Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan.
Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy was an English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, FitzRoy's second expedition to Tierra del Fuego and the Southern Cone.
Keppel Island is one of the Falkland Islands, lying between Saunders and Pebble islands, and near Golding Island to the north of West Falkland on Keppel Sound. It has an area of 3,626 hectares and its highest point, Mt. Keppel, is 341 metres (1,119 ft) high. There is a wide, flat valley in the centre of the island with several freshwater lakes. The central valley rises steeply to the south-west, west and north. The north-east is low-lying, with a deeply indented coastline.
Beagle Channel is a strait in the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, on the extreme southern tip of South America between Chile and Argentina. The channel separates the larger main island of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego from various smaller islands including the islands of Picton, Lennox and Nueva; Navarino; Hoste; Londonderry; and Stewart. The channel's eastern area forms part of the border between Chile and Argentina and the western area is entirely within Chile.
Orundellico, known as "Jeremy Button" or "Jemmy Button" or "Jimmy Button", was a member of the Yaghan people from islands around Tierra del Fuego in modern Chile and Argentina. He was taken to England by Captain FitzRoy in HMS Beagle and became a celebrity there for a period.
The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one of the last native groups in South America to be encountered by migrant Europeans in the late 19th century. In the mid-19th century, there were about 4,000 Selk'nam; in 1916 Charles W. Furlong estimated there were about 800 Selk'nam living in Tierra del Fuego; with Walter Gardini stating that by 1919 there were 279, and by 1930 just over 100.
The Yahgan are a group of indigenous peoples in the Southern Cone of South America. Their traditional territory includes the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, extending their presence into Cape Horn, making them the world's southernmost human population.
Tierra del Fuego Province is one of four provinces in the southern Chilean region of Magallanes and Antártica Chilena (XII). It includes the Chilean or western part of the main island of Tierra del Fuego, except for the part south of the Cordillera Darwin, which is in Antártica Chilena Province.
Fuegians are the indigenous inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America. The name has been credited to Captain James Weddell, who supposedly created the term in 1822.
Waite Hockin Stirling was a nineteenth-century missionary with the Patagonian Missionary Society and was the first Anglican Bishop of the Falkland Islands. He was brother-in-law to Thomas Phinn. He was also a grandnephew of Sir Thomas Stirling, 5th Baronet of Ardoch.
The society was founded at Brighton in 1844 as the Patagonian Missionary Society, sometime referred to as the Patagonian Mission. Captain Allen Gardiner, R.N., was the first secretary. The name was retained for twenty years, when South American Mission Society was adopted. The name of the organisation was changed after the death of Captain Gardiner, who died of starvation in 1851 on Picton Island in South America, waiting for a supply ship from England. Gardiner thought that the original mission should be expanded from southern South America (Patagonia) to all of South America. Charles Darwin is reported to have supported the society financially and rhetorically.
Allen Francis Gardiner was a British missionary and Royal Navy officer.
Bahia Wulaia is a bay on the western shore of Isla Navarino along the Murray Channel in extreme southern Chile. The island and adjacent strait are part of the commune of Cabo de Hornos in the Antártica Chilena Province, which is part of the Magallanes and Antartica Chilena Region.
The Haush or Manek'enk were an Indigenous people who lived on the Mitre Peninsula of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. They were related culturally and linguistically to the Selk'nam people who also lived on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, and to the Tehuelche people of southern mainland Patagonia.
William Parker Snow was an Arctic explorer, writer and mariner. He wrote several books on his expeditions including the Voyage of the Prince Albert under Sir John Franklin. He served as captain on the Allen Gardiner on its voyage to Patagonia in 1855.
The Martin Gusinde Anthropological Museum is an anthropology museum in Puerto Williams, Isla Navarino, in southern Chile. It is the southernmost museum of the world. The museum hosts artifacts, maps and photographs related to the 10,000-year history of the Yahgan people, as well as European settlers since the 19th century. Samples of local flora and fauna are also displayed, as well as photographs and text from the founding of Puerto Williams.
Thomas Bridges was an Anglican missionary and linguist, the first to set up a successful mission to the indigenous peoples in Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago shared by Argentina and Chile. Adopted and raised in England by George Pakenham Despard, he accompanied his father to Chile with the Patagonian Missionary Society. After an attack by indigenous people, in 1869 Bridges' father, Despard, left the mission at Keppel Island of the Falkland Islands, to return with his family to England. At the age of 17, Bridges stayed with the mission as its new superintendent. In the late 1860s, he worked to set up a mission at what is now the town of Ushuaia along the southern shore of Tierra del Fuego Island.
Matthew Brisbane was a Scottish mariner, sealer and notable figure in the early history of the Falkland Islands.
Luis Piedrabuena was an Argentine sailor whose actions in southern Argentina consolidated national sovereignty at a time when these lands were virtually uninhabited and were not protected by the state. His biographers consider him one of the most important heroes of Patagonia. Piedrabuena reached the naval rank of Naval Lieutenant Colonel, equivalent to Commander. Today he is commonly called Commander Piedrabuena.
Yokcushlu was a Kawésqar woman from the western Tierra del Fuego. In 1830, at the age of nine, she was taken hostage by the crew of the British vessel HMS Beagle and renamed "Fuegia Basket". Robert FitzRoy, captain of the Beagle, initially intended to trade her for a stolen boat. He later decided to take her and three other Fuegians, "York Minster", "Boat Memory", and "Jemmy Button", to England where they could be educated and taught Christianity so that they might return to "civilise" their people and serve as interpreters for the British.
