Falkland Islands History

In the 1820s Argentina began its own short-lived colonisation attempt in East Falkland, which was best by mutinies, tangles with the US Navy when American sealers were arrested and finally expulsion.

One of the Royal Navy ships that visited in this brief period of anarchy was HMS Beagle on a surveying mission under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy. The ship’s naturalist was a young Charles Darwin, only then starting out on the journey that would lead him to formulate the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin wasn’t overly impressed by the Falklands.

Possibly influenced by the island’s rough and ready politics and frontier atmosphere, he described its landscapes as having an ‘air of desolation.’ He mainly collected geological samples, but did at least find time to leave one of the few accounts of the warrah, or Falkland Islands wolf, which was driven to extinction by sheep farmers within 45 years of his visit.

The outbreak of the First World War reminded the British of the strategic location of the Falkland Islands. The Royal Navy used the islands as a base to disrupt German warships off the South American coast. In December 1914, the German navy was sighted near Stanley and in a ferocious battle the squadron was almost completely sunk off in the waters off the east of the islands.

During the Second World War, the Royal Navy again operating around the islands took part in the Battle of the River Plate, the first major naval battle of the war. Although the British cruisers were damaged, they forced the commander of the German flagship Graf Spee to scuttle his own ship rather than surrender it.

In 1944, the Falkland Islands served as the base for Operation Tabarin, which aimed to deter a foreign presence in Antarctica by establishing a base Port Lockroy in Antarctica, as well as reinforce British claims on the islands themselves. The survey work the operation did lead to the eventual establishment of the British Antarctic Survey.

Argentina never renounced its claim to the Falkland Islands and renewed its calls in the 1960s during the period of decolonisation in the British Empire. Negotiations between London and Buenos Aires throughout the 1960s and 70s failed to resolve the situation. In 1981 the British removed the automatic right to British citizenship from the islanders while also removing the Royal Navy’s only ship in the South Atlantic.

This was all that General Leopoldo Galtieri, leader of the military dictatorship then in power in Argentina needed to seize the initiative. On April 2 1982, Argentine soldiers landed in the Falkland Islands and seized its garrison. Soon over 10,000 soldiers, mostly conscripts, were in occupation. In response, the British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent a large taskforce by sea to wrest back control.

Until the invasion most Britons were reported to have thought that the islands were somewhere north of Scotland; on the other side the celebrated Argentinian writer Jose Luis Borges described the war as 'a fight between two bald men over a comb.' 

The occupation lasted 74 days. When the Union Flag was finally raised at the end of the war, the numbers killed in the conflict totalled 255 British forces, 649 Argentine dead and three Falkland Islands civilians, all women.

Argentina today is a vibrant democracy, but the wound of Las Malvinas continues to affect relations between it and Britain to this day. The only air links between the Falkland Islands and South America run through Chile rather than Argentina and while it is not uncommon to hear Spanish spoken today in Stanley, it is because of migrant workers from Santiago and beyond.

In 2013 the Falkland Islands held its own sovereignty referendum. This was partly in response to tensions following the granting of profitable oil exploration licences and the banning of Falklands shipping from Argentine ports. Over 99% of the votes cast were to remain British.

Today, the Falkland Islands earn the majority of its money from fishing and fisheries licences. No work has been done to develop and oil fields, but tourism has been an increasing income generator for the population, particularly in the outlying islands cruise ship visitors outstrip sheep farming for profitability.