In 1756, the French intellectual Charles de Brosses (1709-1777) published Histoires des Navigations aux Terres Australes under the approval and license of King Louis XV of France. Across its two volumes, the primary aim of this work was to narrate in his own language the experiences of each expedition that ventured into what were known as the Austral lands-defined by the author as “everything that lies beyond the southernmost points of the known world in Africa, Asia, and the Americas; specifically, the Cape of Good Hope, the Moluccas and Celebes islands, and the Magellan Strait” ¹. Until that moment, these territories had been regarded as unknown spaces.

Brosses’ project was not merely descriptive but programmatic: by synthesizing manuscripts, chronicles, and firsthand accounts-ranging from Vespucci to Le Hen-Brignon (1747), he aimed to transform the Austral zone from a terra nullius into a space of modern habitability, ripe for French imperial ambition. He sought to inspire French noblemen to leverage their wealth and influence to “discover” these lands and, in doing so, historically vindicate France by positioning it within the grand narrative of European expansion. In his view, history had deprived France of iconic figures such as Ferdinand Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, or Olivier van Noort². As it is well known, this work proved pivotal: just a few years later, it enabled France to undertake its first circumnavigation under Bougainville, thereby establishing its presence in the Austral seas from that point onward.

Brosses’ vision hinged on a paradoxical appropriation of the unknown. While he celebrated the Austral zone as a “new world”³ of “wonderful physical and moral spectacles”⁴ —teeming with undiscovered species, medicinal plants, and commercial potential— he rejected traditional colonial conquest. Instead, he advocated for a “vegetative cultural model”: a network of entrepots that respected local ecological and anthropological cycles, ensuring sustainable resource extraction while avoiding the abuses of Spanish encomiendas⁵. His proposal, drawing on the precedents of Dutch and Portuguese trading networks, crystallizes the modern paradigm of habitability, a conceptual framework in which human engagement with the world is fundamentally organized around the identification, extraction, and exploitation of resources, even in the most remote and extreme regions⁶. In other words, his perspective embodies the principle of terra nullius as a justification for appropriating “unknown” lands, while simultaneously outlining a model of habitability to legitimize such claims⁷.

This connection with habitability begins at the start of volume I, when he relates the discovery of the southern hemisphere to the paradigm shift from the ancient Greek notion of habitability. It highlights how, after the first circumnavigation in 1522, the Magellan Strait and the surrounding lands became empirical proof that all latitudes of the world are habitable, which contrasts sharply with the classical division of the earth into habitable and uninhabitable zones based on climate that had been promoted since the Greeks. Furthermore, he proposes the idea that these territories at the end of America were the gateway to the rest of the southern lands that existed.

What makes Brosses’ Histoires an ideal example to introduce this study is its dual function as both source and method. First, his chain of ideas allows us to present our hypothesis about “habitability programs”, that is, the official and coordinated effort —between courts, scientists, and private actors— to transform regions perceived as unknown and inhospitable into exploitable and globally connected territories. Second, the work reveals the genealogical nature of these programs. These were not isolated enterprises, but rather they acted as a network, reusing previous knowledge and relating it to new knowledge⁸. Brosses underscores that his work built upon the chronicles of Fernández de Oviedo, Ramusio, Hackluyt, De Bry, Herrera, and Tordesillas, while simultaneously participating in Académie des Sciences discussions on planetary rotation, climate zones, and latitude⁹. This dual engagement positioned his text within the French geographical tradition pioneered by La Popelinière in the late 16th century¹⁰. Functioning as a practical guide for navigating the unknown, his work synthesizes travel narratives and empirical evidence, effectively rendering unfamiliar territories accessible and exploitable.

Historians have analyzed expeditions to the southern region through five distinct analytical frameworks, as evidenced by an extensive bibliography, though space constraints preclude a comprehensive review here: i) as explorations anticipating further territorial gains, centred around commercial aspects and connections with Asia; ii) from a geopolitical perspective, in association with imperial disputes over spaces seen as terra nullis, and the consequent cartographic production of newly discovered spaces¹¹; iii) as journeys that allow the analysis of imaginaries such as the City of the Caesars or Terra Australis; iv) as scientific journeys to prove certain postulates¹²; v) from a perspective associated with the history of the border between Chile and Argentina¹³.

