PATAGONIA. — From Spanish *patagones* = big feet, a characteristic of the Tehuelche Indians, the native people. A region at the extreme tip of South America, discovered in 1520 by the Portuguese navigator F. Magellan (Magalhães); belonging to the Argentine Republic and in small part to Chile. It is bounded to the north by the Río Colorado, to the south by the Strait of Magellan, to the west by the Pacific Ocean and to the east by the Atlantic, covering an area of approximately 1 million sq. km. Population: approximately 210,000 inhabitants; its economy is essentially pastoral.
Evangelization. — The mission among the Indians of P. began in 1880 with the foundation, by the Salesians who had penetrated the land with the Argentine army in 1879, of the residences of Viedma and Patagones on the Río Negro. The Argentine government had set out to subdue those brigandish tribes, which until then had made any colonization of the south impossible. Fr. Domenico Milanesio acted as mediator of peace in a manner satisfactory to both parties and thus opened the way to the Gospel.
Since the distance from Buenos Aires, on which the mission of P. depended ecclesiastically, was too great, Don Bosco took the necessary steps in Rome and Buenos Aires to obtain the erection of independent missionary territories. On 16 November 1883 the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern and Central Patagonia and the Apostolic Prefecture of Southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego were erected. The first Apostolic Vicar of the said vicariate was, from 30 November of the same year, Msgr. CALÒ, PIETRO (v.), who in 1875 had led the first group of Salesians to Argentina. On his second journey to Argentina, on 1 February 1885, after his consecration, he was accompanied by 18 Salesians and 6 Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. From the outset Msgr. Cagliero protected the natives from exploitation by the colonists and with special care devoted himself to the youth. During his administration 47,000 people were baptized in the vicariate, of whom 15,000 were natives. As the vicariate increasingly became a colony of whites and the Indians had almost all converted, in 1899 the territory was again annexed to the archdiocese of Buenos Aires and divided into rural vicariates governed by Salesians. The same fate befell the Prefecture of Southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, which was suppressed in 1916. The Prefect, Msgr. Giovanni Fagnano, had assumed the mission of the Falkland Islands in 1888. In 1916 the Argentine part was organized as a rural vicariate, while the Chilean part was transformed into the Apostolic Vicariate of Magellan. In three prophetic dreams of 1872, 1883 and 1885 Don Bosco had foreseen the entire missionary, cultural and economic development of P. Today, practically all the Indians are Catholic and the majority of them live secluded in reductions in very wretched economic, intellectual and spiritual conditions. The Salesians visit them periodically for religious instruction and the administration of the Sacraments. The conditions of the Araucanians are somewhat better.
On 20 April 1934 the diocese of Viedma was erected for the Argentine part, as suffragan of La Plata. The Apostolic Vicariate of Magellan in the Chilean part was elevated to a diocese under the name of Punta Arenas on 21 January 1947. The Falkland Islands, a British possession, however, still depend on the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda.