Puerto Soledad

Puerto Soledad (Puerto de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, English: Port Solitude) was a Spanish military outpost and penal colony on the Falkland Islands, situated at an inner cove of Berkeley Sound (French: Baie Accaron,Spanish: Bahía Anunciación).

The settlement was established as a French colony under the name Port Saint Louis in 1764, and within a year reached a population of 75 (most of them Acadians), with 3 marriages and 2 births recorded (1 of the births was Francois Benoit. B. 1764, son of Agustin Benoit and Francoise Theriault. Sebastien died in 1839, Bay St. George, Newfoundland) — apparently the first ever in the islands' history. After three years of French possession the settlement was ceded to Spain, and all the French settlers left to be replaced by Spaniards. Acting on personal instructions by King Carlos III, the Spanish Government reimbursed the founder of Port St. Louis, Louis Antoine de Bougainville 618,108 French livres.

Bougainville himself sailed to Port Saint Louis on board the Boudeuse, accompanied by the Spanish ships Esmeralda and Liebre to hand the settlement over to Felipe Ruíz Puente, the first Spanish governor (1767–73) of Puerto Soledad as the settlement would become known. The ceremony took place on April 1, 1767, and from Puerto Soledad Bougainville set sail to make the first French circumnavigation of the world.

Puerto Soledad had 103 residents in 1781: the governor, 2 priests, a treasury official, 3 officers, one surgeon, 50 soldiers, 43 convicts, one mason, and one baker. They occupied some 20 buildings including dwellings, barracks for officers, seamen, convicts and troops, chapel, hospital, kiln, blacksmith and carpenter shops etc. Eventually the number of buildings increased to 30-odd in 1811, with the population dropping to 46. The settlement was protected by three batteries: San Carlos (later renamed San Marcos), Santiago, and San Felipe Batteries. Supply ships came from Montevideo to Puerto Soledad on an annual basis during the summer, bringing relief and supplies. That supply line was temporarily severed during the war waged by Spain against Britain in 1805-08, and the British occupation of Montevideo in 1807, causing considerable hardship to the Puerto Soledad residents.

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