kees bouten in sailingsteps chiloe

Around the world: San Carlos

In sailingsteps of my ancestor captain Jacob Bouten

Around the world: Chiloé



1 Kees Bouten © 2012 Sailingsteps

Sailingsteps Chiloé

When leaving Valparaiso captain Jacob Bouten had left half of his cargo in Valparaiso and

took the other half with him again to get a better price in San Francisco. But first he went to S.

Carlos on an island ‘Chilive’ in the south of Chile, in order to get more wood to ship to San

Francisco.

The day after they arrived in San Carlos there enterd two more ships and thus they were

anchored in the bay with four ships, one from Spain, one from France and an American one.

Because they were anchored at long distance from the village, they rented an empty house

where each of them took a room, furnitured with their own furniture from their ships. On a

hill half an hour behind the village they visited the governor of the island and in order to

please the inhabitants of the village and especially the priest, they started to go to church

every morning. The priest liked this that much that he came to have a glas of wine with us

every evening.

When I planned my trip I had not succeed in finding out about San Carlos on the island of Chilive in the

south of Chile. It was only one month before I left, when booking my ticket, that Judith Post uncovered

information. Judith is the woman from the World Ticket Center I contacted by email in order to arrange

my ticket for the trip. She is Dutch, but appeared to be living in Chile and when she wrote to me, she said

that when she read Chilive Island and pronounced it in Spanish that it sounded like the island of Chiloé,

located between Valparaiso and Cape Horn. Shortly afterwards she found out that a settlement Villa y

Fuerte Real de San Carlos was founded on the island in 1768, a place which is now called Ancud! Judith

appeared to be living in Pucon in the lake district between Valparaiso and Ancud, an area I already

intended to visit.

Judith Post with my not-tulips at home in Pucon, where se lives with her husband Gonzalo, since 20 March and from 4 May with their son Pablo. Pucon is a very nice town, not only at Lago Villarica, but also at the foot of the Volcán Villarica. This volcano is still active and with the earthquake of 27 February, Judith thought that it was an eruption of the v0lcano. That thought must have been even more frightening than realizing it is an earthquake!

So when I left Valparaiso on Thursday April 1st I flew from Santiago to Temuco, where I took a car to

Pucon for some days and then to Valdivia, Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt to Chiloé. On April 5th I

arrived in Ancud and a couple of minutes later I saw a tallship in the bay.

Driving around the bay and going to a look-out to have a view of the bay, I saw there were four tallships,

exactly as there were when Jacob Bouten was here 160 years ago! What a coincidence !




Four threemast ships in the bay of Ancud

As Jacob Bouten describes it, the bay of Ancud is a huge bay, protected from the sea on three sides. I

drove around to Ahui, from where I had a better view of Ancud and one of the ships.

“Cisne Branco” Brasil




The island of Chiloé is located at

latitude 42°, in the middle between

Valparaiso and Cape Horn. The

Dutchman Hendrik de Brouwer was

the first European to arrive on the

Mapuche island, but soon afterwards it

fell in Spanish hands in 1643.

As Judith found out the settlement of

Villa y Fuerte Real de San Carlos de

Chiloé, now known as Ancud, was

founded in 1768 and from the end of the 18th-century important fortifications were built in the area.

Northside of Chiloé with the Bay of San Carlos and Chacao Canal

During the Independence War with the Spanish, Chiloé was the last area to be freed from the Spanish.

This only happened in 1826.

Chiloé used to be an island of fishermen and with much wooded land, but the first things known about

the island are because the “Beagle” visited the island in 1834.

Girl resp Woman (weaving) of Chiloé by Conrad Martens

Nowadays Ancud is a touristic place, the capital of the island still, but not the most important place

anymore; this is Castro now.

When I visited Ancud I stayed in Hotel Galeon Azul, in the center of the village above the shore on the

bay and next to Museo Regional de Ancud. During my first afternoon in Ancud, I was introduced to the

director of the museum because the Directore could speak English and she appeared to be speaking




Dutch aswell. Her name was Marijke van Meurs, born in Chile from a Dutch father and a Chilean

mother. She had studied in Holland and worked in Santiago first, and was now the director of the

museum. The museum was being renovated when I was there and she was very occupied by this.




Nevertheless I was invited to her home twice, where we had lunch together with her parents (90 years

old) who lived with her some 20 minutes west from Ancud with a magnificant view of the bay. Since I

had a car she has been showing me around some of the area along the Pacific Ocean and once we took

her parents with us to show them around in their area.

Behind the museum the “ancud” could be visited, a replica of the ship, build in Ancud in 1842, which

sailed to Patagonia in 1843 to claim it for Chile.

I did not meet the priest (as Jacob Bouten did), or bishop nowadays, although I tried to. I went to the

church together with an employee of the museum, but we did not succeed in getting any information.

Instead I was more succesful at the townhall, where after some time, I found someone who spoke English

and some time later a number of people found the following informatioin for me:

Justo Donoso Vivanco had been the Obispo in 1849 (so it was a bishop at that time already). I obtained a

whole printed page, with information (in Spanish) about him:

Justo Donoso Vivanco, teacher, journalist and politician in Chile. Born in Santiago on July 10 of 1800 .

