Editing Galápagos Islands (section)

===19th century===
[[File:The Galápagos tortoise or Galápagos giant tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra) - Santa Cruz Island.jpeg|thumb|250px|right|A Galápagos tortoise ({{lang|la|Chelonoidis nigra}}) on Santa Cruz. {{lang|la|C. nigra}} is the largest living species of tortoise, hunted to near extinction during the islands' [[whaling]] era.]]
[[File:José de Villamil.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[José de Villamil|Gen. José de Villamil]], founder of the [[Ecuadorian Navy]] and first governor of the islands]]
[[File:Admiralty Chart No 1375 Galapagos Islands, Published 1841.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The 1841 [[Admiralty chart]] drafted from [[Robert FitzRoy|FitzRoy]]'s survey of the islands [[second voyage of HMS Beagle|on HMS ''Beagle'']]]]
The first known permanent human resident on Galápagos was [[Patrick Watkins (sailor)|Patrick Watkins]], an [[Irish people|Irish]] sailor who was [[Marooning|marooned]] on the Floreana from 1807 to 1809. According to later accounts, Watkins managed to survive by hunting, growing vegetables and trading with visiting whalers{{sfnp|Porter|1822}}{{sfnp|Melville|1854}} before stealing a [[longboat]] from a [[whaling]] ship, [[impressment|impressing]] five of its crew as his "slaves", and navigating to [[Guayaquil]] on the Ecuadorian mainland.{{sfnp|Jackson|1993|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=TlxzU6i_LV0C&pg=PA3 3]}} Watkins was the only one of the six to survive the journey.{{sfnp|Jackson|1993|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=TlxzU6i_LV0C&pg=PA3 3]}}

In 1818, the Nantucket whaleship ''Globe'' under Captain George Washington Gardner discovered a "mother lode" of sperm whales some thousand miles west of the South American coast approximately at the equator. He returned to Nantucket in 1820 with more than 2,000 barrels of sperm whale oil and the news of his discovery. This led to an influx of whaleships to exploit the new whaling ground and the Galápagos Islands became a frequent stop for the whalers both before and after visiting what came to be known as the Offshore Grounds. This led to the establishment in the Galápagos Islands of a kind of unofficial "post office" where whaleships stopped to pick up and drop off letters as well as for provisioning and repairing.{{sfnp|Perry|1972|p=44}}

In October 1820, the whaleship ''Essex'' out of Nantucket stopped at the Galápagos for these purposes on its way to the Offshore Grounds. On Colnett's Charles Island, while most of the crew were hunting tortoises one crewmember, English boatsteerer Thomas Chappel{{mdash}}for reasons still unclear{{mdash}}lit a fire which quickly burned out of control. Some of the tortoise hunters had a narrow escape and had to run a gauntlet of fire to get back to the ship. Soon almost the entire island was in flames. Crewmembers reported that after a day of sailing away they could still see the flames against the horizon. One crewmember who returned to the Galápagos several years afterward described the entire island as still a blackened wasteland.<ref>Nickerson, T. (c. 1876) Account of the Ship Essex Sinking, 1819–1821. Holograph ms. in the Thomas Nickerson Collection, 1819–1876, Folder 1. Nantucket, Massachusetts: Nantucket Historical Society.</ref>

[[Ecuador]] [[Ecuadorian War of Independence|won its independence]] from [[History of Spain (1808–1874)|Spain]] in 1822 and [[Dissolution of Gran Colombia|seceded from]] [[Gran Colombia]] in 1830. [[José de Villamil|Gen. José de Villamil]], the founder of the [[Ecuadorian Navy]], led the push to colonize and settle the islands before Ecuador's neighbors or the [[New Imperialism|European empires]] could occupy them.<ref name=galhis/> He formed the Galapagos Settlement Company in mid-1831<ref name=monty>{{harvp|Halls|2020|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3OK0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT111 111]}}.</ref> and, with [[president of Ecuador|President]] [[Juan José Flores]]'s support, sent Col. Ignacio Hernández with a dozen craftsmen to begin the settlement on [[Floreana Island|Charles Island]]{{mdash}}renamed "Floriana"<!--sic--> in the president's honour{{mdash}}early the next year.<ref name=granny>{{harvp|Grant & al.|2009|p=https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Darwin_in_Gal%C3%A1pagos/MiRTI6lBRnAC?hl=en&pg=PA115 115]}}.</ref> Hernández conducted a formal ceremony of annexation on Floreana on 12 February 1832,<ref name=galhis/> now celebrated locally as [[Galápagos Day]] or the Day of the Province. (Darwin's birthday was the same day,<ref name=granny2>{{harvp|Grant & al.|2009|p=https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Darwin_in_Gal%C3%A1pagos/MiRTI6lBRnAC?hl=en&pg=PA116 116]}}</ref> as was [[Francisco de Orellana]]'s arrival at the headwaters of the [[Amazon River]] in 1542, celebrated on the mainland as [[Amazon Day]].) Villamil arrived in September and established Haven of Peace ({{lang|es|Asilo de Paz}} or {{lang|es|de la Paz}}) in the island's highlands.<ref name=granny/> The initial colonists who joined him were Ecuadorian soldiers{{mdash}}chiefly political prisoners<ref name=granny/>{{mdash}}whose [[Death penalty|death sentences]] were [[Commutation (law)|commuted]] in exchange for their agreement to [[exile|permanently settle]] the islands with their families.<ref name=monty/> They were joined in October by additional artisans and farmers, bringing the population to about 120, at which point Villamil was formally made the area's first governor.<ref name=monty/> Villamil's lieutenant governor was the [[Norwegian people|Norwegian]]-born<ref name=monty/> [[US people|American]] and [[Chilean people|Chilean]] sailor and shipwright [[Nicholas Oliver Lawson]].<ref name=granny/> Haven of Peace was originally successful and peaceful but, after being named a [[penal colony]] in March 1833, violence and costs began to rise.<ref name=monty2>{{harvp|Halls|2020|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3OK0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT112 112]}}.</ref> Villamil was faced with bankruptcy by 1837 and resigned his post, founding a colony of 21 on [[Indefatigable Island]]{{mdash}}renamed Bolivia{{mdash}}and leaving Lawson as its mayor.<ref name=granny2/> Gen. Villamil's successors{{mdash}}incompetent, strict, or both{{mdash}}prompted a bloody uprising in 1841 that caused most settlers to return to the mainland.<ref name=monty2/> Villamil returned to try to rebuild afterwards but was unsuccessful and abandoned the attempt in 1848.<ref name=monty2/>

