Origins of Falkland Islanders - Early Settlers - South American Influence

South American Influence

The earliest known Falklands settler was Carmelita Penny (Simon) who had arrived as a slave after 1826. Her sons José Simon, Manuel Coronel Jr. and Richard Penny Jr. were all native Falkland Islanders (born in 1831, 1834 and 1837 respectively), whose fathers had been resident in the islands since before 1833. Among the prominent early Falkland Islanders of Buenos Ayrean origins were the gaucho Manuel Coronel Sr., Santiago Lopez (Darwin's ‘St Jago’), German-born Charles Kussler, Antonina Roxa, and another slave Gregoria Madrid. Most popular among them was Antonina Roxa whose hard work in several occupations (she was a skillful gaucho, and worked as such at Hope Place - Saladero) made her the owner of a 6,000-acre (24 km2) farm and valuable real estate in Stanley. The South American contribution to the Falklander ethnogenesis is further recorded by Commodore Augusto Lasserre of the Argentine Navy, who traveled extensively around the islands; according to his account there were up to 20 Argentine-born Islanders in 1869, "working either as labourers or foremen in the ranches, because in this kind of work they are better than the majority of the foreigners".

The mainland South American-born Falkland Islanders contributed to shaping the Falklander identity in 1830s-1850s, and nowadays their legacy is visible in Falklands genealogy, Falklands English vernacular, and Falklands toponymy.

A number of modern Falkland Islanders have some mainland South Americans among their 19th century ancestors, mostly Uruguayan gauchos who settled in the islands in connection with the development of cattle and sheep farming industry that was to form the backbone of Falklands economy for rather more than a century, until the offshore fisheries assumed that role in the 1980s. Eventually, gauchos took part in the colonization of the uninhabited West Falkland in the 1860s and 1870s, although by that time many of them were of European origins (Scottish, Gibraltarian etc.). There are some two dozen stone or turf-built corrals scattered around Camp — picturesque historical monuments of the 1840s-1870s, the epoch of pioneers who settled and developed the country outside Port Louis and Stanley.

The Falklands English vernacular has a fair amount of borrowed Spanish words (often modified or corrupted); they are particularly numerous, indeed dominant in the local horse-related terminology. For instance, the Islanders use ‘alizan’, ‘colorao’, ‘negro’, ‘blanco’, ‘gotiao’, ‘picasso’, ‘sarco’, ‘rabincana’ etc. for certain horse colours and looks, or ‘bosal’, ‘cabresta’, ‘bastos’, ‘cinch’, ‘conjinilla’, ‘meletas’, ‘tientas’, ‘manares’ etc. for various items of horse gear.

Unlike the older English, French and Spanish place names given by mariners, which refer mainly to islands, rocks, bays, coves, and capes (points) important for navigation, the post-1833 Spanish names usually identify inland geographical locations and features, reflecting the new practical necessity for orientation, land delimitation and management in the cattle and sheep farming. Among the typical such names or descriptive and generic parts of names are ‘Rincon Grande’, ‘Ceritos’, ‘Campito’, ‘Cantera’, ‘Terra Motas’, ‘Malo River’, ‘Brasse Mar’, ‘Dos Lomas’, ‘Torcida Point’, ‘Pioja Point’, ‘Estancia’, ‘Oroqueta’, ‘Piedra Sola’, ‘Laguna Seco’, ‘Manada’, etc.