The Strait of Magellan is a maritime passage located in the extreme south of Chile, between Patagonia, the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego and several islands located to the west of it towards the Pacific Ocean. It is the main natural passage between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The strait is named after the navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who discovered it in 1520 during the Spanish expedition to the Moluccas.

Administratively, it belongs to the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic region, the southernmost Chilean territory.

According to the International Hydrographic Organization, its eastern mouth is determined by the line that joins Cape Vírgenes with Cape Espiritu Santo. However, this limit does not coincide with what is established in the 1984 Treaty, signed by Argentina and Chile, which established in its article 10 that "the eastern terminus of the Strait of Magellan [is] determined by Punta Dungeness in the North and Cape Espiritu Santo in the South", considering it entirely within the jurisdiction of Chile, in the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic region.

According to the Argentine-Chilean treaties of 1881 and 1984, access through its eastern mouth and its navigation are guaranteed to ships of all flags at all times and under all circumstances.

Geological origin

Beach in the Strait of Magellan at sunset.

During the late Cretaceous, approximately 80 million years ago, flat-walled fractures originated due to earth movements, which gave rise to the Patagonian channels. One of these fractures, which began near latitude 53ºS, progressively took a NW-SE direction, forming a narrow and long depression that later formed the western part of the future Strait of Magellan from the western mouth to Cape Froward.

During the Pleistocene, approximately 1,500,000 years ago, the planet's climatic conditions had extreme characteristics, causing a vast layer of ice that covered the southern tip of the American continent from the Gallegos River valley to the southern tip of Hoste Island, but leaving out Wollaston and Hermites islands.

Then this ice sheet began to move, moving back and forth, giving rise to huge glacial tongues. One of these tongues, due to erosion and the movement of glacier advance and retreat, contributed to carving and deepening depressions, forming the great basin that forms the eastern mouth of the strait. A second tongue formed a lake between present-day Angosturas and eventually a large north-south oriented reservoir was formed, beginning at Famine Pass and separating the Brunswick Peninsula from Dawson Island.

In this way, the eastern part of the future strait was formed by two large lakes and a wide basin at its eastern mouth. Between the two lakes an isthmus was formed that allowed, about 10,000 years ago, the passage to the south of various species of terrestrial fauna and the first human beings.

When the water level rose due to melting ice at the end of the ice age, the lakes were joined with the mouth basin and the strait was formed. This happened on an undetermined recent date.

Historical background

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas, but until his death he was convinced that he had landed in the East Indies.

Américo Vespucci, in 1503 published his Travel Letters in which he assured that the lands discovered by Columbus were a Mundus Novus, as he proposed to call them.

In 1507 the cosmographer Martin Waldseemüller, after reading Vespucci's letters, published a map entitled Universalis Cosmographia which was accompanied by a treatise by Mathias Ringmann and others, the Introduction to Cosmography of great scientific diffusion. Both in the book and on the map and on a globe presented on the same date, the new lands were included, which, in homage to what they considered their discoverer, they called "America". Years later the cartographer recognized his error and retracted it in a new map published in 1513, but the name had already become widespread.

In 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa discovered, from the Isthmus of Panama in Central America, a great ocean which he called the "South Sea". This discovery confirmed the thesis of Vespucci's Mundus Novus and unleashed in Europe, especially in Spain, the desire to find a new maritime route to the spice islands sailing west, passing through the new world because, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, Spain had possession of the western lands of America, so it needed to find a route to them avoiding the Cape of Good Hope, much longer, which was under the rule of Portugal.

Fernão de Magalhães, a Portuguese sailor, was humiliated by the King of Portugal, so he decided to offer his services to the King of Spain. For this he moved to Seville where he became a subject of the Spanish monarch, renamed Fernando de Magallanes, as he would be known since then.

Magellan and his partner Ruy Faleiro were the first to try to find the route. They offered the young monarch Carlos I of Spain, future Carlos V of Germany, to find a passage that, joining the Atlantic with the South Sea, would allow them to reach the Moluccan Islands, known as the "Spice Islands", sailing towards the west. Magellan received financial support from the king and from the wealthy financier Cristóbal de Haro. De Haro would put the ships and the monarch the weapons and provisions. De Haro would contribute 3/4 of the cost and the king the remaining 1/4.

Expedition and meeting

Fernando de Magallanes.

Discovery of the Strait of Magellan.

Replica of the Nao Victoria by Hernando de Magallanes at the Nao Victoria Museum of Punta Arenas.

Map of the trip of Fernando de Magallanes of 1520.

On March 22, 1518, the expedition was made official in Valladolid, naming the Portuguese navigator, at the service of the Spanish Empire, Fernando de Magallanes, captain general of the fleet and governor of all the lands he found. In this, the privileges that Magallanes and Faleiro would have were agreed upon and it was established that the army to be organized would become known as "de las Moluccas". The Armada de las Moluccas, made up of five ships, set sail from the port and Reales Atarazanas (former shipyards) of Seville, docking in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) to finalize adjustments, preparation and supply the ships for their departure on September 20, 1519.

The ships were the Trinidad, from 100 to 110 barrels, flagship commanded by Magellan; the San Antonio, with 120 barrels, commanded by Juan de Cartagena; the Concepción, with 90 barrels, captained by Gaspar de Quesada and with Juan Sebastián Elcano as master; the Victoria, with 85 barrels, commanded by Luis de Mendoza, and the Santiago commanded by Juan Serrano (born João Rodrigues Serrão). The crew consisted of 239 men, from the captain general to the last sailor. In the Canary Islands and Brazil, more crew members were added until reaching 265. Most of them would never return to Spain.

