[MargaretR]

The French got there first

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/mapro...ingitright.pdf
"The Islands never had any native inhabitants, and were first settled by France; there was a French
settlement at Port Louis on East Falkland from 1764 to 1767 (section 8, fig. 4 below). The islands were
formally claimed by Britain in 1765, and from 1766 to 1774, with one interruption, there was a British
garrison at Port Egmont on Saunders Island, where ruins still exist (fig. 1). The French settlement was
taken over by Spain in 1767, which maintained a garrison at Port Louis for 44 years until 1811. The
present population of the islands is a unique mixture: some families are descended from shipwrecked
Danish, Norwegian or Swedish seamen; some are descended from settlers from Uruguay, France, Finland
or Gibraltar, but most are of British origin. Many families have lived in the islands for five or six
generations, several for seven generations, and a couple even for eight or nine generations."