These perspectives encapsulate a view of “progress” associated with these journeys, in response to the idea of “European expansion” and, as a result, polarised perceptions of these expeditions in terms of either success or failure, or imperial or private enterprises. In other words, any movements towards the Austral zone of the Americas have been interpreted through the perspective of the expeditions and their challenges (costs, shipwrecks, or mutinies) or their achievements (securing data and improving navigability). This approach has established hierarchies among expeditions and captains, obscuring the information that their frequently less known crews left behind, despite their fundamental role in the exploration of the area. This explains the constant remembrance of figures like Magellan, Drake, and Cook, whose passages through the region has been evaluated as successful, especially due to the “feat” of circumnavigation associated with them¹⁴.

This article examines two “periods of intensity” (1578-1625 and 1760-1798), during which European imperial powers —Spain, England, the Dutch Republic, and later France— focused their exploratory and colonial efforts on the southern region, sparking an unprecedented surge in knowledge production about the area. These periods underscore how the region was conceptualized as a “potentially habitable” space, while also revealing its fundamental yet understudied role in the relocation of experimental fields, a process that significantly influenced new theoretical formulations in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries¹⁵. Though often overshadowed by studies of the Caribbean and North America¹⁶, this region became a critical site for redefining scientific and political understandings of habitability.

Studying this region as an unknown space in relation to the notion of habitability is crucial because modernity itself was shaped through dialogue with and the experience of the unknown¹⁷. During this period, science and politics coincided in their commitment to unexplored territories, using the unknown to challenge inherited traditions, expand geographical knowledge, and redefine the boundaries of the habitable world, using various types of discourse such as novelty or exoticism to achieve this goal¹⁸.

Through a combined historiographical and lexicometric analysis of the diaries and records left by these expeditions, this article highlights and examines the indicators of habitability documented across the centuries. Printed by leading publishing houses in Venice, Antwerp, Lyon, London, and Amsterdam, these works offer an invaluable foundation for understanding how early modern habitability programs functioned and what types of information they produced to assess and promote the potential of distant territories¹⁹.

There were almost seventy expeditions to the Austral zone of the Americas, largely Spanish, English, Dutch and French, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (tables 1, 2, 3). These were mainly sea journeys, although in some cases, land travelling was involved, such as in those organised in the Viceroyalty of Peru, the Captaincy of Chile, and the Rio de la Plata area. For climatic reasons, most of the expeditions took place during the Southern Hemisphere late spring and summer periods, except for those carried out by Drake and the Baltasar and Simón de Cordes brothers, who stayed over the winter.

The starting and ending points varied. For instance, from Europe, some departed from Seville, Le Havre, Portsmouth, or Hoorn, with stops in Brazil or south of the Rio de la Plata. Those beginning in American Pacific area stopped in Concepción or Valdivia, which were 1,870 and 1,350 kms from the Magellan Strait, respectively. On average, the expeditions stayed for one to three months, depending on the objectives of each journey and climatic conditions. As the Nodal brothers stressed in 1619, the climatic component was a key factor, because the success or failure of their voyage depended on the weather. The objectives had to be fulfilled before the end of the summer period²⁰.

Rather than a series of isolated expeditions, the exploration of the unknown represented a sustained, collaborative, and strategically planned effort to transform spaces historically deemed uninhabitable —or even perceived as marvellous²¹— into potentially habitable environments. The southern tip of America, for instance, emerged as a critical reference point for the implementation of what can be termed “habitability programs”: integrated initiatives that combined political, scientific, and technological strategies to make these territories viable for settlement, resource exploitation, and geopolitical integration. These programs were not merely exploratory, but were programmatic, reflecting a broader imperial strategy aimed at redefining the boundaries of the known world.

