Punta Arenas, the first major settlement in…
January 1835 CE
In 1843 the Chilean government had sent an expedition to build a fort and establish a permanent settlement on the shores of the Strait of Magellan
It built and commissioned a schooner called Goleta Ancud.
Under the command of John Williams Wilson, Chilean Navy, it transported a crew of twenty-one people (captain, eighteen crew, and two women), plus cargo, to accomplish the mandate.
The founding act of the settlement took place on September 21, 1843.
The fort us well-positioned on a small rocky peninsula, but the location cannot support a proper civilian settlement.
With this in mind the Military Governor, José de los Santos Mardones, decides in 1848 to move the settlement to its current location, along the Las Minas river, and renames it Punta Arenas.
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