Artistic representation of ships (from left to right:) San Martin, Lautaro, Chacabuco and Araucano in a painting of Thomas Somerscales |
|
| Career (USA) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Columbus |
| Launched: | 1817 |
| Fate: | sold to Chile |
| Career (Chile) | |
| Name: | Araucano |
| Namesake: | Araucano |
| Cost: | $33,000 |
| Acquired: | 1818 |
| Out of service: | 1821 |
| Honours and awards: |
Expedition to California pursuing the Spanish Prueba and Venganza |
| Fate: | Mutiny |
| Status: | scraped in Tubuai Island |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 217 t |
| Propulsion: | sail |
| Armament: | 16-18 guns |
Araucano was the 217 tons and 16- or 18-gun brigantine Columbus built 1817. in November 1817 she was sent by the envoy of the Chilean government in the United States Manuel Hemanegildo Aguirre, fully manned and carrying a cargo of munition, under the command of Charles Whiting Wooster (Carlos Guillermo Wooster, sometimes erroneously known as Worster) to Valparaíso, where she arrived in Juni 1818.[1](p20) The Columbus was then sold to Chile for $33,000[2][3] On August l0 she was renamed Araucano and on 14 August was under the command of Wooster but on October 1818, as the First Chilean Navy Squadron under the command of Blanco Encalada left Valparaíso to South, she was under the command of Raymond Morris and she carried 110 men.
She participated in the blockade of Callao during the Freedom Expedition of Perú. In 1821 the Chilean ships Independencia, San Martin, Meercedes and Araucano sailed to North America on pursuit of the last presence of the Spanish Navy in the Pacific coast, the frigates Prueba und Venganza. As Cochrane ordered the Araucano under the command of Captain Robert Simpson to investigate the situation in Acapulco, California, the crew of Araucano mutinied in Loreto, Baja California Sur and under the command of an English boatswain sailed to Hawai, Australia and then Tahiti, where they became pirates and sealers. They were captured as they tried to size a missionary ship off the Tubuai Island. The Araucano remained placed at the disposal of the Chilean Government but she was never reclaimed and she was scrapped by the natives.[4]