Expeditions were subject to rigorous and protracted preparation, often requiring months or even years of planning. In June 1581, the Spanish pilot and cosmographer Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa wrote a letter to Philip II explaining the detailed operational framework for his expedition, which included selected workers, tools, scientific instruments (such as astrolabes and nautical charts), and defensive fortifications²². His insistence on a structured division of labor —among engineers, farmers, and other specialists— demonstrates a methodical integration of human, technical, and material resources, a defining feature of these initiatives. Rather than assuming a passive role —awaiting the land to disclose its potential— Sarmiento de Gamboa in his letters pursued a proactive and constructive strategy, systematically combining agriculture, cartography, and logistics to engineer habitable conditions.

Such programmes were outlined in instructions which combined politics and science. These documents shaped the actions of sailors who were recommended to have a vast knowledge of their destinations and be equipped with conceptual tools and a practical outlook to undertake their tasks²³. Upon return, they ought to hand over the logbook to the authorities for examination. A good example comes from the Nodal brothers, who, in addition to submitting their reports, also delivered sea lion skins, arrows, seashell necklaces, flint knives, and the pepper found in the middle of the Magellan Strait, “which grows on leafless trees like the strawberry trees of Spain, as well as flightless seabirds known as penguins”²⁴.

The notes show that advantageous geography and bioclimatic considerations were the first topics highlighted upon arrival in the area. Whilst anchored in San Julian Bay (47º 30’ S), Drake commented “we found a bay, which was faire, safe, and beneficial to us, very necessary for our use”²⁵. Further down south, in the area now known as Nodales Bay, he stressed the site’s potential indicating that “there is a river of fresh water, with a great many profitable Islands…of which some have always such store of seales or seaweeds as were able to maintain a huge army of men. Other Islands being many and great, are so replenished with birds and foul, as if there were no other victuals, a wonderful multitude of people might be nourished by the increase of them for many posterities”²⁶.

Upon arrival in the Magellan Strait his appreciations of the area did not change, yet he highlighted the lack of “civility” which he thought might make it difficult to realise the land’s potential. “The herbs that are of very strange sorts, good and many; the trees for the most part of them always green; the ayre of the temperature of our country, the water most pleasant; and the soil agreeing to any graine which we have growing in our country: a place no doubt, that lacks nothing, but a people to use the same to the Creators glory, and the increasing of the Church: the people inhabiting these parts, made fires as we passed by in divers places”²⁷. When Drake reached 55º south latitude, after naming an island “Elizabeth”, describing it as “beautiful and grand” and the soil “fertile and the weather calm”²⁸, he found other less splendid islands which he still saw as useful because of the strange beings that inhabited these. A few years later when Cavendish approached Elizabeth Island he praised its freshwater sources: “which river hath very good and pleasant ground about it, and it is low and champion soyle”²⁹.

Their impressions are examples of how descriptions were organised and enunciated to identify the conditions that could potentially make these sites useful. Accessibility was seen as key, as mentioned by L’Hermite, for example: “The greatest part of the Tierra del Fuego is mountainous, but interspersed with many fine valleys and meadows, and watered by numerous streams or rivulets, descending from the hills. Between the islands there are many good roads, where large fleets may anchor in safety, and where there is every desirable convenience for taking in wood, water, and ballast”³⁰. In the same manner, when a site did not meet the expected conditions, this was recorded, as by Boris van Spilbergen in relation to Penguin Island: “On these islands we found absolutely no means of subsistence, for the land appeared to be very barren, nothing growing there but some grass, and being burrowed out by penguins, just as the dunes in Holland are by rabbits”³¹.

Bougainville’s observations challenged initial perceptions of the Falkland Islands and Magellan Strait as inhospitable, emphasizing their potential for sustained settlement³². He described a landscape rich in natural advantages: wind —sheltered bays, fertile meadows for livestock, abundant freshwater, and a temperate climate— free from the “noxious abundance” and torpor of tropical regions. The absence of dangerous wildlife, combined with medicinal plants, edible amphibians, and alternative fuel sources, further underscored the region’s viability. As he noted, these resources —“immense bays”, “rich pastures”, and a climate conducive to health and vigor— “soon expunged the impressions which the first appearance had made”, validating its habitability³³. This reassessment framed the Austral Zone not as a barrier but as a strategically favorable environment for colonial enterprise.

