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HISTORY
The islands were discovered accidentally by Tomas
de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panama, in 1535. He
was on his way to Peru when his ship was becalmed
and swept 800 kilometers off course by the currents.
Like most of the early arriv¬als, Bishop Tomas
and his crew arrived thirsty and disappointed
at the dryness of the place. He did not even give
the islands a name.
The islands first appeared on a map in 1574 as
' Islands of Galapagos', which has remained in
common use ever since. The individual islands
consist of several names originating from both
Spanish and English. The latter names come from
a visit in 1680 by English buccaneers who, with
the blessing of the English king, attacked Spanish
ships carrying gold and relieved them of their
heavy load. The pirates used the Galapagos as
a hide-out, in particular a spot North of James
Bay on Santiago
Island , still known as Buccaneers' Cove.
The pirates were the first to visit many of the
islands and they named them after English Kings
and aristocracy, or famous captains of the day.
The Spanish also called the islands 'enchanted',
or 'bewitched', owing to the fact that for much
of the year they are surrounded by mists giving
the impression that they appear and disappear
as if by magic. Also, the tides and currents were
so confusing that they thought the islands were
floating and not real islands.
Between 1780 and 1860, the waters of the Galapagos
became a favourite place for British and American
whaling ships. At the beginning of the whaling
era, in 1793, a British naval captain erected
a barrel on Floreana
island to facilitate communication between
boats and the land. The barrel is still in place
today at Post
Office bay
The first island to be inhabited was Floreana,
in 1807, by a lone Irishman named Patrick Watkins.
After his departure they were more or less uninhab¬ited,
until 1832, when Ecuadorean General Jose Villamil
founded a colony on Floreana,
mainly composed of convicts and political prisoners,
who traded neat and vegetables with whalers. In
February 1832, following the creation of the young
republic, Colonel Ignacio Hernandez took official
possession of tie archipelago in the name of Ecuador
. Spanish names were given to the islands, in
addition to the existing English ones.
One of the more notorious periods began in 1929
with the arrival of German doctor, Friedrich Ritter,
and his female assistant Dore Strauch. Three years
later, the Wittmer family also decided to settle
on the island, and Floreana
soon became so fashionable that luxury yachts
would call in. One of these visitors was Baroness
von Wagner de Bosquet, a young German woman who
settled on the island with her two lovers. Soon
after landing she had proclaimed herself Empress
of Floreana,
which was not to the liking of Dr Ritter or the
Wittmer family, and tensions rose. There followed
several years of mysterious and unsavoury goings-on,
during which everyone died or disappeared except
the Wittmer family. Today, the only survivor of
this unexplained drama is Margret Wittmer, who
still lives at Black
Beach on Floreana.
Human settlement on the Galapagos is limited to
about three percent of the islands' land area,
but nevertheless, the resident population of the
islands has doubled in only five years, to 20,000
in 1995. The population is concentrated in eight
settlements. Two are on San
Cristobal ( Chatham ), at Puerto
Baquerizo Moreno and a village inland called
El Progreso. San Cristobal has a population of
around 8,000, and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno is the
administra¬tive capital of the archipelago
and Ecuador 's second naval base. There are three
settlements on Santa
Cruz (Indefatigable). Puerto
Ayora is the largest town and the main tourist
centre. Bellavista and Santa Rosa are two farming
communities located inland. Santa
Cruz is the most populated island with around
10,000 inhabitants. On Floreana, the longest inhabited
island, there is a permanent settlement at Black
Beach and on Isabela
(formerly Albemarle), the largest island, there
is a small, thriving community at Puerto
Villamil and a village inland at Santo Tomas.
Additionally, there is a navy base on Baltra
( South Seymour ) at the site of an old US Airforce
camp where most flights from the mainland now
arrive. |
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