They made a stopover on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands), Recife and Rio de Janeiro where they landed on December 13 of the same year.

In the early 1520s, they traveled the eastern seaboard of South America. Upon reaching the mouth of the Río de la Plata, Magallanes believed that he had found the passage to the South Sea, but upon entering it he noticed that it was only an immense flow of fresh water.

He continued sailing south and on March 31, 1520, he landed in a large bay which he called the port of San Julián. He ordered the landing to winter for five months. During this stay the ship Santiago was shipwrecked and a mutiny led by the captains of the ships took place. Antonio Pigafetta, chronicler of this trip, wrote:

The traitors were Juan de Cartagena, a member of the squad; Luis de Mendoza, Treasurer; Antonio de Coca, accountant; and Gaspar de Quesada. The plot was discovered: the first was broken and the second stabbed. Gaspar de Quesada was spared, which a few days later gave a new betrayal. Then the captain-general, who dared not take away his life because he had been appointed captain by the emperor himself, expelled him from the squadron and left him in the land of the patagons with a priest, his accomplice.

Antonio Pigafetta

It should also be known that Magellan pardoned Juan Sebastián de Elcano, sparing his life for having joined the mutineers. Here they made contact with the aborigines of "giant stature", reaching them a little beyond the waist. They were white-haired and very muscular men whom Magellan called patagão ('big foot') or "patagones", and the region, "Patagonia".

On October 21, 1520, he discovered a cape behind which a large inlet of the sea could be seen. At the end he baptized it as "of the Eleven thousand Virgins". On November 1, 1520, after exploring the sea entrance, Magellan entered the strait that he called "Todos los Santos", since that day the Catholic Church celebrates that festivity.

When navigating it, he saw large bonfires on the south bank that gave off a lot of smoke, which were produced by the immense amount of natural gas that emanated in that area that the aborigines had set fire to at some point to do their magical rituals. He baptized it as "Land of Fires".

After the gulf that serves as its eastern mouth, the squadron resolutely entered the first narrowness of the channel, always following the same course, east-south, until reaching a spacious inlet near which several islands rose, San Bartolomé Bay. At this point, the nature of those channels changed in appearance. Until then, the landscape that had been presented to the explorers was sad and poor. Long sandy beaches beaten by a cold wind, low eminences, destitute of trees and with a miserable herbaceous vegetation, barren and bare rocks, and a clean and dry sky, were all that they saw in the first part of the strait. Since they passed the second narrowness, the landscape changed as if by enchantment. Higher mountains, with snow-covered tops and soil moistened by frequent rains, boasted a luxurious vegetation of trees and grasses. This change of scenery came as a pleasant surprise to travelers who had just spent many months in the barren regions of the eastern coast.

From the bay where Magellan had anchored, the coast changed direction violently, heading in a straight line to the south. This course took the expeditionaries; but a little further on they found the strait divided into two channels by the interposition of mountainous lands. Magellan ordered two of his ships to enter the road to the east, while he continued advancing through the other channel with the rest of his squadron. The two divisions agreed to meet at the point where these two channels open. This precautionary measure would bring Magellan one of his greatest difficulties.

In the first days of November, Magellan sailed along the coast of the Brunswick peninsula, up to Cape Froward, observing there that the strait took a northwesterly direction and waited for five days while the other two ships explored the eastern channel without finding an outlet. One of them, the Victoria, under the command of Duarte Barbosa, which had made less progress in this reconnaissance, then turned around to meet with the expedition leader. The other, called San Antonio, had gone even further. On the third day (November 8) she returned from her exploration, but did not find Magellan at the meeting point. This ship was commanded by Captain Álvaro de Mezquita, Magellan's first cousin and a man he trusted. Unfortunately, the pilot Esteban Gómez was also on board the same ship, who rebelled the crew, captured Captain Mezquita, deserted and went around Spain, leaving only three ships in the expedition. This betrayal, which deprived the expedition members of their largest ship and an abundant supply of food, was about to frustrate the expedition.

When the expedition leader returned to the place where the entire squadron was to meet, he experienced the most unpleasant surprise to see that the ship commanded by Captain Mezquita was not there. Magellan, fearing that the ship had been wrecked while reconnaissing the channels, redoubled his efforts to search for the lost ship in the immediate channels. Only after a few days, when all hope of finding his companions had disappeared, did Magellan decide to move away from those places. Even then, he had signals put up at some points along the coast and left a kettle with a letter indicating the course he was going to take so that the ship San Antonio could follow it.

The exploration of the neighboring lands of the strait offered no interest to Magellan, who only sought a passage there to reach the seas of India. On the other hand, that region dominated by cold was not worth stopping navigators in search of the richest islands in the world. But Magellan, even without stopping, formed a complete concept of the lands that he saw. For him, the coast to the north was the southern extremity of the American continent. The southern region, which Magellan called "Tierra del Fuego" because of the many bonfires that the natives who inhabited it lit there, must have been a large island. Without stopping with the three ships that made up his squadron, he resolutely continued his navigation through the narrow channel that opened in a northwesterly direction.

On November 27, 1520, Magellan finally entered the Pacific Ocean, as he himself baptized it. There the first European exploration of that part of Chile ended.