He died in La Serena on February 22 of 1868 . Son of Don Juan de Dios Donoso and Mrs. Gertrude

Vivanco . In 1826 he was a novice in the Recoleta Dominica. As a journalist, he ''founded the "Revista

Catholic', a Militant Liberal Party .

He was ordained a priest and a law degree. Later he was appointed rector of the Seminario Conciliar

and ecclesiastical judge of Santiago . In 1843 he was appointed secretary of the Faculty of Theology

and in 1844 , Bishop of Ancud . He published the Handbook of American Pastor; Instructions

American Canon Law, Canon Theological Dictionary and Guide to the Pastor and Priest.

Elected Senator Llanquihue in 1843 , a position he held until 1852 . Deputy for Ancud and Castro in

1852 . He went to La Serena in 1855 where he assumed the bishopric of the diocese. Between 1855 and

1864 was an alternate senator, but never took ownership. On September 18th of 1861 he was appointed

Minister of Justice, Culture and Public Instruction.

At the moment Juan Maria Agurto is the bishop in Ancud.

Since Jacob Bouten also wrote about the governor in San Carlos, I thought why not ask them about him

too, so I found:

José Ramon Lira Calvo (born in Santiago 1807, † 1876) was the governor of Chiloé from 1848 to 1852.

At the town hall they said he had to be an important man at that time, because he was married to a

daughter of one of the heroes of the country!

After my trip, Jeroen Bouten, a nephew of mine translated for me from Spanish:

In het tweede huwelijk van Santos Lira werd José Ramón Lira Calvo geboren, als oudste zoon, in 1807

in Santiago, Chile.




Hij trouwde met Josefa Carrera. De familie Carrera was destijds een van de rijkste en invloedrijkste

families uit Chili. Haar vader José Miguel Carrera was een Chileense generaal die opkwam voor de

vrijheid van Chile, het laatste kwam hem duur te staan door zijn executie in 1821. Samen met Josefa

Carrera kregen zij een zoon, Carlos.

José Ramón behoorde meteen na zijn studie tot de rechterlijke macht, eerst als advocaat in Santiago en

vervolgens als een aanklager van het Hof van Beroep in deze stad. Vrij snel daarna starte zijn politieke

carriere als lid van de eerste kamer gevolgd door zijn benoeming tot commandant van de strijdkrachten

van het eiland Chiloé in 1848. Gedurende zijn bestuur heeft hij onder andere de expeditie georganiseerd

om de straat van Magellan eigendom van Chili te maken. In Chiloé werd hij ook benoemd tot een

ambassadeur vanuit de overheid, gevold door dezelfde benoeming in Santiago en later in Coquimbo.

In 1865 werd hij gouverneur van de stad Valpaiso, wat later tevergeefs werd belegerd door de Spaanse

vloot. Vervolgens heeft hij meerdere functies bekleed onder andere als minister van Oorlog en Marine

en aanklager van het Hof van Beroep in Santiago. Gedurende deze periode heeft hij mede aan de

grondvesten gestaan van de constitutie van Chili. In 1876 is hij overleden te Santiago.

Nowadays governor Cesar Zambrano lives near Castro at Chiloé. Ancud has a mayor, Frederico Krüger

Finsterbush.

So this is what I have been able to find in Ancud. Again it was an earthquake that destroyed most of the

buildings from former years. In the case of Ancud it was the earthquake of 1960, with 9,5 Richter the

biggest one in Chile and the world (since they started to be measured and recorded).

The next painting from San Carlos shows the church, visited by Jacob Bouten and the other three captains

every morning, as it must have looked in 1849. Before the earthquake of 1906 it was replaced by a

cathedral and nowadays it is a small church built from wood again. Next to the entrance of the church

there is a sign that states that the church of 1849 was a cathedral and built in 1840 (or something like

that?).

Plaza de San Carlos – Chiloé 1834, with church on the righthand side (south)




Ancud with Plaza de Armas and cathedral (at topside, south) ~1960

Church at Plaza de Armas in 2010

Most information out of Dutch newspapers I found when I was back in Holland again after my trip

around the world. For instance:

NRC 05-02-1850, Zeetijdingern, Vreemde Havens: Valparaiso 20 Nov. Jan van Hoorn, Bouten, n.Chiloe.

NRC 08-02-1850, Scheepstijdingen: Rotterdam 7 Febr. Volgens berigt is den 21sten November vertrokken van Valparaiso naar St San Francisco, via St Carlos op Chiloë, het barkschip Jan van Hoorn, kapt.J. Bouten, van Dordrecht.

NRC 11-03-1850, Zeetijdingen, Vreemde Havens: San Carlos 23 Dec. Zeilkl.: Jan van Hoorn, Bouten, San Francisco.

Could have been an easier way to find out about San Carlos, Chilive and when he left from Valparaiso ,

but I did not. I took the more difficult but also the much nicer way to find about these. Anyhow, here we

can see that the “Jan van Hoorn” was ready to leave from Chiloé to San Francisco on december 23rd,

1850




Ancud village

Ancudharbour

kees bouten in sailingsteps chiloe

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