All About the Falkland Islands

Podcast Transcript

Located off the coast of South America and in the Southern Atlantic Ocean is the Falkland Islands.

The Falklands are an almost treeless archipelago where sheep and penguins outnumber the people.

It has little in the way of natural resources beyond fish and grass for grazing.

Yet, these sparsely populated islands have been the subjects of several international disputes and even a war.

Learn more about the Falkland Islands on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

In the big scheme of things, the Falkland Islands aren’t that important on the global stage.

It isn’t very big. If it were a country, it would be slightly bigger than Jamaica and smaller than Montenegro.

It isn’t strategically located with regard to shipping lanes or flight routes.

There are no important minerals that are mined on the island. There is little in the way of agriculture, and there has never been a drop of oil or gas that has been extracted.

Supporting and supplying the islands requires a herculean logistical effort as everything has to be sent from the other end of the globe.

Nonetheless, for well over 200 years, the Falklands have been a highly contested parcel of land.

How did such a rather unimportant set of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean become so highly disputed?

Let’s start at the beginning, and by the beginning, I’m talking 500 million years ago.

If you look at a map, you’d probably guess that the Falkland was once a part of South America. It’s a reasonable guess, but you’d also be wrong.

The Falklands are geologically more closely related to Africa.

The Falkland Islands were once part of Gondwana, the massive supercontinent that included South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia.

Around 500 million years ago, the region that would become the Falklands formed as part of the Cape Fold Belt, now found in South Africa.

During the Jurassic period about 180 million years ago, Gondwana began to break apart due to plate tectonics.

The Falkland Islands are believed to have rotated by ~120° as they drifted away from their original position near what is now South Africa.

By 130 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, the islands had moved to their current location in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Fast forward about 130 million years.

The Falklands, as far as we now, never had any native people who lived there. When Europeans arrived there was no one there and there has never been any evidence found of any pre-Columbian human settlement.

There is debate as to if the native people who lived in Patagonia might have known of the islands or even visited, but if they did, they didn’t have any lasting presence.

Normally, when I go over the European discovery of an island, it’s just a list of various explorers who first observed, documented or landed on the island.

I’m going to do that here, too, but in this case, these early explorers and settlers aren’t just a historical footnote. They play an important role in the current claims to the island today.

The first European who may or may not have seen the islands was Ferdinand Magellan, who in 1520 may have sighted the islands during his circumnavigation of the globe, though there is no confirmed record.

In the 1540s, the islands possibly appeared on Spanish maps, although it is unknown if it was actually the Falklands or just bad 16th century mapmaking.

It wasn’t until 1592 when English navigator John Davis, sailing aboard the Desire is believed to be the first European to have a confirmed sighting of the islands.

Eight years later, in 1600, Dutch sailor Sebald de Weert recorded seeing the islands, naming them the “Sebald Islands.”

Ninety years later, in 1690, British captain John Strong landed on the islands and named the main waterway “Falkland Sound” after a Scottish noble, Anthony Cary, the 5th Viscount Falkland. The title comes from the royal burgh of Falkland in Fife, Scotland.

Still, nothing was done with the islands for decades. But 74 years later, it began to get a lot of attention, and this is where things began to get messy.

In 1764, French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville established a settlement at Port Louis on East Falkland, naming the islands Îles Malouines after the port of Saint-Malo in France. The island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea and the Bougainvillea flowering plant are both named after him.

The next year, in 1765, The British, unaware of the French presence, claimed the islands, with Commodore John Byron establishing a settlement at Port Egmont on Saunders Island.

In 1767, France ceded its settlement to Spain, which was renamed Port Louis Puerto Soledad. Spain now controlled the islands under the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.

The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata covered most or some of the current countries of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

When Spain took control of the islands from France, they Hispanicized the French name Îles Malouines to Islas Malvinas.

In 1770, Spanish forces expelled the British from Port Egmont, nearly leading to war between Spain and Britain.

War was avoided when the next year, in 1771, Britain and Spain reached an agreement allowing the British to return to Port Egmont, though Spain still claimed sovereignty.

Then, in 1774, the British voluntarily abandoned Port Egmont due to financial constraints but left behind a plaque claiming sovereignty … because nothing is better at establishing sovereignty over land than with a plaque.

The Spanish continued with a minor presence on the island until 1811, when they abandoned Puerto Soledad, leaving the islands unoccupied.

So, for those of you keeping score, that is three different countries that claimed sovereignty over the islands, all three of which eventually abandoned the islands.

In 1816, a new player entered the story. The newly independent United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, which we would later know as Argentina, claimed of all of the Spanish territories in the South Atlantic.

In 1820, the Argentines sent an American, David Jewett, commander of the frigate Heroína, to claim the islands on behalf of Argentina. Upon arrival, he raised the Argentine flag and formally declared sovereignty over the Falklands on November 6, 1820.

His proclamation was publicized internationally, including in British newspapers, marking the first official Argentine claim to the islands.

However, Jewett’s authority was weak—he faced starvation, mutiny, and desertion, and his control over the islands was short-lived.

In 1828, Argentina granted a settlement contract to Luis Vernet, who tried to establish a colony.

Then, three years later, in 1831, Vernet clashed with American sealers, leading the U.S. warship Lexington to destroy Puerto Soledad.

Argentina retained a small defense force and some civilians on the islands for a few more years.

However, the British never renounced their previous claim to the islands. In 1833, Britain returned to reassert its claim, expelling the Argentine garrison but allowing civilians to remain.

All of these early 19th-century disputes are the basis of the disputes over the Falkland Islands today.