In the Philippines, Magellan was assassinated on April 27, 1521 in a show of power with only 48 Christian expedition members, they faced more than 1,500 warriors from a tribe of Muslim aborigines under the command of their chief, the datu Lapu-Lapu, who did not accept the King of Spain as lord and master of those lands, on the island of Mactan.

Due to the number of casualties suffered, the Concepción was burned by the expedition members to regroup in the two ships in better condition. Juan Sebastián Elcano took command of the ship Victoria and Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa that of the Trinidad, continuing towards the Moluccas islands. When they were leaving for Spain, a leak was discovered in the Trinidad , which made it stay with its 53 crew members on Tidore Island to carry out repairs, which were later captured by the Portuguese.

Only the Victoria returned to Spain, under the command of Juan Sebastián de Elcano with 18 men including the chronicler of the trip Antonio Pigafetta. They landed in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 6, 1522. They were the first to circumnavigate the Earth.

It is interesting to note that the expedition, despite having lost three ships and having deserted a fourth, had significant economic success. Only with the spices that the Victoria transported from the Moluccas to Spain, all costs were covered and profit was obtained.

Start and end

Sector 52°S - 53°S.

Sector 53°S - 54°S.

Sector 54°S - 55°S.

Strait of Magellan in its narrowness, in the background the island Tierra del Fuego

Boat crossing vehicles between the island and the continent

• First sector - Eastern: Between the Dungeness tip located on the mainland shore and the Holy Spirit Corporal on the Tierra del Fuego opens the big mouth that gives rise to the strait through its eastern sector. The distance between these two points is 32 km (16 nautical miles) and its central point is in 52°30′00′′S 68°30′00′′ / -52.50000, -68.50000

In the entrance sector we have a double bag formed by Posesión Bay in the continental sector and Lomas Bay in the insular sector. This sector is 64 km (35 nautical miles) long.

Then comes the Primera Angostura, a narrowness that has a minimum width of 3.7 km (2 nautical miles) and a length of 16 km (9 nautical miles). After this, comes another large sack that gives rise to Santiago and Gregorio bays on the mainland and Felipe bay on the insular side. This part is 20 nautical miles long.

Follow the Segunda Angostura, which is 22 km (12 nautical miles) long and 7.4 km (4 nautical miles) minimum wide. The eastern part of the strait ends with this narrowing, which has a total length of 76 nautical miles and a general NE-SW direction.

• Second sector – central: This sector is the widest of the strait and that is why it takes the pass name Width. The maximum width is 35 km (18.5 nautical miles) between Agua Fresca Bay on the mainland and Monmouth Cape on the Tierra del Fuego. Its general address is N-S and lasts for 120 kilometers.

Several bays open up on the mainland coast: Oazy, Pecket, Shoal, Laredo, Catalina and Agua Fresca and Cape Negro and San Isidro. On the coast of Tierra del Fuego, the Lee, Porvenir, Gente Grande bays and the enormous Useless bay stand out. Here are the first islands of the strait: Isabel, Isla Magdalena and María.

• Third sector - Western: After Corporal San Isidro enters the longest section of the strait where it takes a general direction NO-SE and is increasingly narrowing along almost 164 nautical miles in which the appearance of the coast changes to a landscape that overtakes for its beauty. Large hills with forests and snows on their summits.

The channel takes different names as it progresses towards the Pacific Ocean: Paso Froward, Paso Inglés, Paso Tortuoso, Paso Largo, Canal Largo and finally Paso del Mar to reach its western mouth in the line of Cabo Pilar located at the tip of Desolation Island to the south and Cape Victoria in the Narborough Islands to the north. The central point of its exit to the Pacific is at 52°41′00″S 74°32′00″W / -52.68333, -74.53333

The total length of the Strait of Magellan is approximately 305 nautical miles.

Post-discovery history

First trips

1. Carlos V ordered to enlist the second Navy of the Moluccas that sailed from the port La Coruña on July 24, 1525 in command of Francisco García Jofré de Loayza. This Navy was higher in quality and number of ships than that of Magellan. It arrived at the eastern entrance of the Strait on 24 January 1526. They were the first Europeans to see the native canoes who inhabited the islands of the strait, although they did not have direct contact with them. The ships left the Pacific Ocean on May 26, 1526.
2. Simon of Alcazaba and Sotomayor, noble Lusitano organized an expedition with which he reached the eastern entrance of the strait on 17 January 1535. He entered the strait but returned to the same spot on February 9, without having crossed it.
3. In September 1537 the genoese Leon Pancaldo, sailor of the Magellan expedition, equipped a ship with which he intended to arrive in Peru. He entered the strait months later but failed to cross him, returning shortly to the Atlantic.
4. The fifth expedition to the strait was commanded by Francisco de Ribera and Alonso de Camargo, who arrived in the eastern mouth on 20 January 1540. One of the ships in command of Camargo managed to cross it and reached Peru. On January 29, 1540, a storm threw the flagship at the coast near Posesión Bay, in the accident several crew members died among them Francisco de Ribera. The shipwrecked crewmen who were saved were 192. These were waiting for them to be rescued, a ransom that never occurred and that with the run of the years gave birth to the legend of the city of Caesars.

With this expedition the initial cycle ended. In these five expeditions, 17 ships participated, of which only eight managed to navigate it in its entirety, the others were shipwrecked, deserted or were repelled towards the Atlantic by the permanent southwesterly winds that blow in its eastern mouth. This served to spread the fame of how dangerous their navigation was.

