Katherine Parker – Strait or Round: Entering the Pacific via Southern Patagonia, 1670-1770

2022 Global Encounters Network Seminar Series Thursday 18 August 2022 Topic – Strait or Round: Entering the Pacific via Southern Patagonia, 1670-1770 Speaker – Dr Katherine Parker Prior to the late-eighteenth century, European exploratory voyages typically entered the Pacific from the east, that is either around Cape Horn or through the Strait of Magellan. This paper will historicise this navigational decision to either round the horn or venture through the strait. It uses as its focus English/British voyages undertaken between 1670 and 1770 and, critically, integrates the study of Indigenous-European encounters and their influence on Pacific geographic knowledge. The first voyage under examination, that of John Narbrough in 1669-1671, was the first Royal Naval expedition to the South Seas; he transited the strait east-to-west and west-to-east. His journal and maps influenced later expeditions and their willingness to enter the strait, including that of George Anson, who led a circumnavigation in 1740-1744. Anson avoided the strait but still offered opinions about the area that would have an enduring impact. The paper will end with the large-scale exploratory expeditions of the 1760s, wherein the British solidified the Pacific as part of their imperial sphere. However, that sphere did not necessarily include the strait, as they preferred to enter the Pacific via Cape Horn. This paper thus investigates how this decision was reached via the examination of manuscript, textual, and cartographic representations of Patagonian space and while taking into account the presence and elision of Indigenous contributions and resistance.