PATAGONIA. - From the Spanish patagones = big feet, a characteristic of the indigenous Tehuelche Indians. 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 Rio Colorado, to the south by the Strait of Magellan, to the west by the Pacific Ocean and to the east by the Atlantic, comprising an area of about 1 million sq km. Population: about 210,000 inhabitants; it has an essentially pastoral economy.
Evangelization. - The mission among the Indians of P. began in 1880 with the founding by the Salesians, who had penetrated the land with the Argentine army in 1879, of the residences of Viedma and Patagones on the Rio Negro. The Argentine government had set out to subdue those marauding tribes, which until then had made any colonization of the south impossible. Fr. Domenico Milanesio acted as a peace mediator in a manner satisfactory to both sides 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 in Buenos Aires to obtain the erection of independent missionary territories. On 16 Nov. 1883 the apostolic vicariate of northern and central P. and the apostolic prefecture of southern P. and Tierra del Fuego were erected. The first apostolic vicar of the said vicariate was, from 30 Nov. of the same year, Msgr. Giovanni Cagliero (v.), who in 1875 had led the first group of Salesians toward Argentina. On his second journey to Argentina, on 1 Feb. 1885, after his consecration, he was accompanied by 18 Salesians and 6 Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. From the beginning Msgr. Cagliero had protected the natives from exploitation by the colonists and devoted himself with special care to the young. During his governance 47,000 people were baptized in the vicariate, of whom 15,000 were natives. Since the vicariate was increasingly becoming a colony of whites and the Indians had almost all been converted, in 1899 the territory was again annexed to the archdiocese of Buenos Aires and divided into rural deaneries governed by Salesians. The same fate befell the prefecture of southern P. and Tierra del Fuego, suppressed in 1916. The prefect Msgr. Giovanni Fagnano had in 1888 taken over the mission of the Falkland Islands. In 1916 the Argentine part was organized as a rural deanery, 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 Catholics and the majority of them live secluded in reductions in very miserable 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 Apr. 1934, for the Argentine part, the diocese of Viedma was erected, a suffragan of La Plata. The apostolic vicariate of Magellan in the Chilean part was on 21 Jan. 1947 elevated to a diocese under the name of Punta Arena. However, the Falkland Islands, a British possession, still depend on the S. C. of Propaganda.