Reconnaissance trips

1. At the end of October 1553 he sailed from the Chilean city of Valdivia the expedition of Francisco de Ulloa (1553), ordered by the Governor of Chile Pedro de Valdivia. This was the first expedition that raised the strait through its western mouth, an event that occurred in January 1554. The ships sailed approximately 90 miles into the strait from where they returned to the north due to the bad state of the boats and before the bad times took them.
2. In 1557, the Governor of Chile García Hurtado de Mendoza ordered to arm the expedition of Juan Ladrillero (1557) that sailed from Valdivia with two ships on November 17, 1557. Only one reached the strait in late July 1558. Ladrillero performed a prolija exploration of the strait, leaving a very clear and useful log of these recognitions. He was the first to contact and describe the aborigines he met during his navigations. On 9 August 1558 he took possession of the strait and its lands on behalf of the King of Spain and the Governor of Chile, the place was called Posesion. He was the first navigator to visit him in both ways returning north in March 1559 by his western mouth.
3. On August 21, 1578 the British seaman Francis Drake with a corso patent granted by the Queen of England came to the strait and crossed it from east to west in just 16 days. He had a meeting with the native Kawésqar who ended with the death of several of them.
4. The viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, alarmed by the Drake brokerages, organized a squadron for which he bought two ships and organized the expedition of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa to the Patagonian canals and the Strait of Magellan (1579-1580). The ships sailed from the port of Callao on 11 October 1579 and recalculated the western mouth of the strait on 21 January 1580. Sarmiento renamed the strait as the strait of the Mother of God. He had the first meeting of the white man with the selknam of the Earth of Fire. He went out in the eastern mouth on February 24, 1580 in the direction of Spain carrying on board three Aboriginals who were baptized as Felipe, Francisco and Juan. As soon as he arrived in Spain he told King Philip II of the fulfillment of his mission and recommended that the strait be populated and fortified.
5. Philip II approved the proposal of Sarmiento so he arranged to organize an expedition to fortify and populate the strait. He named Diego Flores de Valdés general of the fleet and Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa as governor of the strait. The large fleet sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 27 September 1581, was composed of 23 ships and almost 2000 people of which 350 were going as future residents and 400 soldiers to defend the forts that would be built. Of this fleet only 5 ships arrived in the eastern mouth of the strait on February 1, 1584 in command of Sarmiento and with about 300 people between men and women. On 11 February 1584, Sarmiento founded the City of the Name of Jesus and then with 94 men marched along the side of the strait until on 25 March of the same year, in San Blas Bay, founded the King Don Felipe settlement. On May 26, 1584, Sarmiento sailed to Brazil to search for reinforcements, on land there were about 300 people in the two cities. Of all, it is known that only Tomé Hernandez survived, rescued by Thomas Cavendish, for whom he could know what happened in "Jesus' Name". In "Rey Don Felipe", the English corsairs only found bodies.
6. The expeditions that followed those of Ladrillero and Pedro Sarmiento cannot be equated with the reconnaissance trips made by these two brilliant explorers, will only be as mere geographical or nautical studies, but not as the incredible and fruitful expeditions of these two great sailors. The recommendations of Sarmiento and Ladrillero to navigate the strait are still applicable.

In 1581 there was a project to fortify what is now called the first narrowness of the strait and thus prevent the passage of enemy ships.

The English privateers

England until then a secondary kingdom within the European context, began at the end of the XVI century to emerge as a power capable of disputing with Spain the riches of the new world, for this it favored privateers, pirates who with royal license attacked Spanish ships and commerce. The best known of these was Francis Drake, whose example motivated those who followed in his footsteps:

1.- Thomas Cavendish, entered the strait on February 6, 1587. Observing fire on the coast, he sent to investigate, finding three men who told him they were part of a group of 18 survivors from the cities founded by Sarmiento. They were offered to evacuate them, but only one accepted, Tomé Hernández, thanks to which it was possible to find out what happened in the ill-fated cities. Cavendish located and visited the remains of Ciudad don Felipe, giving the bay the name of Puerto del Hambre.

2.- Andrew Merrick and John Childley, English navigators, organized an expedition of five ships, of which only one managed to enter the strait, on January 1, 1590. They rescued another survivor from the Sarmiento colonies, called Hernando. Unfortunately, almost all the men on board (save six), including Merrick, Childley and the Spaniard, died before landing at Cherbourg. The story of the latter is only known thanks to William Magoths, who was one of the survivors.

3.- In 1592 again Thomas Cavendish assembled an expedition that entered the strait on April 8, 1592.

4.- Finally, in 1594, the English sailor Richard Hawkins landed in the strait in January 1594. With this trip, the visit of English corsairs to the strait came to an end.

Dutch Sailors

Map of 1617 built from maps prepared by a survivor of the Dutch expedition of 1599.

At the end of the 16th century the Dutch also set out to conquer a colonial empire, beginning their travels to the strait.

• The company of Jacob Mahu and Simon of Cordes equipped an expedition that sailed from the Dutch port of Goeree recalculated the strait on April 6, 1599. They raised the first navigation letter of the strait and a wastelet with a huge amount of information.

• Within a few months of the previous expedition, the expedition was followed by Admiral Oliverio van Noort, who entered the Strait on November 24, 1599.

• Several years later, the expedition led by Admiral Joris van Spielbergen climbed the Strait in April 1614. This was the last Dutch expedition to the strait.

During these voyages, the Dutch sailors carried out such meticulous hydrographic survey work, which contributed positively to the geographical knowledge of the strait, since the Dutch cartographers, the best in Europe at that time, published charts and directions that were useful to the sailors of all nations for the next two centuries.

