Strait of Magellan

The Strait of Magellan, also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natural passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the strait is approximately long and wide at its narrowest point. In 1520, the Spanish expedition of the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, after whom the strait is named, became the first Europeans to discover it.
Magellan's original name for the strait was Estrecho de Todos los Santos. The King of Spain, Emperor Charles V, who had sponsored the Magellan-Elcano expedition, changed the name to the Strait of Magellan in honor of Magellan.
The route is difficult to navigate due to frequent narrows and unpredictable winds and currents. Maritime piloting is now compulsory. The strait is shorter and more sheltered than the Drake Passage, which is beset by frequent gale-force winds and icebergs. Along with the Beagle Channel, the strait was one of the few sea routes between the Atlantic and Pacific before the construction of the Panama Canal.

History

Indigenous navigation

Land adjacent to the Strait of Magellan has been inhabited by indigenous Americans for at least 13,000 years. Upon their arrival in the region, they would have encountered native equines, the large ground sloth Mylodon, saber-toothed cats the extinct jaguar subspecies Panthera onca mesembrina, the bear Arctotherium, the superficially camel-like Macrauchenia, the fox-like canid Dusicyon avus and lamine camelids, including the extant vicuña and guanaco. Evidence that Mylodon, Hippidion and the lamines were hunted has been found at some sites, such as Cueva del Medio.
Historically identifiable indigenous ethnic groups around the strait are the Kawésqar, the Tehuelche, the Selkʼnam and the Yaghan people. The Kawésqar lived on the western part of the strait's northern coast. To the east of the Kawésqar were the Tehuelche, whose territory extended to the north in Patagonia. To the south of the Tehuelche across the strait lived the Selkʼnam, who inhabited the majority of the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego. To the west of the Selkʼnam were the Yaghan people, who inhabited the southernmost part of Tierra del Fuego.
All tribes in the area were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Tehuelche were the only non-maritime culture in the area; they fished and gathered shellfish along the coast during the winter and moved into the southern Andes in the summer to hunt. The tribes of the region saw little European contact until the late 19th century. Later, European-introduced diseases decimated portions of the indigenous population.
It is possible that Tierra del Fuego was connected to the mainland in the Early Holocene much in the same way that Riesco Island was back then. A Selkʼnam tradition recorded by the Salesian missionary Giuseppe María Beauvoir relates 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. Selkʼnam migration to Tierra del Fuego is generally thought to have displaced a related non-seafaring people, the Haush that once occupied most of the main island. The Selkʼnam, Haush, and Tehuelche are generally thought to be culturally and linguistically related peoples physically distinct from the sea-faring peoples.
According to a Selkʼnam myth the strait was created along with the Beagle Channel and Fagnano Lake by slingshots falling on Earth during the fight of Taiyín with a witch who was said to have "retained the waters and the foods".

Magellan

The first European contact in this area was the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan.
Magellan led an expedition in the service of the Spanish King, Emperor Charles V, to reach the Spice Islands. His ships became the first to navigate the strait in 1520. The five ships included La Trinidad, under the command of Magellan; La San Antonio under the command of Juan de Cartagena; La Concepción under the command of Gaspar de Quesada ; La Victoria under the command of Luis de Mendoza; and La Santiago, under command of Juan Rodríguez Serrano. Before the passage of the strait, Álvaro de Mesquita became captain of the San Antonio, and Duarte Barbosa of the Victoria. Later, Serrão became captain of the Concepcion. San Antonio charged to explore Magdalen Sound, failed to return to the fleet, instead sailing back to Spain under Estêvão Gomes, who imprisoned the captain Mesquita.
Magellan's ships entered the strait on All Saints' Day, 1 November 1520. Magellan named the Strait Estrecho de Todos los Santos and
planted a flag to claim the land on behalf of the King of Spain. Magellan's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, called it the Patagonian Strait, and others Victoria Strait, commemorating the first ship that entered. Within seven years, it was being called Estrecho de Magallanes in honor of Magellan. The Spanish Empire and the Captaincy General of Chile considered the strait the southern boundary of their territory.

