View source for Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego

{{Short description|Dissolved Chilean company}}
[[File:Ovejas afuera de un galpon de esquila SETF.jpg|right|thumb|Sheep roundup for the processing and freezing SETF factory|230x230px]]
The '''Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego''' ('''SETF'''; Spanish: ''Company for the Exploitation of Tierra del Fuego'') was a historically important company operating within the Chilean and Argentine region of [[Patagonia]].<ref name="Martinic 2011" >{{cite journal |last1=Martinic B |first1=Mateo |title=Recordando a un imperio pastoril: La Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego (1893-1973) |trans-title=Remembering a sheepfarmer imperium: The Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego (1893-1973) |language=Spanish |journal=Magallania |location=Punta Arenas |date=2011 |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=5–32 |doi=10.4067/S0718-22442011000100001 |doi-access=free }}</ref> It was founded in 1893 and cultivated over {{cvt|1,000,000|ha|acre}} land for sheep farming and private factories like [[Puerto Bories]] to process, freeze and export sheep meat.
==History==
In 1881, the [[Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina|Treaty of Boundaries]] was negotiated between Argentina and Chile to settle the overlapping boundary dispute concerning [[Patagonia]], which had occurred when each country gained their independence from Spain. By 1886, [[José Nogueira]], a Portuguese shipping magnate, had begun to plan a ranching enterprise for the area. He leased {{cvt|180,000|ha|acre}} of Fuegian land in April 1889 and in November, his brother-in-law, [[Mauricio Braun]] acting as Nogueira's agent, leased an additional {{cvt|170,000|ha|acre}} of land. In 1890, Nogueira and his wife, [[Sara Braun]], secured a lease from President [[José Manuel Balmaceda]]'s administration on a third of the available land in [[Tierra del Fuego]], containing {{cvt|1,009,000|ha|acre}}. A condition of the last lease was that Nogueira establish a Chilean business to manage the land. As he was Portuguese and his wife was [[Courland|Latvian]], Nogueira made a deal with Ramón Serrano Montaner to sell him a third of the lease, at cost, in exchange for Serrano's recruitment of Chilean investors. Before they were able to finalize the organization of the business, Nogueira died, leaving his vast estate to his wife.<ref name="Martinic 2011" />
Upon her husband's death, Braun contacted her brother Mauricio to determine what to do about the lease assignment of Serrano. The siblings agreed that Serrano's involvement complicated the business venture and after a lengthy negotiation, Braun was able to secure Serrano's exchange of his lease rights for 100 shares in the business. On 31 August 1893, the ''Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego'' (Society for the Exploitation of Tierra del Fuego) was founded by the Braun siblings with the major shareholders being Sara Braun; her brother Mauricio and other family members; Juan Blanchard, a partner in the firm Braun & Blanchard; and Peter H. McClelland, the head of the firm Duncan, Fox & Co Ltd.<ref name="Martinic 2011" /><ref name="Gallegos 2015" >{{cite journal |last1=Gallegos Celis |first1=Francisco |title=Testamento de Sara Braun Hamburger |trans-title=Testament of Sara Braun Hamburger |language=Spanish |journal=Magallania |location=Punta Arenas |date=2015 |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=197–204 |doi=10.4067/S0718-22442015000200011 |doi-access=free }}</ref> This group controlled slightly less than a half of the shares, to meet the requirement that the business venture have a majority of Chilean participants. Among the remaining shareholders were Serrano, Juan and Gustavo Oehninger, Cruz Daniel Ramírez, and Guillermo Wilms, who each owned 100 shares of the stock and various minor shareholders from [[Punta Arenas|Magallanes]] and [[Valparaíso]].<ref name="Martinic 2011" />
Initially the company was involved in sheep raising and land speculation, but as their desire to obtain additional land in Argentine Patagonia grew they recruited [[José María Menéndez Menéndez|José Menéndez]] and his son-in-law, Francisco Campos Torreblanca to join in the venture. Initially the Braun and Menéndez families were business rivals,<ref name="Martinic 2002" >{{cite journal |last1=Couyoumdjian |first1=Juan Ricardo |title=MATEO MARTINIC. Menéndez y Braun. Prohombres patagónicos |journal=Historia |location=Santiago |date=2002 |volume=35 |pages=497–500 |doi=10.4067/S0717-71942002003500017 |doi-access=free }}</ref> but in 1895, Menéndez became Mauricio's father-in-law when Braun married Menéndez's daughter, Josefina.<ref name="Martinic 2002" /><ref name=museodemagallanes>{{cite web |title=Vínculos de parentesco y poder de la familia Braun Menéndez |url=https://www.museodemagallanes.gob.cl/645/w3-article-48584.html |website=Museo Regional de Magallanes |language=es }}</ref> While the investors varied over time, until her death Sara  Nogueira Braun remained the largest individual shareholder in the association.<ref name="Martinic 2011" /><ref name="Gallegos 2015" />
While the business acquisitions created an [[Oligarchy|oligarchical group]] which controlled production and development of southern Chile, it also displaced the original inhabitants of those lands. Fences created obstacles for the nomadic life of the [[Selk'nam people]] and introduction of sheep herds displaced their main food source, the [[guanaco]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Marchante |first=José Luis Alonso |title=Menéndez, rey de la Patagonia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NcdUDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT59 |year=2014 |publisher=[[Catalonia (publisher)|Editorial Catalonia]] |location=Santiago, Chile |isbn=978-956-324-316-1 |pages=56–59}}</ref> Facing starvation and with no concept of ownership, they began to steal livestock. The Exploitation Society asked and received permission from the Chilean government to remove the indigenous population from the area.{{sfn|Marchante|2014|p=244}}<ref name="Moreno 2017">{{cite news |last1=Austral |first1=La Prensa |title=Muerte y testamento de dos controvertidos personajes de la historia de Magallanes |trans-title=Death and testament of two controversial characters in the history of Magellan |language=Spanish |url=https://archivo.laprensaaustral.cl/cronica/muerte-y-testamento-de-dos-controvertidos-personajes-de-la-historia-de-magallanes/ |work=La Prensa Austral |date=19 November 2017 }}</ref> Menéndez gave orders for the extermination of the Selk'nam, paying a bounty for each death.<ref name=museodemagallanes/> Repression against the Selk'nam, who now numbered only roughly a hundred, continued after the [[Selk'nam genocide|genocide]]. Chile moved the remaining Selk'nam people to [[Dawson Island]], where they were placed in [[Internment|concentration camps]]. Argentina eventually allowed [[Salesians of Don Bosco|Salesian missionaries]] to aid the Selk'nam and attempt to [[Cultural imperialism|culturally assimilate them]], with their traditional culture and livelihoods at this point completely destroyed.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adelaar |first1=Willem |title=Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |date=2010 |publisher=[[UNESCO]] |isbn=978-9231040962 |pages=92}}</ref>
Under agrarian reforms in the 1960s, the society changed its name in 1964 to ''Ganadera Tierra del Fuego S.A.'' and was dissolved officially in 1973.
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:History of Patagonia]]
[[Category:1893 establishments in Chile]]
[[Category:1973 disestablishments in Chile]]
[[Category:Sheep farming in Chile]]
[[Category:Sheep farming in Argentina]]