17th century raids

1.- In February 1619, the brothers Bartolomé and Gonzalo García de Nodal entered the strait through its western mouth after having crossed, through the recently discovered Cape Horn route, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. They were the first to circumnavigate the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. It should be noted that 150 years would pass for another Spanish ship to cross the strait. The difficulties of their navigation, the strong currents in the narrowness and the permanent storms of wind caused the other European nations to also lose interest in their navigation and prefer the route of the cape for their navigations.

2.- On October 20, 1670, John Narborough entered Strait. The interest of this trip was to carry out hydrographic surveys.

3.- In 1670 and 1687 the sailors named Wood and Marcerti made trips to the strait. These were filibusters and smugglers.

4.- In 1689 Captain John Strong arrived at the strait. On his journey he collected native plants that began the botanical collection of the British Museum.

5.- In 1696 the French filibuster Monsieur de Gennes sailed across the strait.

6.- On June 24, 1699, the ships of the Jacques Beauchesne-Gouin expedition entered the strait.

18th century raids

1.- In 1706, Joseph Danycan, a French merchant, entered the strait and returned to the Atlantic after eight days because of the 198 crew members, 170 were sick with scurvy.

2.- In 1708 the English captain Woodes Rogers sailed the strait taking possession of it.

3.- In 1713 a French captain named Marcant entered the strait.

4.- In 1719, the English sailor John Clipperton spent three or four months in the strait carrying out hydrographic surveys. After this voyage, the strait was forgotten by navigators for approximately half a century.

5.- In 1764 John Byron, an English sailor, put an end to the forgetfulness of the strait starting a period of fruitful scientific expeditions from various European countries driven by interest in developing natural sciences. Byron entered the strait on December 16, 1764. In his report to the Admiralty recommending the use of the strait route as a route between the two oceans, he was the first navigator to propose it since his discovery.

6.- In 1765, the experienced French sailor Louis Antoine de Bougainville entered the strait. For two weeks, he collected wood that he took to the French colony of the Falkland Islands.

7.- On December 17, 1766, the English captains Samuel Wallis and Phillip Carteret arrived at the strait to continue their hydrographic studies.

8.- In December 1767, Bouganville, from the Falkland Islands, returned to the strait. Like Byron, he recommended the Strait route over Cape Horn for transoceanic navigation.

9.- In February 1769, Lieutenant Manuel Pando entered the strait with two Spanish ships, these being the first to do so in the last 150 years. His objective was for religious on board to carry out evangelization missions among the indigenous people.

10.- On December 22, 1785, the expedition of the prominent Spanish sailor and geographer Antonio Córdoba Lazo de la Vega landed in the strait, remaining in the area for 3 months carrying out hydrographic works. He also made observations regarding the natural resources and the Kawésqar and Tehuelche inhabitants, with whom he came into contact.

11.- On December 19, 1788, Antonio de Córdoba returned to the strait with a new hydrographic expedition. In his report, he recommended the Cape Horn route over the Strait due to its bad weather.

19th century raids

1.- Since the expedition of Alonso de Córdoba, no ship navigated the strait until approximately 1825, when whaling ships, sealers and sealers from Antarctica arrived in search of refuge and rest, most of them American and English. They began to navigate practically the entire region surrounding the strait, becoming practical experts in the Magellanic channels. When the expeditions of Phillip Parker King and Robert Fitz Roy arrived, they served as valuable informants in their tasks, even the English hired some captains as pilots of their ships.

2.- At the end of the second decade of this century, the United Kingdom emerged as the nation with the most political and economic power in Europe, becoming the great colonizing power.

In 1825 England planned to carry out the reconnaissance of southern America, focused on the region of the Strait of Magellan and adjacent channels. For this, he organized an expedition that would be dedicated for several years to the task of doing hydrographic surveys of the region. The Admiralty appointed Commander Phillip Parker King, a highly regarded sailor and expert hydrographer, as head of this expedition. He placed under his command two ships and a select group of naval officers and men of science. The squadron carried out 4 campaigns between the years 1826 and 1830 having Brazil as a supply and rest base. From this memorable campaign, the cartography of the strait and the zone of the Chilean Patagonian channels experienced a gigantic progress. The campaigns were:

• First campaign: December 1826 to March 1827.
• Second campaign: January to August 1828.
• Third campaign: April to July 1829.
• Fourth campaign: April to May 1830.

3.- In 1834 the British Admiralty sent a new hydrographic expedition, this time under the command of Captain Robert Fitz Roy. He remained in the Strait from January 1834 until June 10 of the same year, the date on which he began his return to his homeland.

4.- On December 12, 1837, a French expedition under the command of Jules Dumont D'Urville arrived at the strait. This expedition was only a transit through the strait since its mission was to explore the Antarctic seas and lands, but in any case they carried out reconnaissance and observations on the nature, natural resources and climate of the area and survey of some places in the strait.

5.- On September 14, 1840, the steamboats Chile and Peru entered the strait through its eastern mouth, becoming the first steamships in navigate it. These ships, of 700 registered tons each, belonged to "The Pacific Steam Navigation Company".

