Editing Isla de los Estados (section)

==History==
Prior to European arrival, the island was visited by the [[Yamana people]], who inhabited the islands south of [[Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Anne Chapman|title=European Encounters with the Yamana People of Cape Horn, Before and After Darwin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KHwspvMTkCMC&pg=PA69|date=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-51379-1|page=69}}</ref>

The first Europeans to encounter the island were the Spanish naval captain [[Francisco de Hoces]] and his crew in 1526. His ship, the ''San Lesmes'', was part of the Spanish [[Loaísa expedition]] to the Pacific Ocean. The ship found the island after it had become separated from the rest of the fleet in a storm.<ref name="Robert Markham">{{cite journal |last=Robert Markham |first=Sir Clements |author-link=Charles W. Furlong |date=December 1915 |title=A Life of John Davis: The Navigator, 1550-1605, Discoverer of Davis Straits |journal=Preparations for the South».  |pages=97 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zlI6AQAAIAAJ }}</ref>

Almost a century after the Spaniards, the Dutch explorers [[Jacob le Maire]] and [[Willem Schouten]] passed the island on 25 December 1615, naming it ''Staten Landt''. Le Maire and Schouten sailed their ship, ''Eendracht'', through a route south of the Straits of Magellan, a route now called the Le Maire Strait. To his left Le Maire noted the land mass which he called ''Staten Landt''; he theorized it was perhaps a portion of the great '[[Terra Australis|Southern Continent]].' (The first European name for [[New Zealand#Etymology|New Zealand]] was Staten Landt, the name given to it by the Dutch explorer [[Abel Tasman]], who in 1642 became the first European to see the islands. Tasman also assumed it was part of the 'Southern Continent' later known as Antarctica.)

The [[Dutch expedition to Valdivia]] of 1643 intended to sail through Le Maire Strait but strong winds made it instead drift south and east.<ref name=Arana280>{{Cite book|title=Historia general de Chile|last=Barros Arana|first=Diego|publisher=Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes|location=Alicante|chapter-url=http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/historia-general-de-chile-tomo-cuarto--0/html/ff2f1efc-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_67.html|edition=Digital edition based on the second edition of 2000|volume=Tomo cuarto|language=es|chapter=Capítulo XI|author-link=Diego Barros Arana|page=280}}</ref> The small fleet led by [[Hendrik Brouwer]] managed to enter the Pacific Ocean sailing south of the island disproving earlier beliefs that it was part of [[Terra Australis]].<ref name=Arana280/><ref>{{cite book |last=Lane |first=Kris E. |title=Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas 1500–1750 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bRgFqADzOLkC&q=Brouwer |year=1998 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |location=Armonk, N.Y. |isbn=978-0-76560-256-5|page=88}}</ref><ref name=Kock>{{cite web|first=Robbert|last=Kock|url=http://www.colonialvoyage.com/dutchchile.html|title=Dutch in Chile|publisher=Colonial Voyage.com|access-date=23 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160229232448/http://www.colonialvoyage.com/dutch-chile/|archive-date=29 February 2016|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

On New Year's Day, 1775, Captain [[James Cook]] named what is now "Puerto Año Nuevo", "New Year's Port". Seal hunters established a short-lived factory there (1786-1787), but abandoned it after [[Duke of York (1780 ship)|''Duke of York'']] wrecked there on 11 September 1787 while bringing supplies.{{Contradictory inline|reason=Contradicts sourced statement in the preceding paragraph.|date=July 2023}}

No Europeans are known to have settled on the island for more than 200 years. In 1862 Argentine [[Maritime pilot|pilot]] [[Luis Piedrabuena]] established a shelter near Port Cook, and built a small [[Pinniped|seal]] oil extraction facility on the island.<ref>''La Isla de los Estados y el Faro del Fin del Mundo'', By Carlos Pedro Vairo. Ed., Zagier & Urruty Publications. 1998. {{ISBN|978-1-879568-52-5}}</ref>

The island is also referenced in [[Richard Henry Dana Jr.]]'s book ''[[Two Years Before the Mast]]'' as the first land they see after leaving San Diego. He describes the land as ". . . bare, broken, and girt with rocks and ice, with here and there, between rocks and broken hillocks, a little stunted vegetation of shrubs. . ."

More than twenty years later, the San Juan del Salvamento Lighthouse was inaugurated on 25 May 1884, by Comodoro [[Augusto Lasserre]]. It operated until September 1900. The lighthouse, better known as ''Faro del fin del mundo'' ("Lighthouse at the end of the world"), is said to have inspired [[Jules Verne]]'s novel [[Le Phare du bout du monde|''The Lighthouse at the End of the World'']] (1905). A military prison was based on the island from 1896 to 1902. It had to be moved to Tierra del Fuego after being compromised by the strong winds.<ref>''Shipwrecks in Cape Horn-Staten Island, Malvinas and South Georgias'', by Carlos Pedro Vairo. Ed., Zagier & Urruty Publications 2000. {{ISBN|1-879568-77-2}}</ref>