Mocha Island ( ) is a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

an island located west of the coast of

Arauco Province Arauco Province () is one of three provinces of the Chilean region of Bío Bío. It spans a coastal area of just south of the mouth of the Biobío River, the traditional demarcation between the nation's major natural regions, Zona Central and ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. The island is the location of numerous historic

shipwrecks A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

. In

Mapuche mythology Mapuche religion is the traditional Native American religion of the Mapuche people. It is practiced primarily in south-central Chile and southwest Argentina. The tradition has no formal leadership or organizational structure and displays much in ...

, the souls of dead people travel west to visit this island. The waters off the island are a popular place for recreational sea fishing.

History

The island was historically inhabited by an indigenous coastal population of

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

s known as the Lafkenches. The first European to document Mocha was

Juan Bautista Pastene 200px, Map showing the September 1544 expedition led by Pastene. Giovanni Battista Pastene (1507–1580) was a Genoese maritime explorer who, while in the service of the Spanish crown, explored the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru ...

on September 10, 1544, who named it ''Isla de San Nicolas de Tolentino''. According to

Juan Ignacio Molina Fr. Juan Ignacio Molina (; (June 24, 1740 – September 12, 1829) was a Chilean-Spanish Jesuit priest, natural history, naturalist, historian, translator, geographer, botanist, ornithologist, and linguist. He is usually referred to as Abate Moli ...

, the Dutch captain

Joris van Spilbergen Joris van Spilbergen (1 November 1568 in Antwerp – 13 January 1620 in Bergen op Zoom) was a Dutch naval officer. His first major expedition was in 1596, when he sailed to Africa. He then left for Asia on 5 May 1601, from Veere, a seapor ...

observed the use of

chilihueque The chilihueque/chiliweke or hueque/weke (''Lama araucana'') is an extinct hypothetical species of South America, South American Camelidae, camelid. It lived in Central Chile, central and Zona Sur, southern Chile until the Colonial Chile, coloni ...

s (a South American camelid) by native

s of Mocha Island as plough animals in 1614. Mocha Island was regularly visited by

pirates Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

and

privateers A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English Exploration, explorer and privateer best known for making the Francis Drake's circumnavigation, second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580 (bein ...

and

Olivier van Noort Olivier van Noort (1558 – 22 February 1627) was a Dutch merchant captain and the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world.Quanchi, ''Historical Dictionary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Pacific Islands'', page 246 Olivier van Noort ...

are known to have used the island as a supply base. When Drake was visiting it during his

circumnavigation Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first circumnaviga ...

of the globe he was seriously hurt by its Mapuche inhabitants.

Richard Hawkins Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins (or Hawkyns) (c. 1562 – 17 April 1622) was a 17th-century English seaman, explorer and privateer. He was the son of Admiral Sir John Hawkins. Biography He was from his earlier days familiar with ships and the ...

, Drake's cousin, also passed with his ship the '' Dainty''. In 1685, the

were transported by Governor

José de Garro Marcos José de Garro Senei de Artola, nicknamed "El Santo" ("The Saint"), (1623–1702) was a Spanish military man who served in many positions in the colonial administration of the Spanish Empire. He served as governor of Tucumán from 1675–16 ...

to a

reducción Indian reductions in the Andes () were settlements in the former Inca Empire created by Spanish authorities and populated by the forcible relocation of indigenous Andean populations, called "Indians" by the Spanish and "Andeans" by some modern sc ...

on the plain on the right bank of the

Bio Bio River Bio or BIO may refer to: Computing * bio(4), a pseudo-device driver in RAID controller management interface in OpenBSD and NetBSD * Block I/O, a concept in computer data storage Politics * Julius Maada Bio (born 1964), Sierra Leonean politician ...

called the Valley of Mocha that later became the location of the modern city of

Concepción, Chile Concepción (; originally: ''Concepción de la Madre Santísima de la Luz'', "Conception of the Blessed Mother of Light") is a city and Communes of Chile, commune in south-central Chile, and the geographical and demographic core of the Greater Co ...

. The waters off the island were inhabited by

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the Genus (biology), genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the s ...

, including

Mocha Dick Mocha Dick (; died 1838) was a rogue albino (or possibly leucistic) male sperm whale ('' Physeter macrocephalus'') that lived in the southeastern Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off ...