When this is compared with the notes written by Byron, who had visited the site eighteen months earlier, it is noticeable that both employed similar phrases to refer to the site’s beauty and fertility. Along his journey from Puerto Hambre to Cape Forward, Byron wrote “extremely fine; the soil appears to be very good”³⁴. Sailing along the north coast of the Magellan Strait, he stressed that “…the ground being, in many places, covered with flowers, which were not inferior to those that are commonly found in our gardens, either in beauty or fragrance; and if it were not for the severity of the cold in winter, this country might, in my opinion, be made, by cultivation, one of the finest in the world”³⁵. Byron made it clear that he much preferred sailing through this passage than around Cape Horn. It was a matter of selecting the right season to pass, which would be sometime in December³⁶.

Charles V’s instructions in relation to the Magellan expedition represent the start of this programmatic approach. The long document, drafted in May 1519, contains 74 articles that address many different subjects: Portuguese lands must not be touched, ways of sailing and keeping communication between vessels, ways of handling danger or attacks, ways of negotiating with peoples, how to handle weapons in front of “Indians”, how to observe nature, and how to carefully approach what “has not been discovered”³⁷. The careful approach to interactions with other nations was retained until the eighteenth century. Bougainville’s instructions clearly stated that he had to be careful with the British, Dutch and Spanish³⁸.

The reports of explorers in the region clearly reflect their instructions. Van Spilbergen’s crew spent two months in the region, strictly following their orders to cross the strait without exploring alternative routes³⁹. The Nodal brothers, for their part, were instructed to conduct a cartographic survey limited to the Magellan Strait and Tierra del Fuego, sketch the newly discovered territories, and determine improved navigation methods to reach 56º S⁴⁰.

The scholars Collini and Vannoni believe that these instructions, which guided travellers from the sixteenth century onwards, beginning in about 1650 were largely conceived for orientation to achieve results that would be useful to science⁴¹. This entailed that the instructions became more detailed, and went far beyond urging the explorers to take notes recording various aspects of navigation. Copies had to be made to guarantee the preservation of scientific information that included astronomical, cartographical and topographical data.

This evolution can be observed in the five sets of orders given to La Perousse. The first and second integrate a detailed geographical and historical navigation plan with particular attention to be paid to political and commercial objects. The following guidelines convey specific know-how in relation to three subjects: a) logistics for organising the work of astronomers, physicists, naturalists, theorists, and artists, among others, hired for the expedition; b) recommendations for La Perouse on how to conduct business with savages in the diverse countries; and c) commands related to health issues and disease prevention⁴².

These instructions were not created in isolation; rather, they built upon accumulated in situ experience, drawing from diverse sources, regardless of national origin. Their purpose extended beyond navigation, aiming to establish “true” scientific knowledge through systematic experimentation⁴³. As Byron noted, “I mention all the reference points in particular, because I believe that they will be important for future sailors, largely because the descriptions of this place, annotated by the few who visited it, are extremely deficient”⁴⁴. This highlights a genealogical framework of knowledge tied to these expeditions, which can be understood as interconnected networks-akin to partially articulated family trees-where habitability programs evolved through shared experience, information exchange, and knowledge transmission to transition lands from being unknown to known.

A practical example of this knowledge transfer is evident in the hiring of experienced sailors. For instance, Van Noort received guidance from Mellish, an English sea pilot who had previously travelled with Cavendish, demonstrating how prior expertise was actively incorporated into new expeditions⁴⁵. This continuity underscores the cumulative and collaborative nature of these habitability programs.

