page_title: History of the Falkland Islands
section_title: European discovery
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Falkland Islands / European discovery
caption_attribution_description: Chart by John MacBride from his 1766 hydrographic survey of the Falkland Islands, published in 1773 by John Hawkesworth and John Byron.
context_page_description: The history of the Falkland Islands goes back at least five hundred years, with active exploration and colonisation only taking place in the 18th century. Nonetheless, the Falkland Islands have been a matter of controversy, as they have been claimed by the French, British, Spaniards and Argentines at various points.
  The islands were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans. France established a colony on the islands in 1764. In 1765, a British captain claimed the islands for Britain. In early 1770 a Spanish commander arrived from Argentina with five ships and 1,400 soldiers forcing the British to leave Port Egmont. Britain and Spain almost went to war over the islands, but the British government decided that it should withdraw its presence from many overseas settlements in 1774. Spain, which had a garrison at Puerto Soledad on East Falklands, administered the garrison from Montevideo until 1811 when it was compelled to withdraw by pressures resulting from the Peninsular War. In 1833, the British returned to the Falkland Islands. Argentina invaded the islands on 2 April 1982. The British responded with an expeditionary force that forced the Argentines to surrender.
context_section_description: An archipelago in the region of the Falkland Islands appeared on Portuguese maps from the early 16th century.  Researchers Pepper and Pascoe cite the possibility that an unknown Portuguese expedition may have sighted the islands, based on the existence of a French copy of a Portuguese map from 1516. Maps from this period show islands known as the Sanson islands in a position that could be interpreted as the Falklands.
  Sightings of the islands are attributed to Ferdinand Magellan or Estêvão Gomes of San Antonio, one of the captains in the expedition, as the Falklands fit the description of those visited to gather supplies.  The account given by Pigafetta the Chronicler of Magellan's voyage contradicts attribution to either Gomes or Magellan, since it describes the position of islands close to the Patagonia coast, with the expedition following the mainland coast and the islands visited between a latitude of 49° and 51°S and also refers to meeting "giants" (described as Sansón or Samsons in the chronicle) who are believed to be the Tehuelche Indians. Although acknowledging that Pigafetta's account casts doubt upon the claim, the Argentine historian Laurio H. Destefani asserts it probable that a ship from the Magellan expedition discovered the islands citing the difficulty in measuring longitude accurately, which means that islands described as close to the coast could be further away.  Destefani dismisses attribution to Gomes since the course taken by him on his return would not have taken the ships near the Falklands.
  Destefani also attributes an early visit to the Falklands by an unknown Spanish ship, although Destefani's firm conclusions are contradicted by authors who conclude the sightings refer to the Beagle Channel.
  When English explorer John Davis, commander of Desire, one of the ships belonging to Thomas Cavendish's second expedition to the New World, separated from Cavendish off the coast of what is now southern Argentina, he decided to make for the Strait of Magellan in order to find Cavendish. On 9 August 1592 a severe storm battered his ship, and Davis drifted under bare masts, taking refuge "among certain Isles never before discovered". Davis did not provide the latitude of these islands, indicating they were 50 leagues (240 km) away from the Patagonian coast (they are actually 75 leagues, 360 km away). Positional errors due to the longitude problem continued to be a problem till the late 19th century, when accurate chronometers were first produced, although Destefani asserts the error here to be "unusually large".
  In 1594, they may have been visited by English commander Richard Hawkins, who, combining his own name with that of Queen Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen", gave a group of islands the name of "Hawkins' Maidenland". However, the latitude given was off by at least 3 degrees and the description of the shore (including the sighting of bonfires) casts doubts on his discovery. Errors in the latitude measured can be attributed to a simple mistake reading a cross staff divided into minutes meaning the latitude measured could be 50° 48'. The description of bonfires can also be attributed to peat fires caused by lightning, which is not uncommon in the outer islands of the Falklands in February. In 1925, Conor O'Brian analysed the voyage of Hawkins and concluded that the only land he could have sighted was Steeple Jason Island. The British historian Mary Cawkell also points out that criticism of the account of Hawkins discovery should be tempered by the fact it was written nine years after the event; Hawkins was captured by the Spanish and spent eight years in prison.
  On 24 January 1600, the Dutchman Sebald de Weert visited the Jason Islands and called them the Sebald Islands (in Spanish, "Islas Sebaldinas" or "Sebaldes"). This name remained in use for the entire Falkland Islands for a long time; William Dampier used the name Sibbel de Wards in his reports of his visits in 1684 and 1703, while James Cook still referred to the Sebaldine Islands in the 1770s. The latitude that De Weert provided (50° 40') was close
caption: 1773 Map by J. Hawkesworth and J. Byron showing Hawkins' discovery
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