, who was depicted by American explorer and author Jeremiah N. Reynolds in his published account, "Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal" in May, 1839 in ''

The Knickerbocker ''The Knickerbocker'', or ''New-York Monthly Magazine'', was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865. Its long-term editor and publisher was Lewis Gaylord Clark, whose "Editor' ...

'' magazine in New York.J. N. Reynolds.
Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal
" ''The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine''. Vol. 13, No. 5, May 1839, pp. 377–392. Mocha Dick was one of the inspirations for the fictional whale Moby Dick in the 1851 novel ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...

'' by

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...

. Delbanco, Andrew. ''Melville, His World and Work''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005: 167–168.

Polynesian contact

In December 2007 several human skulls with Polynesian features, such as a pentagonal shape when viewed from behind, were found lying on a shelf in a museum in Concepción. These skulls originated from Mocha Island.

Geography

The island is approximately in area, with a chain of mountains running north–south.

Geology

Geologically Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth s ...

, the island is made of

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...

stratum In geology and related fields, a stratum (: strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ...

Ranquil Formation The Ranquil Formation () is a Miocene and Pliocene sedimentary geologic formation, formation located in Arauco Province in Zona Sur, south–central Chile, including outcrops in Mocha Island. The formation has its greatest thicknesses in the south ...

, a formation whose main outcrops lie in the continent. The island was permanently uplifted as result of the

2010 Chile earthquake The 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami () occurred off the coast of central Chile on Saturday, 27 February at 03:34:12 local time (06:34:12 UTC), having a magnitude of 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale, with intense shaking lasting for about ...

but this uplift was less than in the adjacent coast where

Tirúa Tirúa () is a Chilean commune and town in Arauco Province, Biobío Region. The 2010 Chile earthquake led to a permanent uplift of Tirúa of about 180 cm above sea level, the highest recorded uplift related to the earthquake. This caused a lar ...

had the largest uplift of all the coast. The existence of a

splay fault Splay may refer to: *Splay, a verb meaning slant, slope or spread outwards * Splay (physiology), the difference between urine threshold and saturation * Splay (Japanese band), a J-pop band from Osaka * Splay Networks, a Sweden-headquartered grou ...

called Tirúa-Mocha Fault may explain the different behaviour of Mocha Island relative to the mainland during this earthquake.

Environment

Mocha Island National Reserve covers approximately 45% of the island's surface. The

Pacific degu The Pacific degu (''Octodon pacificus''), also known as the Mocha Island degu, is a species of rodent in the family Octodontidae. It is endemic to Mocha Island in Chile. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is ...

(''Octodon pacificus''), also known as the Mocha Island degu, a species of rodent in the family

Octodontidae Octodontidae is a family of rodents, restricted to southwestern South America. Fourteen species of octodontid are recognised, arranged in seven genera. The best known species is the common degu, ''Octodon degus''. Octodontids are medium-sized ...

, is endemic to Mocha Island. The island has been designated an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because it supports significant populations of

pink-footed shearwater The pink-footed shearwater (''Ardenna creatopus'') is a species of seabird. The bird is in length, with a wingspan. It is polymorphic, having both darker- and lighter-phase populations. Together with the equally light-billed flesh-footed shea ...

Peruvian pelican The Peruvian pelican (''Pelecanus thagus'') is a member of the pelican family. It lives on the west coast of South America, breeding in loose colonies from about 33.5 degrees south in central Chile to Piura in northern Peru, and occurring as a ...

red-legged cormorant The red-legged cormorant (''Poikilocarbo gaimardi''), also known as the red-legged shag, red-footed cormorant, red-footed shag, Gaimard's cormorant and grey cormorant, is a species of cormorant resident to the coastline of South America. It is th ...

s and elegant terns.

Climate

References

Sources

Francisco Solano Asta-Buruaga y Cienfuegos, Diccionario geográfico de la República de Chile, SEGUNDA EDICIÓN CORREGIDA Y AUMENTADA, NUEVA YORK, D. APPLETON Y COMPAÑÍA. 1899.
pg. 449–450 Mocha (Isla de)

External links

* * {{Authority control Islands of Biobío Region Archaeological sites in Chile Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact Pacific islands of Chile Important Bird Areas of Chile Important Bird Areas of Oceania Pirates Coasts of Biobío Region Populated coastal places in Chile Piracy in the Pacific Ocean Maritime folklore