There was also knowledge accumulated in records of such expeditions that had widely circulated. From the sixteenth century onwards, Europe’s publishers, diplomats and cartographers had created a book market eager to know the secrets of places seen as “the end of the world”. This facilitated the study of previous planning, including the incorporation of verified knowledge, trigonometric calculations, and comparisons between different observations, by sea pilots and captains. Drake, for instance, constantly quoted a report drafted by Magellan. Van Noort quoted Cavendish. The Nodal brothers knew the routes of Schouten and Le Maire. In the mid-eighteenth century, Bougainville made it clear that he had studied Sarmiento de Gamboa, Narborough, Anson and Gennes⁴⁶. Byron quoted the Nodal brothers and Narborough. Finally, Le Perouse quoted Magellan, Schouten, Le Maire, Frezier and Anson, Byron, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook, to compare his own observations, thus articulating the branches of this genealogy of knowledge.

This context allows us to interpret these habitability programs as having conceived the Austral Zone as a controlled laboratory of failure⁴⁷. Unlike other colonial regions —where success (conquest, settlement, exploitation) was the primary objective— in the southernmost reaches of the Americas, the possibility of failure and adversity was integrated into the methodology. By systematically documenting limitations, climatic challenges, and failed interactions, European polities refined their criteria for habitability, transforming obstacles into strategic knowledge for future colonial efforts. The descriptions of Drake and the Nodal brothers, for instance, focused not only on winds, currents, and temperatures as warnings but also as empirical data to adjust routes and navigation seasons (e.g., the insistence on traveling during the austral summer). Similarly, Bougainville and Byron did not conceal the scarcity of wood or food on certain islands but also recorded alternatives, such as the use of algae as fuel and the hunting of sea lions. Additionally, these accounts repeatedly highlight failed interactions with Indigenous peoples, a recurring theme in expedition narratives.

Within these programs, habitability emerges as a process of “continuous adjustment”, where objectives remained open-ended: testing routes, mapping resources, and establishing waypoints. Bougainville, for example, justified his voyage not only for the sake of discovery but also for the opportunity to “learn from mistakes” for future expeditions. This gave rise to a narrative of “near-success”: accounts emphasized partial achievements-such as “almost reaching latitude” or “nearly establishing a settlement”, which, in other contexts, might have been omitted as failures but were instead presented as incremental progress. This aligns with Licoppe’s observation that “the discourse of experience in the 17th and 18th centuries was not about avoiding failure but about transforming it into a reproducible method”⁴⁸.

These “adjustments” also included the testing of instruments (astrolabes, chronometers) and techniques (cartography, taxonomy), which were calibrated in situ. René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur’s measurements and Philibert Commerson’s observations in Tierra del Fuego were not merely scientific endeavours; they were field tests designed to adapt European theories to Austral realities. Thus, the Austral Zone functioned as a dynamic experimental space, where both empirical limitations and methodological innovations were documented to refine imperial strategies for understanding and exploiting extreme environments.

The expedition programmes to the austral regions operated intermittently, largely due to the distances and the great necessity of means and technologies to travel to these unknown geographies. As a result, the expeditions did not overlap. They were sent, one after the other, sometimes with few months between them, such as the Dutch and English journeys in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Albeit periodical, these trips were also concentrated around certain times, and therefore their impact on European courts were more noticeable then. Two of such “periods of intensity” permit an accurate study of the production and circulation of knowledge on the habitability of the austral lands⁴⁹. These periods also allow a careful observation of the “fictional expectation” surrounding this combined territory and seascape as an unknown but potentially habitable space⁵⁰. Therefore, a correlation can be established between this phenomenon and the transition process to habitability and its associated agendas.

The first of these periods was from 1578 to 1625, and includes the English expeditions by Drake (1578-1580), Cavendish (1587-1591), Hawkins (1593-1594) that achieved their goals; and also some that failed to do so, such as the ones commanded by Fenton (1582), van Langren (1582), the Count of Cumberland (1586), and Chidley (1589)⁵¹; and the Dutch expeditions by van Noorth (1598-1601) of the Magellanic Company, by the Cordes brothers and by de Mahu of the Rotterdam Company (1598-1601), by van Spilbergen (1614), the Austral Company of Schouten and La Maire (1616), and by L’Hermite (1624).

