Abstract

The present study refers to the initial economic activities developed in Magallanes from 1843 and is based on the revision of the copious mercantile documentation contained in the José Nogueira Documentary Collection of the Magallanes Regional Museum. The vital trajectory of the lusitanian immigrant José Nogueira shows the significance that activities such as the barter practiced with the Aónikenk aborigines and the sealing had in the subsequent economic development of the colony of Punta Arenas. The dynamics of extraction and commercialization of skins, capes and feathers from the steppes and rockeries of the Patagonian-Fuegian archipelago linked Magallanes at an early stage on a regional, national and international scale.