6.- Chile, having obtained its independence from Spain, initially had to worry about other priority issues until once it had been organized, at the end of the 1830s, it could begin to incorporate Patagonian and southern territories. To this end, the President of the Republic, General Manuel Bulnes Prieto, in 1841, ordered the mayor of Chiloé, Domingo Espiñeira, to build and send a ship to take possession of the strait and its territories. Espiñeira built a schooner in Ancud, the Ancud, which he placed under the command of the Chilean Navy frigate captain, John Williams, who had changed his English name and surname to the Spanish version of Juan Guillermos. The ship set sail on May 22, 1843 from Ancud and anchored in the strait, in Puerto del Hambre, on September 21 of the same year. On the same day, at Punta Santa Ana, Williams proceeded to take possession of the Strait of Magellan and adjacent territories on behalf of the Government of Chile, with the formalities of the time. After this ceremony, he toured the coast in search of the most appropriate place to establish a fort where he would leave the designated personnel. Finally, on October 12, he returned to San Juan Bay and decided to found it on the same Santa Ana point where the capture had taken place. of possession. On October 30, the fort, baptized as Fuerte Bulnes, was ready to be inhabited. Until November 11, it was provisioned and that day Williams officially handed it over to artillery lieutenant Manuel González Hidalgo, invested as governor and in command of two non-commissioned officers, five soldiers, two women and the pilot Jorge Mabón. Williams undertook the return to Ancud on November 15, calling at that port on December 5, 1843.

7- In 1847, Sergeant Major José de los Santos Mardones took office as governor, who decided to change the location of the fort, because where it was located it lacked fundamental resources for colonization, lack of pastures and appropriate land for planting. Mardones located a new place further north, on the banks of the Carbón River, a place called Punta de Arena. After the winter of 1848, Mardones began to send the first settlers to that place. In October there were already enough settlers working on the construction of the rooms to house the colonists of Fuerte Bulnes. And on December 18, 1848, the governor was formally installed in his new location; in the middle of 1849 the colony had about 130 people.

8.- In 1866 and 1869, the English navy captain Richard C. Mayne carried out hydrographic works in the strait.

9.- Starting in 1874, the Chilean Navy began to navigate in the area of the strait, due to the creation of the Hydrographic Office of the National Navy on May 1, 1874. The work began with the sending an expedition under the command of Commander Enrique Simpson. The Chilean Navy since that date has not ceased to be present in the strait up to the present.

Some famous ships

Replica of the cookie Ancud at the Nao Victoria Museum of Punta Arenas.

Some of the most famous ships that have crossed the strait have been:

• Trinidad100 to 110 tones, flagship of Fernando de Magallanes;
• Victoria, nao of 85 tones of the Magellan squadron, the first ship to circumnavigate the Earth to the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano;
• San Luis, 50-tone snail, commanded by Juan Ladrillero, first to navigate the strait in both ways;
• Our Lady of Hope, born in command of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa;
• Golden Hind (before, Pelican), gallon in command of Francis Drake, second ship in circumnavigate the balloon;
• HMS Dolphinin command of John Byron;
• HMS Adventure in command of Phillip Parker King;
• HMS Beagle, in command of Pringle Stokes and after Robert FitzRoy, on which the naturalist Charles Darwin traveled;
• Chacabuco, tie in command of Henry Simpson Baeza;
• Goleta AncudJohn Williams Wilson who took possession of the strait by Chile.

Cartography of the strait

Tabula Magellanica-1635.

In 1532 the first plan appeared that considered the discovery of the Strait of Magellan. It was an Italian planisphere known as the "Royal Padrón of Turin" attributed to Juan Vespucci, Américo's nephew. Later other plans appeared that were mere drawings, with one or another place name. In 1580 a map of the eastern sector of the strait attributed to Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa was drawn up; this is considered the foreground itself. In the figure already abundant toponymy.

In 1600 the first complete map of the strait appeared, thanks to the Dutch expeditions and especially to the pilot Jan Outghersz considered to be the founder of the cartography of the channel.

The most important advance since the Dutch contribution is due to the cartography originated by the expeditions of Antonio de Córdova at the end of the XVIIIth century.

Then we have the modern cartography of the strait, the product of the comprehensive hydrographic works of Parker King and Fitz Roy. The first letters resulting from these explorations were printed in 1832, letters that served as the basis for French and Spanish editions that appeared in 1838 and 1861 respectively.

Since 1874 the Chilean Navy, through the Hydrographic Office, later the Hydrographic Institute, began the production of cartography of the strait and began the publication of Directions for its navigation. Finally in 1945 the Military Geographic Institute carried out the aerial photogrammetric survey of the southern region.

Lighthouses of the Straits

In the year 1890, steam navigation was already routine and the rise of the Pacific countries created important maritime traffic from Europe to the western coast of America, ships that mainly used the Cape Horn route because the Magellan Strait lacked lighthouses in dangerous places, especially at its western entrance. To solve this, the Chilean government decided to build a series of lighthouses, beginning with the Islote Evangelistas lighthouse at its entrance from the Pacific Ocean. The beaconing of this route considered the construction of seven large lighthouses, among which Evangelistas stands out due to its extreme difficulty of access and the usual inclement weather in the sector

From this project, the first lighthouse to be built was the Islote Evangelistas lighthouse, inaugurated in 1896, then the Punta Dungeness lighthouse was erected at its Atlantic entrance, which was put into service in 1899, then came into operation in 1902, the Isla Magdalena lighthouse, in front of the city of Punta Arenas and in 1907 the Bahía Félix lighthouse.

In 1899, Chile implemented a communication system between the lighthouses of the Strait and Punta Arenas with homing pigeons, initially acquiring fifty pairs in England. This communication system remained active until 1904, when radiotelegraphy was introduced.

Population of the strait

Shuttle service.