The Spanish Crown was forced to plan large expeditions in response. The first, between 1581-1583, involved one of the largest number of vessels and crew of the time —23 ships and 3,000 people— by captains Flores and Sarmiento de Gamboa. Philip II orchestrated the naval effort with support from important figures such as Antonio de Erazo and the Duke of Medina Sidonia and their vast commercial networks. The project triggered a debate among Philip’s best cartographers to find sufficient reasons for such sea adventure. Juan Bautista Gesio, one of the most renowned, argued that it was important to establish a colony and stop treating the place as unknown: “In the Strait, there will be a city of great commerce and a hub for objects from the East and West. It will be a stop for all vessels, where they will spend the winter, and all this business and trade will be for the great benefit of Your Majesty”⁵². The expedition disintegrated in Brazil due to internal conflicts⁵³.

Many years passed before the Spanish Crown became interested in sending an expedition to the area again. This only happened because of the growing presence of Dutch expeditions in the region, even during Philip III’s Pax Hispanica⁵⁴. This motivated the creation of a new programme, this time for reconnaissance purposes. In 1619 the Nodal brothers made significant progress with cartographical and navigation materials⁵⁵.

These expeditions marked a pivotal shift in the habitability and global connectivity of the Austral Zone, coinciding with new circumnavigations. The discovery of the Strait of Le Maire and Cape Horn (1616) redefined southern cartography, while L’Hermite’s 1624 voyage further clarified the region’s island contours. Schouten framed the area as a strategic crossroads, describing his mission to explore the “meridional parts of the world” —unclaimed by rival empires— to forge links between the South Sea, East Indies, and New Guinea⁵⁶. Though initially conceived as the “Gold Company”, the venture was ultimately named the “Austral Company”, reflecting its focus on the region’s emerging geopolitical and economic potential.

The significance of this “period of intensity” lies in the topographical and cartographical conquest of the region. A substantial portion of the toponymy that persists to this day originated during this period, as Dutch and Flemish cartographers mapped the names assigned by expeditions⁵⁷. Beyond mapping, they produced hundreds of images —both real and imagined— of the region’s inhabitants, who came to be known as Patagonians, as well as territories such as the Magellan Strait and the mythical Terra Incognita Australis⁵⁸. This visual emergence was largely driven by prominent publishing families, as de Bry.

This period reveals a unique geopolitical competition centred not on territorial occupation but on the strategic destabilization of knowledge. Unable to establish physical control over these remote territories, European powers instead focused on manipulating, concealing, or distorting geographic and scientific information to restrict competitors’ access to the Austral Zone. Francis Drake, for instance, omitted the existence of safe harbours and freshwater sources in eastern Patagonia from his reports, ensuring that Spanish competitors could not use them as resupply points⁵⁹.

Spain, meanwhile, exaggerated the dangers of the Magellan Strait in its official nautical charts, depicting it as a treacherous passage plagued by “deceptive currents, perpetual fogs, and hostile natives”, despite its pilots knowing the strait was navigable in summer. This tactic aimed to deter English and Dutch ships from attempting the route. Juan Bautista Gesio (1579) explicitly advised: “It is convenient that the charts given to foreigners exaggerate the dangers of the strait, so that they dare not use it”⁶⁰. The Dutch, for their part, published inaccurate maps of Cape Horn in commercial atlases, omitting vital details about currents and safe harbours⁶¹. After Spilbergen’s disastrous voyage through the strait (in which several ships were lost), Dutch accounts emphasized the losses to discourage Spanish efforts to blockade the cape⁶².

The cycle of British, French and Spanish expeditions between 1764 and 1794 is our second ‘period of intensity’. The expeditions of Byron (1764), Bougainville (1766-1769), Cook (1768), La Perouse (1785-1788), Córdoba (1785-1789) and Malaspina (1789-1794) reflect the influence of the Enlightenment through the more frequent presence of equipment for scientific experiments and the first efforts to classify species following scientific methods⁶³. Bougainville’s words represent this connection between the area and a global scientific practice related to it: “I am very much afraid that all the discoveries that can be made in these southern regions will never be of any use other than to improve our knowledge of the globe”⁶⁴.

