Antonio de Vea expedition

Background

The expedition was rooted in the explorations of John Narborough along the coasts of southern Patagonia. News of these explorations reached the Spanish from various sources, including the Count of Molina de Herrera, Antonio de Tovar y Paz, who learned of them while ambassador at the Court of St James's, and prisoners obtained by the Spanish during Narborough's stay in Corral Bay in late December 1670. The Spanish in Chiloé likely also heard of the expedition through orally transmitted rumors from indigenous peoples of Patagonia. In early 1674, the governor of Chiloé sent an expedition led by Jerónimo Díaz de Mendoza south to investigate the rumors. Díaz de Mendoza returned with a native Chono named Cristóbal Talcapillán, who soon learned the basics of the local Veliche language and gained notoriety for his claims about Europeans in the far south. Talcapillán's detailed account of English settlements on two Patagonian islands caused great concern, and when asked to draft a map, it astonished Spanish authorities and lent credibility to his claims. Talcapillán conflated the English with 'Moors' and described two settlements: one at a mainland place called Callanac and another on an island called Allauta, where the English were building a fortress with indigenous aid. He also mentioned an Indian named León who had traveled to England and a Spanish shipwreck on the island of Lluctui, also controlled by the English.

Expedition

Antonio de Vea was on leave in Portobelo, Panama, when he received orders to take charge of an expedition. The group gathered at the Peruvian port of El Callao and departed for Chiloé on September 21. De Vea traveled aboard the ship Nuestra Señora del Rosario y Ánimas del Purgatorio, which carried materials to build two additional long boats once they reached Chiloé. The plan was to split the expedition there: de Vea would sail south along the coast, while Pascual de Iriate would take the ship directly through open ocean to the western entrance of the Straits of Magellan, where the two groups would reunite.

On October 13, the expedition spotted the uninhabited Alejandro Selkirk Island but did not land. De Vea noted that a black sailor died on October 29. The next day, they sighted the Lacuy Peninsula on Chiloé Island’s northwestern corner and the nearby mainland. While using the incoming tide to enter the Chacao Channel, the ship unexpectedly struck Roca Remolinos, causing serious damage. Two Spanish dalcas came to rescue the infantrymen, while de Vea and the rest of the crew managed to beach the vessel that evening.

The expedition left the Chiloé shipyard on November 28. By then, nine dalcas had been added to the two long boats brought from El Callao. De Vea’s party was guided by Bartolomé Gallardo, a criollo soldier who had explored the area the previous summer, along with the Jesuit Antonio de Amparán and Cristóbal Talcapillán. The group included 70 Spaniards—16 of them sailors—and 60 Indians, all from Chile and Peru.

As they sailed south, the expedition passed through forests of Pilgerodendron, which de Vea compared to the cypresses of Spain. They also used fishing nets to catch over 200 basses. On December 11, they entered San Rafael Lake, noting its windy conditions, the San Rafael Glacier, and the swampy southern shores that form the Isthmus of Ofqui. De Vea entered the lake via Río Témpanos without reporting any ice floes, and he stated that the glacier did not extend far into the lake. Modern researchers interpret this as evidence that the Little Ice Age had not yet taken hold in that area during the late 1600s.

Aftermath

The expedition returned to El Callao in April 1676. While it was away, 8,433 men had been mobilized in Peru to face a potential conflict with the English, and the military had received large donations for defense expenses. Viceroy of Peru Baltasar de la Cueva ordered the governments of Chile, Chiloé, and Río de la Plata to inquire about the men who disappeared at Evangelistas Islets, but no information about their fate came forth, and it is presumed the boat wrecked in the same storm that forced the remaining party to leave the area. Overall, 16–17 men perished. Antonio de Vea concluded and successfully convinced Spanish authorities that rumors about English settlements in the fjords and channels of Patagonia were false. He noted that while shellfish, sea lions, and whales were abundant, the adverse climate and poor soils made crop cultivation impossible, preventing the establishment of a European settlement. However, in 1676, new rumors from Europe reached the Spanish court claiming that England was preparing an expedition to settle the Straits of Magellan. Spanish attention shifted from the Pacific coast of Patagonia to the Straits of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego, as any English settlement there could be approached by land from the north, unlike the islands in western Patagonia. Despite being in some sense a failure, the expedition increased Spanish knowledge of the Patagonian archipelagoes, and de Vea's map is a milestone in local cartography. No new Spanish maps of the west coast of Patagonia were made until José de Moraleda y Montero's explorations in the late 18th century. Following the expedition, there was a hiatus of several decades in both missionary activity and the search for foreign colonies on the Pacific coast of Patagonia, with interest reviving in the 1740s after the Spanish learned of the wreckage of HMS Wager on Wager Island in the Guayaneco Archipelago.