[[File:Darwin's finches by Gould.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[John Gould|Gould]]'s illustration of [[Darwin's finches]]]]
The [[second voyage of HMS Beagle|second voyage of HMS ''Beagle'']] under [[ship's captain|captain]] [[Robert FitzRoy]] was undertaken to better survey the coasts and harbours of South America for the [[British Navy]]'s [[United Kingdom Hydrographic Office|Hydrographic Department]]. It reached the Galápagos on 15 September 1835 and{{mdash}}while surveying its islands, channels, and bays{{mdash}}the captain and others on the crew observed the geology, plants, and wildlife on Floreana, Isabela, and Santiago before continuing on their [[circumnavigation|round-the-world]] expedition on 20 October. The young naturalist [[Charles Darwin]], primarily a geologist at the time, was struck by the many volcanic features they saw, later referring to the archipelago as "that land of craters". His study of several volcanic formations over the five weeks he stayed in the islands led to several important geological discoveries, including the first correct explanation for how volcanic [[tuff]] is formed.{{sfnp|Grant & al.|2009}} Darwin noticed the [[mockingbird]]s differed between islands, though he thought the birds now known as [[Darwin's finches]] were unrelated to each other and did not bother labelling them by island.<ref name="Confessions">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2006/spring/eldredge-confessions-darwinist/|title=VQR – Confessions of a Darwinist|access-date=26 December 2007|author=Niles Eldredge|author-link=Niles Eldredge|date=Spring 2006|magazine=The Virginia Quarterly Review|pages=32–53|archive-date=24 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224110620/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2006/spring/eldredge-confessions-darwinist/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Acting as governor of the islands while Villamil was on the mainland, Nicholas Lawson met Darwin and the British crew, mentioning in passing that the tortoises of the different islands could be easily identified by their different shells.<ref name=monty/><ref>{{cite web|url=  https://firstnighthistory.wordpress.com/tag/nicolai-olaus-lossius/|title=  The Norwegian Who Inspired Darwin |date= 11 September 2015 |publisher=   ThorNews|access-date= 15 July 2016}}</ref> By the end of his voyage, Darwin was beginning to wonder if the distribution of the mockingbirds and the tortoises might "undermine the stability of [[Species]]".{{sfnp|Keynes|2000|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1840&pageseq=328 291–293]}} Upon his return to England, analysis of the bird specimens he had collected showed that what had appeared to be many different species were actually [[finch]]es displaying developments unique to the islands. The voyage became crucial in Darwin's development of his theory of [[evolution]] of species by [[natural selection]], presented in the 1859 ''[[On the Origin of Species]]''.<ref name="Confessions"/>

The Englishman William Gurney became mayor of a new settlement on [[Chatham Island]] in 1844.<ref name=granny2/>

In April 1888 {{USS|Albatross|1882|6}}, a Navy-crewed research vessel assigned to the [[United States Fish Commission]], briefly touched eight islands in the [[Galapagos]] group for specimens;<ref>{{cite book | title = Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands | first = Edward J. | last = Larson | year = 2001 | publisher = Basic Books | location = New York, New York | isbn = 0-465-03810-7 | page = [https://archive.org/details/evolutionsworksh00lars/page/108 108] | quote = The ''Albatross'' stayed in the archipelago for less than two weeks in 1888, but managed to stop at eight different islands. The ship’s naturalists and crew gathered specimens at each anchorage, concentrating on birds, reptiles, and fish. The landfalls included the abandoned settlement on Charles Island, where the ship’s captain report "great numbers of cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep and hots were running wild" where native species once flourished, and a new sugarcane plantation and cattle ranch on Chatham Island that also encroached on wild habitat. | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/evolutionsworksh00lars/page/108 }}</ref> this included Wreck Bay on Chatham Island (now [[San Cristóbal Island]]) on 4 April and Charles Island (now [[Floreana Island]]) on 8 April.

[[José Valdizán]] and [[Manuel Julián Cobos]] tried a new colonization, beginning the exploitation of a type of lichen found in the islands (''Roccella portentosa'') used as a coloring agent. After the assassination of Valdizán by some of his workers, Cobos brought from the continent to San Cristóbal Island a group of more than a hundred workers, and tried his luck at planting sugar cane. He ruled his plantation with an iron hand, which led to his assassination in 1904. In 1897, Antonio Gil began another plantation on Isabela Island.

Over the course of a whole year, from September 1904, an expedition of the Academy of Sciences of California, led by [[Rollo Beck]], stayed in the Galápagos collecting scientific material on geology, [[entomology]], [[ornithology]], [[botany]], [[zoology]], and [[herpetology]]. Another expedition from that Academy was done in 1932 (Templeton Crocker Expedition) to collect insects, fish, [[Exoskeleton|shells]], [[fossil]]s, birds, and plants.