The descriptions frame the Austral Zone as a gateway to knowledge, legitimizing scientific advancements elsewhere and sustaining ongoing intellectual debates. By comparing its natural features and Indigenous populations with those of other newly discovered territories —such as Australia and New Zealand— these accounts established new circuits of knowledge and connections with regions like New Guinea, particularly during the second half of the eighteenth century. Referring to the Falkland Islands, Bougainville saw them as a gate to the unknown: all the rest of the unknown world: the Antarctic pole lands, many islands, and an immense continent that, from this pole (the South), extends beyond the Equator, between it and Peru, there are habitable lands, and there are reasons to believe that spices, rich metals, and perhaps the elements for a new commerce might be found there. What a vast field for navigation and the knowledge of nature (is being opened)⁶⁵.

The expeditions of this second wave can be classed, following Bourguet and Licoppe, as part of a period of exponential expansion among European nations of the art of measuring and quantifying, which accompanied new philosophical and cognitive concepts regarding the natural order. Both authors explain that between the late seventeenth and the late eighteenth centuries, a new ethos of precision in scientific narratives was created with its subsequent impact on sensibilities, the perception of nature, and the redefinition of the relationship between humans and the environment. They date this period in the decade between 1730 and 1740, prior to this second increase in the intensity in Austral journeys⁶⁶.

This era marked a fundamental shift in scientific exploration, as precision became an instrument of imperial ambition. The Austral Zone was transformed into a living laboratory for testing the limits of human and ecological adaptation under extreme conditions. Maritime sciences advanced dramatically, with breakthroughs in hydrology, oceanography, and meteorology enabling more accurate navigation and environmental control. These innovations not only improved voyage safety but also allowed European powers to assert dominance over some of the planet’s most inhospitable regions.

A defining feature of this period was the systematic inclusion of naturalists in expeditions, including figures like Philibert Commerson, Joseph Banks, and Daniel Solander, who meticulously documented flora and fauna. Commerson’s work during Bougainville’s voyage led to the first classification of endemic species, such as Polytrichum (Catharinea) magellanicum —a moss unique to the Magellan region— alongside specimens like Viola maculata and Philesia buxifolia, now preserved in Lyon’s Botanic Gardens. His observations also included the first recorded sighting of the Commerson’s dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii), native to the waters between the Magellan Strait and the Kerguelen Islands. Meanwhile, the French engineer Charles Routier de Romainville and astronomer Pierre-Antoine Veron pioneered lunar distance measurements of longitude, setting new standards for geographic accuracy. Their findings were later adopted by Spanish expeditions⁶⁷.

Beyond cartography and navigation, expeditions prioritised practical applications for colonial survival. Naturalists like Commerson and Banks did not merely catalogue species out of scientific curiosity; they assessed which plants and organisms could be transplanted to other imperial outposts for sustenance. As one account noted: “The raw algae consumed by the Indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego could hold the key to feeding colonists in Greenland or Siberia. Nature itself teaches us how to conquer hunger”⁶⁸.

During this period, special attention was also paid to human resilience, with experiments designed to test the adaptability of European people and animal species to extreme climates. Réaumur’s thermometers, for example, provided empirical evidence to Bougainville: “The human body can withstand temperatures as low as 3 degrees below zero without lasting damage, so long as it is nourished by seal meat and local vegetation. Such findings proved that discipline could turn even the most unforgiving environments into domains of imperial possibility”⁶⁹.

The records that emerged from each expedition reveal a cognitive microarchitecture within the narratives, exposing continuities and ruptures across projects, generations, and national traditions. To deepen our understanding of these discursive dynamics —and to highlight their genealogical dimensions— we adopted a mixed-methods approach, combining historiographical analysis with quantitative lexical measurement techniques.

Lexicometric analysis reveals hidden associations in expeditionary texts, moving beyond linguistic statistics to uncover structured regimes of co-occurrence that shaped descriptions of the Austral Zone. This approach allows us to trace evolving criteria of habitability by contrasting historiographical hypotheses with empirical textual patterns, demonstrating how expeditions actively constructed the region through descriptive, technical, and classificatory practices from the 16th to 18th centuries.

