The dawn of the city of Ushuaia

The vast desert lands located at the south of Rio Negro and Rio Neuquen worried the authorities of Buenos Aires only because of the quarrelsome Indians (Mapuches) they sheltered, guilty of ceaseless "malones" in the middle of the Pampa's estancieros lands.
Beyond, still coarse maps mentioned the existence of a more or less triangular drawing island , that the sailors of Magellan had baptized in 1520 "Tierra del Fuego", without knowing that fires in question emanated from encampments of Indians established there for thousand years.They were called Onas (or Selkman) and Yamanas. Contrary to their cousins of North, they were peaceful, lived hunting and fishing on a territory to which they had given, for a long time already, the name of "Karukinka".
Other ships followed the passage of the Magellan one's during following centuries, but direct contacts with the white man were rare. It happened that certain generations were aware of his existence only through tales of the oldest.
But during this year 1884, if oldest remembered the passage of the “Beagle", 50 years earlier, youngest had got into habit of keeping close to English missionaires like Pastors Mathews and Bridges and other men overcome by goldfever, settled in the north of the island.Did they understand the consequence of the gesture achieved by Commander Augusto Laserre at the head of the Argentinian Army South Atlantic task force, on this 12th of October : that this flag set up in this bay they used to call Ushuaïa, meant the birth of new city, and by inches their people death ?

Natural photographs taken without filter at 5h30 a.m. on October 4, 2006

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