16th century explorations after Magellan

In the 1530s Charles V divided South America and whatever was to be south of it into a series of grants to different conquistadors. The strait of Magellan and the area south of it went to Pedro Sánchez de la Hoz.
In 1530 and 1531 the Fuggers held rights to trade through the Strait of Magellan. While European trade with Asia through this route was thought to be possible, the Fuggers never developed this route.
Andrés de Urdaneta who had first-hand experience of the strait by his participation in the Loaísa expedition, argued before viceroy Antonio de Mendoza in the 1550s for the establishment of an Asia–Mexico trade route and presented arguments against the establishment of a rival route of direct trade between Spain and Asia through the strait of Magellan. According to Urdaneta, the climate would make passage through the strait possible only during summer and therefore ships would need to stay the winter in a more northern port. Urdaneta's preference for Mexico may have also been influenced by his links to the Pedro de Alvarado. Following Urdaneta's plans in 1565, the first Manila galleon inaugurated European trade with Asia across the Pacific.
Pedro de Valdivia, the conquistador of Chile, managed to have Charles V extend his governorship to the northern shores of the strait. Meanwhile, Sánchez de la Hoz was executed in Chile by Francisco de Villagra, one of Valdivia's men.
The first map of the Pacific Ocean, Maris Pacifici from 1589, depicts the strait as the only route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The strait and the conquest of Chile

Contemporaries differed in their estimation of the strait's significance. In Europe, it was viewed by some as an opportunity and a strategic location to facilitate long-range trade, though Antonio Pigafetta seemed to have understood his voyage through the area as an unrepeatable feat. By contrast, conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, in a letter to Charles V, considered the strait a threat through which rival conquistadors could arrive to challenge his claims.
In 1544 Valdivia commissioned Captain Juan Bautista Pastene to explore the coast from Valparaiso to the Strait of Magellan, and installed his secretary Juan de Cárdenas in the expedition to produce a written account of the lands discovered to solidify his claims before the King. Although Pastene's expedition reached only the 41st parallel south, well short of the strait, it discovered San Pedro Bay and the mouth of Valdivia River, where Valdivia would later find the city that bears his name. As Valdivia consolidated his claims, he mentioned in a 1548 letter to the Council of the Indies the possibility of establishing contacts between Chile and Seville through the strait.
García Jofré de Loaiza was the second captain to navigate the strait and the first to discover that Tierra del Fuego was an island. Valdivia then dispatched Francisco de Ulloa to survey and explore the strait, facilitating navigation from Spain to Chile. In October 1553, Ulloa sailed from the city of Valdivia in the first expedition to enter the strait from the west. Ulloa reached Woods Bay, but faced with the steep coastline and lack of provisions and fearing entrapment in the strait during the winter, he turned around, returning to Chilean ports in February 1554.
Valdivia himself never actually reached the strait, as he was killed in 1553 attempting to conquer Araucanía, about 1600 km north of the strait.
In October 1557, Governor García Hurtado de Mendoza sent another exploratory squad of 70 men under the command of Juan Ladrillero. They were charged with mapping the coastline and surveying the region's flora, fauna, and ethnography. On August 16, 1558, Ladrillero arrived in the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the first navigator to cross the Strait of Magellan in both directions.
Colonization by the Spanish southward in Chile halted after the conquest of the Chiloé Archipelago in 1567. The Spanish are thought to have lacked incentives for further conquests south. The indigenous populations were sparse and did not engage in the sedentary agricultural life of the Spanish. The harsh climate in the fjords and channels of Patagonia may also have deterred further expansion. Even in Chiloé the Spanish encountered difficulties, having to abandon their initial economic model based on gold mining and "hispanic-mediterranean" agriculture.

Spanish attempt to colonise the strait

In 1578 English navigator Francis Drake crossed the strait, creating fear on the Pacific coast that an attack was imminent. To seal the passage, the Viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, sent a squadron with two ships under Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. They carefully explored the strait, trying to ferret out English invaders, while surveying locations for future fortifications.
Pigafetta had described the strait as a hospitable area with many good ports, "cedar" wood, and abundant shellfish and fish.
In 1584, Sarmiento de Gamboa founded two colonies in the strait: Nombre de Jesús and Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe. The latter was established on the north shore of the strait with 300 settlers. That winter, it became known as Puerto del Hambre, or "Port Famine", as most of the settlers died of cold or starvation. When Sir Thomas Cavendish landed at the site of Rey Don Felipe in 1587, he found only ruins of the settlement.
The Spanish failure to colonize the Strait of Magellan made the Chiloé Archipelago key in protecting western Patagonia from foreign intrusions. Valdivia, reestablished in 1645, and Chiloé acted as sentries, and hubs where the Spanish collected intelligence from all over Patagonia.
In 1599 it took five ships under Simon de Cordes and his pilot William Adams four months to traverse the strait; Sebalt de Weert returned before reaching the end.