Selknam genocide
1880 CE.
Shown on the map at -54.000°, -70.000°.
The Selkʼnam genocide was the systematic extermination of the Selkʼnam people, one of the four indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego archipelago, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Historians estimate that the genocide spanned a period of between ten and twenty years, and resulted in the decline of the Selkʼnam population from approximately 4,000 people during the 1880s to a few hundred by the early 1900s. During the late 19th century, European and South American livestock companies affiliated with the Chilean and Argentinian governments began to establish estancias (large ranches) on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, which along with the Tierra del Fuego gold rush displaced the indigenous population and heavily disrupted their traditional way of life. In response to violence between non-indigenous settlers and indigenous people, a campaign was conducted by European and South American hunters, ranchers, gold miners and soldiers to exterminate the Selkʼnam. Livestock companies paid their employees and third-party hunters such as Julius Popper to kill or capture Selkʼnam people.
Text from the Wikipedia article Selkʼnam genocide, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.