Recently, it was Falkland Islands' Day in the UK, commemorating the discovery of the islands by John Davis on August 14, 1592. As expected, with these islands claimed by Argentina, as the Islas Malvinas (claim that, unfortunately, led the last military dictatorship to invade them in 1982, in a stupid and sensless war that caused an irreparable breach with the islanders as well as hundreds of young men, dead and maimed, on both sides, Britain, and Argentina), their discovery is also contested.
The Argentine side argues that they were discovered by a cartographer named Andrés de San Martín who, on board of the ship San Antonio, made the first map of the islands. This ship was part of Magellan's voyage to discover a soutern pass from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean, to reach the spice islands of the Far East. In this post we will look into this alleged discovery.
The Story of the San Antonio
When Magellan left Spain in 1519, he had five ships, Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Santiago, and Victoria (the only one to make it back to Spain after sailing around the globe). Of these, the Santiago capsized on the coast of Patagonia at the mouth of the Santa Cruz River in 1520 with no loss of life. y la Santiago. The four remaining ships set sail after wintering in San Julian, in what is now Argentina's Santa Cruz province and entered the Strait of Magellan in October 1520.
Magellan sent the Concepción and the San Antonio into the Strait to explore it. They reached a spot called Cape Forward, that jutted out into it, and marked a place where there were two separate channels to follow. They returned, reported their findings to Magellan who advanced with his fleet to the Cape.
Magellan decided to send the San Antonio and Concepción to explore the two channels, but he first called his pilots and captains to a meeting. Esteban Gómez, the pilot of the San Antonio (which was commanded by Alvaro de Mesquita, Magellans nephew) expressed his point of view: the fleet lacked supplies and was not equipped to face the stormy seas that lay ahead. He proposed that they turn back, and return to Spain. Magellan would have none of this. He ordered the two ships to proceed ahead into the channels. The Concepción returned, but the San Antonio vanished. Magellan waited for it, and finally decided to head west into the Pacific. The loss of the San Antonio was a blow, with a displacement of 120 tons, it was the largest ship in the fleet, and it was packed with supplies and food. This led to famine for the remaining ships as they sailed across the Pacific.
What Magellan didn't know was that the San Antonio had turned around, and in the dark of night, sailed past the ships in the Strait, and headed by the route of Guinea (Africa) to Spain. The crew, led by Gómez seized Mesquita and took control of the ship on November 8, 1520. They reached Seville and complained about the behavior of Mesquita and Magellan, accusing them of treason against the King of Spain (both were Portuguese). Mesquita was sent to prision, and only released when the Victoria returned to Spain in 1522 and its crew, led by Sebastián Elcano told the truth.
During the return trip, from the Strait, to Africa, is where the mythical story of the discovery of the Falklands arose.
There is No written record or map or entry in the ship's log mentioning any islands. But the Argentine version is that they discovered some islands during a stormy spell, and named them San Antón Islands, or Sanson (Samson) Islands.
An article published in the Boletín de la Socieded Geográfica de Madrid, 1899 Volume 41, Annex VIII, p 212 in Pigafetta's First Voyage Around the World quotes a contemporary letter written at the time of the arrival of the San Antonio to Seville:"prendieron al dicho Mezquita en ocho de Noviembre del dicho año veinte é vinieron derechamente á este puerto... Sevilla 12 de Mayo 1521" ("They arrested the said Mezquita on the eighth of November of the said year '20 and came directly to this port... Seville, May 12, 1521") no reports of islands or anything along their voyage back to Spain. They didn't even head north, to San Julián to rescue two men (Cartagena and Calmette) who had been cast asho, in exile, by Magellan to punish them (Cartagena was the King's overseer, and Calmette a priest) for mutiny.
The islands, were not mentioned during the following expeditions to the Strait, conducted by Spanish navigators. This is added proof that they had not been discovered.
Thevet
The map often attributed to the San Antonio is, in fact, the work of André Thevet (1502?–1590). Thevet was a Frenchman, a Franciscan friar, and cosmographer to several kings of France. He traveled extensively and visited South America in 1555. Upon his return to France, he published his experiences in the books "Les singularitez de la France Antarctique" (1557) and "Cosmographie Universelle" (1575). I have discussed Thevet in my book, because he mentioned two strange Patagonian creatures, the Succarath and the Pyrassouppi.
Thevet also wrote a book titled "Le grand Insulaire et pilotage d'André THEVET, Angoumoisin, cosmographe du Roy, dans lequel sont contenus plusieurs plants d'isles habitées et deshabitées et description d'icelles" (The Great Insular Book and Pilotage by André Thevet, native of Angoulême and Cosmographer to the King, containing various plans of inhabited and uninhabited islands and descriptions thereof), a description of the most important islands in the World. It is a manuscript, unpublished, and the original handwritten text can be seen online here. It mentions on page 269, the Isles des Geants (Islands of Giants) he states that they were discovered by the Portuguese sailors that accompanied Magellan on his voyage and that a captain from the Portuguese city of Lisbon told him about them. See the text below:
He included the map, naming them Samson Islands - Giants Islands, shown below (see plate on p. 268)
In the Islario general de todos las islas del mundo (General list of all the islands in the world) by Alonso de Santa Cruz (1505-1567), first published in 1541, the author mentions the islands of Patagonia as reported by Magellan and (see it here online), on page 552, says "...they discovered some islands that were to the east of San Julian, by eighteen leagues and they named them Islands of Samson and the Ducks because on them they found many and very fat that could hardly walk, and half-plucked of which they took many for their voyage and are at 51 degrees of latitude..."
The location is far too close to the coast of Argentina to be the Falkland-Malvinas; 18 leagues is 87 km or 54 miles. The islands are 571 km - 354 mi from San Julian.
The ducks were probably penguins. Looking at the map published by de Santa Cruz, reproduced below, you can see Cabo Blanco, located at 47° S on the upper left side of the map — north is left, south is right (see it in Google maps), a Rio de los Trabajos river (perhaps modern Rio Deseado), and nearby, the Sanson Islands.
Interestingly, just south of Rio Deseado is a Provincial Natural Park, called Isla Pinguino (Penguin Island) with some other smaller islands, that protects a penguin colony there (see it in Google maps). Could these bre the Samson-Ducks islands?
The name Samson, and Giants Islands surely came from the large-sized Patagonian natives, the Patagons reported by Magellan's expedition. Samson, is mentioned in the Bible (Book of Judges ch. 13-16) as an extremely strong man, so he is comparable to the large, muscular Patagonian natives.
Summing it up, I doubt that the San Antonio, or Magellan's ships set eyes on the Malvinas-Falklands Islands. Thevet probably took note of de Santa Cruz's Islands book and included it in his own version.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©
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