarrica), locations that are generally agreed upon in Chile. Given that the concensus among historians is that waterways played an important role in the expansion of human settlements characteristic of the pre-Hispanic era in Patagonia, this is a different viewpoint. Therefore, the main rivers that empty into the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean constitute important ethnic boundaries, such as in this case, where the Río Toltén empties into the Pacific at Punta Nihue, to the north of the city of Valdivia. Furthermore, this coincides with the boundaries indicated by the French historian Frederic Lacroix in 1841, who stated that the northern limit of Chilean West Patagonia is to be found between the southern latitudes of 35º and 38º. Valdivia is actually positioned at the southern latitude of 39º, but this inconsistency can be explained by the fact that when Frederic Lacroix studied the strip of Araucania, he considered it an indefinite stretch, nominating it as the northern border of Patagonia reaching from 35º southern latitude, which corresponds to the north of the Río Bío-Bío, and 38º southern latitude, which corresponds to the north of the Río Calle-Calle at Valdivia.

This corridor defined by Lacroix in his writings on the boundaries of Western Patagonia is not precise, given the nature of cartography during his lifetime, but it gives us a useful approximation, and states that the northern limit of Patagonia should be positioned between the southern latitudes of 36º and 39º. That is to say, Lacroix’s first measurement for delineating the territory of Northern Patagonia, taken in 1841, was only out by one degree and his estimate is therefore quite exact, if we consider it as a first attempt.

In any case, the southern border of Araucania I state as being at 39º southern latitude, extends one degree further, as regards to Lacroix, and could be located 60 miles further north, thus coinciding with him. That is to say, around 96 km further north than the Río Calle-Calle, which would be near the mouths of the rivers that empty into the sea in the Los Ríos Region in Chile, and coincides with the ethnic context put forward by the Argentinean historian Susana Bandieri when she refers to the mouth of the Río Toltén.

Given all the supporting statements above, provided by Raúl Rey Balmaceda, Hans Steffen Hoffmann, Enrique Campos Menéndez, Frederic Lacroix, Luis Lliboutry and Susana Bandieri, as well as the archaeological and anthropological considerations, we shall therefore state in this work that the northern boundary for Chilean Patagonia is to be found within the Region of Los Ríos in Chile, whose provincial capital is Valdivia. And on the northern Argentine side, we shall claim concensus for the northern limit at the level of Neuquén Province, along the Río Colorado that empties into the Atlantic Ocean, together with the Río Negro, at Carmen de Patagones.

Furthermore, the discovery of Monte Verde in 1976, 30 km west of Puerto Montt, in Chile’s Region XIV, dates from 14,200 BC, and is widely acknowledged as the most important historical find relating to the earliest evidence of Patagon settlement in South America. The site is located near the Chinchiguapi stream, on the edge of the American Continental Shelf and at the beginning of the Patagonian insular plate of Chilean West Patagonia.

In conclusion, further investigation is required since, up to 1976, it was believed that the region of Patagonia began to the south of Puerto Montt. But the historical, ethnological –and, much less, archaeological– sources that can truly and precisely confirm the northern boundary have yet to be unified into a single concensus.

Susana Bandieri’s work Historia de la Patagonia (History of Patagonia) permits us to relate her research to recent discoveries made by Chilean scientists at Monte Verde and add them to the studies made by historians and geographers already cited, whose work has been confirmed by other reliable sources, which I also confirmed during my own research in European libraries and at Monte Verde, as well as in northern Patagonia on both sides of the frontier. In this way, I was able to understand the delineation of Patagonia from a modern point of view, incorporating the technological, digital and satellite advances that allow us to establish each point of longitude and latitude with greater speed and accuracy, and thus reach a precise conclusion on location. This is also made possible thanks to the information on every topic that is now available via universal access to the internet, enabling us to continually update this history of Patagonia, along with its geographical boundaries.

General borders of Patagonia

Patagonia is a territory located in the southern cone of the American Continent, whose human population dates from approximately 14,000 BC, and which begins at 39º southern latitude to the north, on territory belonging to the Republic of Chile, in a region known as Western Patagonia. This sector is defined by the mouth of the Río Calle-Calle that empties into the Pacific Ocean by the city of Valdivia and whose water course can be followed from north-east direction, as far as the Andean Mountain Range and the highest snow-capped mountains.

From its headwaters and via the highest peaks of the cordillera, heading south-east, the Patagonian region spreads into Argentinean territory and becomes known as Eastern Patagonia, where it is in the Province of Neuquén, and its border is commonly accepted to be the Río Negro that empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Carmen de Patagones. At the southern extreme of the American Continent, the Patagonian region is embraced to the east and west by the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean respectively, up to where those oceans meet in the region of the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn, a territory belonging to the Republic of Chile, although the large island of Tierra del Fuego is currently divided between the Republics of Chile and Argentina.

Charles Darwin in Patagonia

Patagonian flora and fauna

During the five-year voyage around the world on bord the HMS Beagle and, in particular, during the time of his stay on the American Continent between 1832 and 1835, Charles Darwin explored the coasts and mountains of Patagonia, while the captain and cartographer Robert Fitzroy remained near the coastline to measure the

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