Clash of Civilizations

Just over 500 years ago, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan discovered a sea passage in the southernmost part of the planet—a region then unknown to Europeans, who referred to it as Terra Australis Incognita. This discovery marked a turning point, connecting distant continents and initiating the first wave of globalization in modern history. The passage would become known as the Strait of Magellan.

In Magellan’s wake came European farmers, who had long since domesticated plants and animals. Upon arriving in what would later be called Tierra del Fuego, they encountered hunter-gatherer societies that had lived there for over 10,000 years—descendants of the great migratory adventure of humankind across the planet. Among these Indigenous peoples was an ethnic group later known as the Selk’nam.

The encounter between European farmers and the region’s Indigenous hunter-gatherers marked a tragic turning point: it was, for the latter, a death sentence. A tragedy still insufficiently acknowledged.

Declared extinct in history books and erased by laws written by the victors, the survivors insist they are still here. And today, they are fighting for recognition.