Warship USS Josephus Daniels in the Strait of Magellan.

About 12,000 years ago, the first human beings arrived in the strait: the Aonikenk or Tehuelche aborigines, called “Patagones” by Magellan, were nomadic pedestrian tribes, hunter-gatherers. Archaeological remains of these first settlers have been found in a cave near the strait, called Cueva Fell. It is the oldest known place of human settlement in the extreme South of America.

The arrival of the Tehuelches to the Strait occurred when Tierra del Fuego was joined to the mainland by the bridge formed in the Primera Angostura. Beings passed through there that some 8000 years ago gave birth to the Selknam or Onas ethnic group that inhabited the Big Island of Tierra del Fuego upon the arrival of the white man to the strait; they were also pedestrian hunters, hunter-gatherers. Tehuelches and Selknams were very similar physically. The aonikenk have survived the dispossession and progressive displacement of which they were victims; The few Selknam survivors of the persecution to which they were subjected at the end of the XX century by sheep ranchers concentrated in the south and southeast of Tierra del Fuego, and today they are grouped in communities near Ushuaia.

Another human group populated both shores of the strait from its western end to the Isabel, Magadalena and Marta islands, they were the Kawésqar (called by foreigners as "alacalufes"), nomadic collectors, canoeists-sailors, They are estimated to have settled in the strait around 7,000 years ago. This ethnic group is totally different from those previously named both in its physical appearance and in its customs and language. This town crossed the strait and the Patagonian channels to the Gulf of Penas. At the beginning of the XXI century, more than two thousand people recognized themselves as part of this ethnic group. Most of them are based in Puerto Edén, Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas.

The Yámana or Yaganes were another ethnic group that inhabited the shores of the southwestern part of the strait, from the Magdalena channel to the east. They were also collector nomads, canoeists-sailors. Physically very similar to the Kawésqar, although their language was different. Their passage through the strait was very sporadic because they mainly inhabited the islands to the south of the Beagle Channel and up to Cape Horn. In Villa Ukika, next to the Chilean naval base in Puerto Williams, the majority of Yagan descendants gather.

The first white men to settle in the strait, albeit involuntarily, were the 192 castaways from Francisco de la Ribera's caravel who, due to a storm, were thrown onto the beach near Posesión Bay on January 29, 1540 and who over the years they gave birth to the legend of the City of the Caesars.

In 1584, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa founded Nombre de Jesús near Punta Dungeness and later the city of Rey Don Felipe in Bahía San Blas. The two towns numbered around 300 people when Sarmiento left them to seek reinforcements in May 1584. Of these only one person survived, Tomé Hernández.

Over the centuries, navigators frequently chose San Juan Bay as a place to take water, rest and as a base of operations for their reconnaissance work in the strait. Until finally the Chilean government, after taking possession of the Strait of Magellan and adjacent territories on September 21, 1843, founded Fort Bulnes in Punta Santa Ana on October 30, 1843, being inhabited by 11 people, including the governor.

In 1848, the governor of Fuerte Bulnes, sergeant major José de los Santos Mardones, built a new fort in Punta de Arena, officially transferring part of the population of the fort to what would later become the town on December 18, 1848. city of Punta Arenas.

From 1868 Punta Arenas began to progress thanks to the facilities given by the government for the establishment of free colonists in the Magellanic territory and the efficient administrative management of Lieutenant Commander Oscar Viel Toro, appointed by the government as Governor of Magellan. Until the beginning of the 1870s, the main local production was leather, obtained from the exchange with the aonikenk or tehuelches from the south and from the hunting of marine animals. At this time there was a massive arrival of settlers from Chiloé and, to a lesser extent, of Europeans of different nationalities, mainly French, English, German, and Spanish.

Already in 1874 the poor hamlet began to become a pole of development in the region, positively changing its image. Agriculture and animal husbandry arose; Hunting and trafficking of fine furs developed, gold panning and coal deposits began to be exploited, which increased navigation and the economy.

Governor Viel promoted the creation in 1873 of an agricultural colony on the coast of Agua Fresca Bay. European emigrants, mainly Swiss, participated in it. After 10 years the colony failed, but it served to introduce cattle into the area.

The first successful attempt at sheep farming was carried out by Governor Oscar Viel, who traveled to the Malvinas to buy sheep and sold them, apparently, to the Englishman Enrique Reynard who settled on Isabel Island in 1877, followed in 1878 by the French Marius Andrieu in the fields of San Gregorio Bay and thus other pioneers in sheep cattle began to settle in Pecket Bay, Punta Delgada, Cabo Negro, Cabeza del Mar, Oazy Bay and other places. In this way, in 1885, the entire central continental coast up to the Atlantic was covered with sheep farms. In 1885, German ranchers also settled on the Big Island of Tierra del Fuego, in Gente Grande Bay, beginning the Selknam persecution and deportation.

Logging began on the land ceded by the State of Chile to the Salesian missionaries on Dawson Island, where they detained the population deported by the ranchers, and in various parts of the Brunswick peninsula as far as San Juan Bay, the first were installed in Río de los Ciervos in 1875, in Punta Arenas in 1884 and in Río Seco in 1889.

In the beginning, gold was sought in the sands of the Carbón river until in 1882 the presence of gold manifestations was discovered in the rivers of Tierra del Fuego that originate from the Boquerón mountain range.

In 1889 the Salesian congregation established Puerto Harris, Dawson Island, the great San Rafael mission. In it, associated with the payment of one sterling livery per person, the indigenous people captured by the ranchers of Tierra del Fuego, Selknam, were received. Yagans and, to a lesser extent, Kawésqar. Very few survived the forced acculturation experience.