Though lexicometry is a well-established yet underutilized tool in historical research, its application here is critical for systematically comparing historiographical indicators previously analysed in isolation. This approach centres on two key frameworks: “cognitive patterns” —recurrent lexical structures reflecting enduring perceptions of the world— and “significant discourses”, narrative frameworks that define problems and solutions. By integrating these categories, we align our methodology with quantitative discourse analysis and historical linguistics⁷⁰, offering a cohesive, evidence, based interpretation of how habitability was discursively constructed.

Our methodological effort reveals how specific vocabularies densify during specific periods. We analysed a corpus of thirteen representative expeditions through these “periods of intensity”, segmented into elemental contexts and processed via co-occurrence and factorial correspondence techniques⁷¹. Each expedition generated multiple editions and translations; we selected first editions (Spanish, English, or French) and standardized translations to ensure homogeneity, resulting in a single corpus of 13,861 words and 3,108 contextual units⁷². The lexicometric analysis highlights two key factors⁷³: (1) temporality (shifts across “intensity periods”) and (2) imperial styles (variations by origin), structuring the discourse on habitability⁷⁴.

The transformation of the southern tip of America (47°-56° S) from an allegedly uninhabitable space into one of exploitable potential was neither accidental nor inevitable. Instead, it was the outcome of a systematic, cumulative, and intergenerational process spanning the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. During this period, the region became a laboratory of imperial experimentation, where travel narratives, technical innovations, scientific discourses, and imperial agendas converged to redefine its status. Unlike the Caribbean or North America, where colonization prioritized immediate economic exploitation or evangelization, the Austral Zone’s appropriation was programmatic and multi-dimensional. It required coordinated, state-backed initiatives involving explorers, naturalists, artists, courts, scholars, intermediaries, and commercial networks, a structured approach necessitated by the region’s extreme geographic and climatic diversity, limited prior knowledge, and the logistical challenges that rendered private ventures unfeasible without institutional support.

We analysed this evolutionary process through two “periods of intensity”. The first (1578-1625) focused on empirical navigation and survival, synthesizing anecdotal observations into early cartographic and climatic records. The second (1760-1798) shifted toward precise measurement and scientific classification, reflecting broader imperial priorities that transitioned from adaptive survival to systematic resource management. Though no European power successfully conquered or established a permanent settlement in the Southern Zone, the region functioned as a critical testing ground for exploring alternative routes, conducting climatic studies, and establishing strategic reference points. In doing so, it became a dynamic space for refining the conceptual and practical parameters of habitability, a process intricately linked to the evolving cognitive and political priorities of European imperialism.

Our dual methodology —combining historical— discursive analysis with lexicometric techniques, reveals this shift as a move from experiential narratives to quantitative documentation. Lexicometric analysis exposes an unprecedented linguistic evolution in how Europeans conceptualized the region: early descriptions (16th-17th centuries) employed relational and experiential language, while later accounts (18th century) adopted quantitative and classificatory terms. This shift reflects not only advancements in scientific practices but also a reconfiguration of the colonial subject’s relationship to the territory, where language became a tool for symbolic and material appropriation.

Ultimately, this study demonstrates that the Austral Zone was not merely “discovered” but discursively and materially constructed through imperial programs integrating science, politics, and technology. Its habitability emerged from a genealogical process in which each expedition reinterpreted prior knowledge to incorporate this extreme territory into modern geopolitical designs. Habitability, therefore, was not a fixed attribute but a technology of appropriation, enabling European powers to transform the unknown into a resource and redefine the limits of the exploitable. While our approach has limitations —such as translation challenges, asymmetries in document preservation, and corpus selection— it offers a critical framework for understanding how habitability was constructed. Beyond the Austral Zone, this concept invites a reconsideration of other marginal spaces in the modern world as laboratories where forms of making the planet habitable were tested, contested, and transformed, providing a model for re-examining how such spaces were conceptualized and exploited during the age of imperial expansion.