Indigenous Settlers of the Galápagos

Pilar Sánchez Voelkl offers an anthropological account of the early arrival and prominence of Indigenous peoples in the Galápagos Islands. Their history and everyday life reveal how multiple notions of nature, race, and society travel and meet, shaping the way conservation thought is translated into law.

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In Indigenous Settlers of the Galápagos: Conservation Law, Race, and Society, Pilar Sánchez Voelkl offers an anthropological and historical account about the early arrival and prominent presence of Andean Indigenous people in the Galápagos Islands. Her research traces the stories of the earliest colonizers, who permanently settled on the archipelago, from the 1860s onwards. Sánchez Voelkl argues that their journey illustrates the way multiple notions of nature, race, and society interact to shape a social order in Darwin’s archipelago. Contrary to common portraits of the islands as an example of untouched nature, Indigenous Settlers of the Galápagos provides compelling evidence about the complexities about human and non-human relationships.