Magellan named Tierra del Fuego after fires he feared hid an ambush
Sailing past in 1520, Magellan saw countless fires along the shore and suspected warriors waiting in the forests. The blazes were Indigenous hearths, perhaps even lit inside canoes for warmth and signalling, and the archipelago at South America's tip has been the Land of Fire ever since.
Tierra del Fuego lies off the southernmost tip of mainland South America, across the Strait of Magellan. It comprises the main island, Isla Grande, plus many smaller ones, among them Hoste and Navarino south of the Beagle Channel and, at its far end, Cape Horn, just north of 56° south. Chile holds the west, about two-thirds of the archipelago including nearly all the smaller islands, while Argentina has the east; both had claimed the whole until the Boundary Treaty of 1881. Porvenir and Puerto Williams are the main Chilean towns, Puerto Toro is arguably the southernmost village on Earth, and on the Argentine side Ushuaia is the provincial capital and Río Grande the largest city.
People reached the islands around 8,000 BC, and Yahgan sites have been found on Navarino Island. In 1525 Francisco de Hoces first guessed that the land was a set of islands rather than part of Terra Australis. Drake's voyage of 1578 added knowledge, and in 1616 a Dutch East India Company expedition gave Cape Horn its name. On the Beagle's first voyage in 1830, Robert FitzRoy took four Fuegians to England, including Orundellico, known as Jemmy Button; the three survivors met the king and queen and later sailed home with FitzRoy and Charles Darwin.
European settlement began in earnest in the late 19th century with sheep farming and gold. Salesian missions opened at Río Grande and on Dawson Island, and the Anglican missionary Thomas Bridges compiled a 30,000-word Yaghan dictionary and grammar at Ushuaia. After a Chilean expedition under Ramón Serrano Montaner reported placer gold in 1879, Argentines, Chileans and Croatians poured onto the main island between 1883 and 1909. Conflict, disease and forced removal to Dawson Island devastated the Selkʼnam and Yaghan, and the prospector Julius Popper is regarded as a central figure in the Selkʼnam genocide; only a few Selkʼnam survive today.
Oil was found in the north in 1945 and pumped from 1949, and until 1960 most Chilean crude came from here. Petroleum still drives the northern economy, while tourism, manufacturing and Antarctic logistics sustain the south.
Source: Tierra del Fuego