In 1840, the British finally got serious about the islands and officially made the Falklands a Crown Colony. Also, soon after, almost all of the civilians on the islands moved to the settlement of Port Jackson, which was renamed Port Stanley.

In 1849, the two countries signed the CONVENTION between Great Britain and the Argentine Confederation, for the Settlement of existing Differences and the re-establishment of Friendship.

While Argentina never formally gave up its claim to the islands, their claim became dormant for the next 100 years.

Over the next century, the Islands had a minor role in the various British wars, and the population of the islands grew slowly.

The Argentinian claims to the islands resurfaced in the 1950s under the Argentine president Juan Peron. Peron used the claims to the Islas Malvinas as a way to rally the country.

In the 1960s, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for decolonization, and the Argentines thought this would help their claim, except in the case of the Falklands, there never was a colonized people as no one originally lived there.

In 1965, the United Nations passed Resolution 2065 which called for Britain and Argentina to negotiate.

Formal discussions between British and Argentine diplomats began in 1966.

Argentina pressed for full sovereignty, offering the Falkland Islanders special status and protections.

The UK considered a possible transfer of sovereignty, provided that islanders’ rights and way of life were protected.

By 1968, British officials drafted a Memorandum of Understanding with Argentina.

The UK secretly considered a gradual handover but insisted on ensuring islander approval.

Approval of the islanders became the sticking point. Strong opposition from the Falkland Islanders, who wished to remain British, as well as resistance in parliament, led to the failure of the proposal.

The islanders, although few in number, were extremely tied to their British identity and didn’t want to lose it.

While a transfer of sovereignty was put on hold in 1971, the two countries signed a “Communications Agreement,” which allowed for cooperation between the countries.

Direct flights between Buenos Aires and the Falklands were established via Argentine airline LADE. Argentina provided medical, postal, and fuel services to the islands.

Argentine officials also began increasing their presence in the islands, which concerned many locals.

While differences remained, things were cordial and the two countries were working together.

Everything changed in 1976 when the Argentine military launched a coup d’etat against President Isabel Perón.

Talks between the two countries were renewed in 1977, and in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK, believe it or not, her administration considered turning the Falklands over to Argentina as a cost-savings measure.

General Leopoldo Galtieri became the president of Argentina on December 22, 1981.

By early 1982, Galtieri and the Argentine military junta were facing mounting political and economic instability. Argentina was suffering from hyperinflation, rising unemployment, and a deep economic recession.

Public frustration with the military regime was growing, and the junta needed a distraction from its failures that could serve as a unifying national cause.

On April 2, 1982, the Argentine military dictatorship invaded the Falklands, claiming sovereignty.

I am not going to give a full retelling of the war, as I will leave that for a future episode, but Galtieri and the Junta made several critical errors.

First, they assumed that Britain wouldn’t respond militarily. They thought they were a declining global power that couldn’t respond if they wanted to.

Galtieri also believed the U.S. would remain neutral or even support Argentina because Argentina was a Cold War ally of the U.S. The problem was that the US was an even bigger ally of the British.

On June 14, 1982, British forces defeated Argentina, forcing its surrender after intense battles.

649 Argentines and 255 British were killed in the war. Argentina suffered political instability, leading to the fall of the military dictatorship.

The war led to changes in the Falklands.

In 1983, Britain granted full British citizenship to Falkland Islanders, and in 1985, The Falklands Constitution was introduced, giving self-governance to the islanders.

In 1990, Argentina and Britain restored diplomatic relations, but Argentina continued to claim sovereignty. Every map you see in Argentina has the Islas Malvinas on it, as does the back of every Argentine passport.

In 2013, a referendum took place in the Falklands where 99.8% of islanders voted to remain a British Overseas Territory. The vote was 1513 to 3.

The economy of the Falklands remains pretty limited. It is mostly wool production, fishing, and tourism.

However, in the 2010s, oil exploration around the island discovered significant oil reserves offshore. The Sea Lion oil field in the North Falkland Basin has an estimated 500 million barrels of recoverable oil, but commercial production has yet to begin.

The potential for oil revenue has made the dispute between the UK and Argentina all the more pressing.

The British still have a military base, RAF Mount Pleasant, which protects the islands and has between one to two thousand personnel on base.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Falkland Islands in 2012 as part of a trip to South Georgia and Antarctica. It is a place unlike any other, given how remote and sparsely populated it is.

Visiting there isn’t easy, simply because there are no flights from Argentina. You have to either fly in from Chile or via a special Royal Air Force Flight.

On the Falklands, you’ll find one of the biggest collections of penguins and other sea birds in the world, along with sea mammals such as seals.

The Falklands are a very unusual place in the world. They are a set of islands that have probably been abandoned more than any other because of their lack of economic value, yet today, they’re one of the last contested regions on the planet.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Today’s review comes from listener RebelMalcolm over on ApplePodcasts in the United States. They write.

Best Podcast for Curious Minds!

Hi Gary!

I’m Malcolm! I’ve been listening to your podcast for two years now, ever since the Gunung Padang episode was first released. Your podcast has always been the best thing for me to start my day with. My voraciously curious mind is always eager to learn about the subjects you discuss, including stuff I’ve never even heard of before! You’ve inspired me to travel the world on my own one day potentially. Plus, you make math fun, which is great, considering that’s something I struggle with. Thank you for educating me, this podcast is always a treat!

Thanks, Malcolm! You definitely owe it to yourself to travel extensively at some point in your life. You don’t have to spend as much time on the road as I did, but even a three-month extended trip can be life-changing.

Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read the show.