View of Punta Arenas.

Over the years, towns and hamlets appeared near the strait: Río de los Ciervos, Río Seco, Leñadura, Porvenir, Bahía Carrera, Puerto Zenteno and many others, all under the eaves of Punta Arenas that grew without rest becoming a city when the XX century arrived.

In 1905 and 1907 the first refrigerators appeared, in Río Seco and San Gregorio respectively, owned by British consortiums.

In 1905, in Águila Bay, a factory was created to process the tallow and other by-products brought in by whaling ships.

In the years after the First World War, around 1928, Yugoslav emigrants began to arrive, a colony that at the end of that century was one of the largest in the region.

In 1945, oil was discovered at Punta Espora, in Tierra del Fuego, an event that opened a new era in the development of the region. The exploitation of hydrocarbons by the state-owned Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (ENAP, 1950) brought about the creation of oil terminals and extraction centers. It was necessary to establish a ferry service in Primera Angostura.

Magellan Strait View from Punta Arenas

In 1988, a petrochemical complex was established in Cabo Negro with a methanol plant that in production is one of the largest in the world.

The western part of the strait until the beginning of the XXI century was uninhabited due to its poor conditions for establishing settlements, but A powerful tourist industry is being born that will exploit the unsurpassed and incredible beauty of the lands and islands that make up this sector of the Strait and the Patagonian channels.

The city of Punta Arenas had a little more than 130,000 inhabitants in 2005.

Dispute over the eastern mouth of the strait

The peace and friendship treaty between Argentina and Chile, signed on November 29, 1984 to settle the Beagle conflict, also put an end to the dispute between the two countries over the disagreement over the location of the eastern mouth of the Strait of Magellan.

Argentine admiral Segundo Storni postulated that Argentina should participate in the regulation of navigation in the Strait of Magellan because it would be corribbean of it, as it owned the eastern mouth of the strait, in the wedge formed between Punta Dungeness, Cape Virgins and the cape of the Holy Spirit. This position was later accepted as official by the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

However, the previous point of view was modified by article 10 of the 1984 treaty, which limits the sovereignties of Chile and Argentina in the Strait of Magellan to the west and east of the straight line Punta Dungeness-Cape of the Holy Spirit, respectively. By this treaty, Argentina also recognized that the Abra, Bárbara, Magdalena and Cockburn channels were Chilean internal waters and did not form a delta of the Strait of Magellan at its western end. Both countries also recognized the straight line Punta Dungeness-Cabo del Espiritu Santo as the eastern terminus of the Strait of Magellan; What is to the east is not part of the strait itself, but of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in Argentine jurisdiction, of which this country has the full right to exploit.

Strait of Magellan and the Chilean Atlantic territory

Bahía y Playa Catalina, de la Comuna de Primavera, de la provincia de Tierra del Fuego, Región de Magallanes y la Antártica Chilean.

Chile, through the eastern slope of its Strait of Magellan, has effective territorial sovereignty over the Atlantic Ocean; specifically in the coastal geographical area of Bahía and Playa Catalina ((included between Punta Catalina (to the north) and the Cabo Espiritu Santo landmark (to the south)) whose territory, bay and coasts are bathed directly, frontally and immediately by the waters and currents of the Atlantic Ocean.

This Chilean Atlantic territory is located in the Comuna de Primavera, in the Province of Tierra del Fuego, Region of Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica. By land it is possible to access by highway 257 and then continue by highway Y-685, the latter bordering the entire coastline and coast of Bahía and Playa Catalina, until reaching Punta Catalina. On the way, large farms dedicated to sheep farming are crossed, which graze in coironales of pampas and soft hills with hollows, lagoons, meadows, also dotted with samples of the typical landscape of oil areas: multi-duct pipelines surrounding the roads, heating furnaces, batteries, drilling rigs, etc., although those in the region, after decades of exploitation, are already in the exhaustion phase

Chilean road Y-685 bordering bay and Atlantic beach Catalina, from the Spring Commune - Tierra del Fuego - Magellan Region and Chilean Antarctica.

Used bibliography

• MARTINIC, Mateo (1977). History of the Strait of Magellan. Santiago de Chile: Andrés Bello. ISBN.
• NORTON PUBLICITY LTDA. (1993). Cape Horn. Santiago de Chile, Norton Editions. ISBN.
• Instituto Hidrográfico de la Armada de Chile (1974). Atlas Hidrográfico de Chile. Valparaíso - Chile - Instituto Hidrográfico de la Armada. First edition.
• Instituto Hidrográfico (1982). Defeat of the Costa de Chile Volume III. Valparaíso - Chile - Instituto Hidrográfico de la Armada. 5th edition.
• Magellan, Region (2018). Government of Chile - Magellan Region. Retrieved April 11, 2018.

Additional bibliography

• OYARZUN IÑARRA, Javier; Spanish Expeditions to the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego; Madrid: Hispanic Culture, 1976.
• GAMBOA SARMIENT, Pedro; Defeat the Strait of Magellan; Madrid, History 16, 1987.
• VARGAS GUARATEGÚA, Javier; Goleta Ancud. 162 years of historical debt; Santiago, Diplomacy 103, 2005.
• VARGAS GUARATEGÚA, Javier; The influence of the Chilean Navy in the seizure of the Strait of MagellanValparaiso, Revista de Marina 5, 2007.