History of South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands - 16th To 19th Century

16th To 19th Century

The South Atlantic island of South Georgia, situated south of the Antarctic Convergence, was the first Antarctic territory ever discovered.

Popular belief holds it that Amerigo Vespucci might have sighted South Georgia during one of his much publicised voyages. While sailing in the South Atlantic to 52° south latitude (Vespucci's own estimate), in April 1502 they allegedly encountered a high, gloomy and rough land where human life was rendered impossible by severe cold ― a description seemingly fitting South Georgia. However, that belief is refuted by analysis of Vespucci's records.

Another persistent misconception is that of South Georgia being the mythical Pepys Island reportedly discovered by the English buccaneer William Cowley in December 1683. This is wide off mark as according to Cowley's diary, after leaving the coast of Brazil he sailed southwestwards to 47° south latitude, and sighted land to the west ― more than 1,700 km or 920 nmi away from South Georgia.

The actual discovery came (similarly to other early discoveries in that region) as a result of a ship being driven off course in bad weather. The English merchant Anthony de la Roché, while sailing from Chiloé to Salvador (Brazil) was overwhelmed by tempestuous conditions off Staten Island (Isla de los Estados), failed to make the Le Maire Strait and was carried far away to the east. He found refuge in one of South Georgia's southern bays where his ship anchored for 14 days in April 1675. La Roché published a report of his voyage in London in 1678, describing the new land. The cartographers started to depict "Roché Island" on their maps, honouring the discoverer.

Sir Edmund Halley surveyed the vicinity of South Georgia in January 1700 in the course of his work of charting magnetic declinations in the South Atlantic. His HMS Paramore (or Paramour) penetrated the Antarctic Convergence to reach some 90 nmi (170 km) north of South Georgia, where he mistook few tabular icebergs for islands (as possibly did Vespucci before him).

In 1756, the island was sighted and named ‘San Pedro’ by the Spanish vessel León under Captain Gregorio Jerez sailing in the service of the French company Sieur Duclos of Saint-Malo, with the merchant Duclos Guyot on board.

These early visits resulted in no sovereignty claims. In particular ― unlike the case of the Falkland Islands ― Spain never claimed South Georgia. The latter anyway fell within the ‘Portuguese’ portion of the world as envisaged by the 1494 Tordesillas Treaty concluded between Spain and Portugal.

The great mariner Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution accompanied by HMS Adventure made the first landing, survey and mapping of South Georgia. As mandated by the Admiralty, on 17 January 1775 he took possession for Britain and renamed the island ‘Isle of Georgia’ for King George III. German naturalist Georg Forster, who accompanied Cook during their landings in three separate places at Possession Bay on that day, wrote: "Here Captain Cook displayed the British flag, and performed the ceremony of taking possession of those barren rocks, in the name of his Britannic Majesty, and his heirs forever. A volley of two or three muskets was fired into the air."

The group of Shag Rocks and Black Rock forming the west extremity of the British overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is situated 270 km or 150 nmi west by north of the South Georgian mainland. Probably discovered in 1762 by the Spanish ship Aurora, these rocks appeared on early maps as Aurora Islands, were visited and renamed by the American sealer James Sheffield in the Hersilia in 1819, and mapped by HMS Dartmouth in 1920.

South Georgia's coast and waters have been surveyed by a number of expeditions since those of Cook and Bellingshausen. In particular, the extensive oceanographic investigations carried out by the Discovery Committee from 1925 to 1951 yielded an enormous amount of scientific results and data, including the discovery of the Antarctic Convergence. The first land-based scientific expedition on South Georgia was the 1882-83 German Polar Year expedition at Moltke Harbour, Royal Bay.

During the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, South Georgia was inhabited by English and Yankee sealers, who used to live there for considerable periods of time and sometimes overwintered. The first fur seals from the island were taken in 1786 by the English sealing vessel Lord Hawkesbury, while the first commercial visit to the South Sandwich Islands was made in 1816 by another English ship, the Ann.

The sealers pursued their trade in a most unsustainable manner, promptly reducing the fur seal population to near extermination. As a result, sealing activities on South Georgia had three marked peaks in 1786-1802, 1814–23, and 1869-1913 respectively, decreasing in between and gradually shifting to elephant seals taken for oil. More efficient regulation and management were practised in the second sealing epoch, 1909-64.

During the 19th century, the effective, continuous and unchallenged British possession and government for South Georgia was provided for by the British Letters Patent of 1843, revised in 1876, 1892, 1908 and 1917, with the island appearing in the Colonial Office Yearbook since 1887. From 1881 on, Britain regulated the economic activities and conservation by administrative acts such as the Sealing Ordinances of 1881 and 1899. South Georgia was governed by Britain as a Falkland Islands Dependency, a distinct entity administered through the Falkland Islands but not part of them in political or financial respect. These constitutional arrangements stayed in place throughout the second half of the 19th century and most of the 20th century, until South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands were incorporated as a distinct British overseas territory in 1985.