Puerto San Julián, also known historically as
Port St Julian, is a natural harbour in
PatagoniaPatagonia is a geographic region containing the southernmost portion of South America. Located in Argentina and Chile, it comprises the southernmost portion of the Andes mountains to the west and south, and plateaux and low plains to the east. The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by...
in the
Santa Cruz ProvinceSanta Cruz is a province of Argentina, located in the southern part of the country, in Patagonia. It borders Chubut province to the north, and Chile to the west and south. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean...
of
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
located at . In the days of sailing ships it formed a stopping point, 180 km (110 miles) south of
Puerto DeseadoPuerto Deseado, originally called Port Desire, is a city of about 15,000 inhabitants and a fishing port in Patagonia in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina, on the estuary of the Deseado River....
(
Port Desire). Nowadays Puerto San Julián is also the name of a small town (population 6,143 as per the ) located on the harbour.
It was given its name by the
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
explorer
Ferdinand MagellanFerdinand Magellan was a maritime navigator and explorer. Ferdinand Magellan was born circa 1480 at Sabrosa, near Vila Real, in the province of Tras-os-Montes, one of the wildest districts of Portugal...
who arrived there on 31 March 1520 and overwintered in the harbour.
Puerto San Julián, also known historically as
Port St Julian, is a natural harbour in
PatagoniaPatagonia is a geographic region containing the southernmost portion of South America. Located in Argentina and Chile, it comprises the southernmost portion of the Andes mountains to the west and south, and plateaux and low plains to the east. The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by...
in the
Santa Cruz ProvinceSanta Cruz is a province of Argentina, located in the southern part of the country, in Patagonia. It borders Chubut province to the north, and Chile to the west and south. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean...
of
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
located at . In the days of sailing ships it formed a stopping point, 180 km (110 miles) south of
Puerto DeseadoPuerto Deseado, originally called Port Desire, is a city of about 15,000 inhabitants and a fishing port in Patagonia in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina, on the estuary of the Deseado River....
(
Port Desire). Nowadays Puerto San Julián is also the name of a small town (population 6,143 as per the ) located on the harbour.
It was given its name by the
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
explorer
Ferdinand MagellanFerdinand Magellan was a maritime navigator and explorer. Ferdinand Magellan was born circa 1480 at Sabrosa, near Vila Real, in the province of Tras-os-Montes, one of the wildest districts of Portugal...
who arrived there on 31 March 1520 and overwintered in the harbour. They met the native people who were described by
Antonio PigafettaAntonio Pigafetta , was a Venetian scholar and traveller born in Vicenza. He travelled with the Portuguese captain Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish crew on their trip to the Maluku Islands. During the voyage, he became a strict assistant of Magellano and kept an accurate journal which later...
as giants, and called them
Patagonians, meaning "Big Feet", since they wore guanaco hide shoes or boots stuffed with straw. At the start of April, Magellan was faced by a mutiny led by his
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
captains at midnight on
EasterEaster is the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion...
day, but succeeded in overcoming it, executing mutineers including one captain and leaving another behind. He left the port on 21 August 1520 and on 21 October found the eastern entrance to the passageway he was looking for, the strait that now bears his name.
Fifty-eight years later
Francis DrakeSir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral , was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, a renowned pirate, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Queen Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588, subordinate...
reached the harbour, arriving on 15 June 1578 and also choosing to overwinter. They found the remains of the gallows where Magellan had executed mutineers. Drake had also been having difficulty with discontent during the voyage, and charged his friend
Thomas DoughtyThomas Doughty may refer to:*Thomas Doughty , English explorer, d.1578*Thomas Doughty , American artist...
with treachery and incitement to mutiny. A trial found Doughty guilty, but only on the mutiny charge. At Drake's insistence, Doughty was beheaded, but this stern example did not have the desired effect. Increasing tensions between mariners and gentlemen explorers brought the prospect of mutiny about a month later. Drake used a sermon to make a speech laying down rules of conduct, with himself in sole command. In August they went on to the Strait of Magellan.
The hamlet of
FloridablancaThe Spanish settlement Nueva Colonia y Fuerte de Floridablanca was established in San Julian Bay in 1780 and abandoned four years later due to scurvy...
, a short lived Spanish colony, was founded not far from San Julián in 1780 by King
Charles IIICharles II , was the last Habsburg King of Spain and the ruler of nearly all of Italy , the Spanish territories in the Southern Low Countries, and Spain's overseas Empire, stretching from Mexico to the Philippines...
. It was abandoned by 1784, and its ruins were rediscovered during the 1980s.
The port continued in use, and the young
naturalistNatural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research that is published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, Natural history is the systematic...
Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection...
arrived with
the Beagle survey expeditionThe second voyage of HMS Beagle from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836 was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, under captain Robert FitzRoy who had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after her previous captain committed suicide...
under captain
Robert FitzRoyVice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy RN achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate weather forecasting a reality...
in January 1834. While
HMS BeagleHMS Beagle was a Cherokee class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, named after the beagle, a breed of dog. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803...
carried out its hydrographic survey, Darwin explored the local geology in cliffs near the harbour and found fossils of pieces of spine and a hind leg of "some large animal, I fancy a
MastodonMastodons or mastodonts were large tusked mammal species of the extinct genus Mammut found in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Central America from the Oligocene through Pleistocene, 33.9 mya to 11,000 years ago. The American mastodon is the most recent and best known species of the group...
". On their return to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the anatomist
Richard OwenSir Richard Owen KCB was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
revealed that the bones were actually from a gigantic creature resembling the
LlamaThe llama is a South American camelid, widely used as a pack animal by the Incas and other natives of the Andes mountains. In South America llamas are still used as beasts of burden, as well as for the production of fiber and meat....
and the
camelCamels are even-toed ungulates within the genus Camelus. The dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the Bactrian camel has two humps. They are native to the dry desert areas of western Asia, and central and east Asia, respectively...
, which Owen named
MacraucheniaMacrauchenia was a long-necked and long-limbed, three-toed South American ungulate mammal, typifying the order Litopterna. The oldest fossils date back to around 7 million years ago, and M...
. This was one of the discoveries leading to the
inception of Darwin's theoryThe inception of Darwin's theory occurred during an intensively busy period which began when Charles Darwin returned from the survey voyage of the Beagle, with his reputation as a fossil collector and geologist already established...
.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, San Julián and the surrounding countryside (or "camp" as it was known in the argot of the day) was an important sheep-raising region, and the "Swift" company installed a frigorifico, or freezer plant complex, along the coast to the north of the city itself.
During the 1982
Falklands WarThe Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict/Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
, as San Julian is one of the nearest point to the islands, the city airfield was used by the
Argentine Air ForceThe Argentine Air Force is the national aviation branch of the armed forces of Argentina. As of 2007, it had 14,606 airmen and 6,854 civilans on duty.-History:...
. Two fighter squadrons, flying
DaggerThe Israel Aircraft Industries Nesher is the Israeli version of the Dassault Mirage 5 multi-role fighter aircraft...
s and
A-4 SkyhawkThe Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a carrier-capable ground-attack aircraft designed for the United States Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. The delta winged, single turbojet-engined Skyhawk was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company, and later McDonnell Douglas...
s, made 149 sorties against the British in the 45 days of operations. Ironically, many of the first permanent inhabitants of Puerto San Julián had been British subjects from the Falkland Islands, as part of the region's sheep-raising industry.
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