Floreana Island

Floreana Island (Spanish: Isla Floreana) is a southern island in Ecuador's Galápagos Archipelago. The island has an area of 173 km² (67 sq mi). It was formed by volcanic eruption. The island's highest point is Cerro Pajas at 640 m (2,100 ft), which is also the highest point of a volcano, as with most of the smaller islands of Galápagos. The island has a population of about 100.

Floreana, sometimes written as Floriana, is named in honor of Juan José Flores, the first president of Ecuador. It was during Flores's presidency that Ecuador took possession of the archipelago. The island was previously known in Spanish as Mercedes Island (Isla Mercedes), sometimes corrupted to Mascarenas, in honor of Flores's wife Mercedes Jijón. It was also known as Santa Maria, after the Virgin Mary and the Santa María, one of Christopher Columbus's ships during his initial voyage. Pinta Island similarly commemorates another one of his ships.

The English pirate William Ambrosia Cowley did not apparently chart or name this island in his 17th-century accounts of the Galápagos but the British captain James Colnett misunderstood some of Cowley's maps and in 1793 gave Floreana the name King Charles and Charles Island, which Cowley had given to Española Island in honor of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. (He similarly named Santiago after James II.) When it is used, the name Charles Island is still applied following Colnett's misplacement rather than Cowley's original intention.

Due to its relatively flat surface, and supply of fresh water, plants, and animals, Floreana was a favorite stop for whalers and other visitors to the Galápagos. Since the 19th century, whalers kept a wooden barrel at Post Office Bay, so that mail could be picked up and delivered to their destination by ships on their way home, mainly to Europe and the United States. Cards and letters are still placed in the barrel without any postage. Visitors sift through the letters and cards in order to deliver them by hand.

The first known permanent residence of the Galápagos was Patrick Watkins who resided on Floreana Island from 1807 until 1809 surviving by hunting, farming, and trading with whalers. It's uncertain if he was forcibly marooned there or if it was by choice. After willingly leaving the island in 1809, he apparently sought to return eventually, with a woman, though was arrested before he was able to do so.

Still known as Charles Island, the island was set afire in 1820 as a result of a prank gone wrong by helmsman Thomas Chappel from the Nantucket whaling ship Essex. Being at the height of the dry season, Chappel's fire soon burned out of control and swept the island. The next day saw the island still burning as the ship sailed for an offshore anchorage and after a full day of sailing the fire was still visible on the horizon. Many years later Thomas Nickerson, who had been a cabin boy on the Essex, returned to Charles Island and found a charred wasteland: "neither trees, shrubbery, nor grass have since appeared." It is believed the fire contributed to the extinction of some species originally on the island.

In September 1835 the second voyage of HMS Beagle brought Charles Darwin to Charles Island. The ship's crew was greeted by Nicholas Lawson, acting for the Governor of Galápagos, and at the prison colony Darwin was told that tortoises differed in the shape of the shells from island to island, but this was not obvious on the islands he visited and he did not bother collecting their shells. He industriously collected all the animals and plants, and speculated about finding "from future comparison to what district or 'centre of creation' the organized beings of this archipelago must be attached."

On 8 April 1888 USS Albatross, a Navy-manned research vessel assigned to the United States Fish Commission, visited Floreana Island during a 2-week survey of the islands.