Davis Land is the name of a

phantom island A phantom island is a purported island which was included on maps for a period of time, but was later found not to exist. They usually originate from the reports of early sailors exploring new regions, and are commonly the result of navigati ...

that was believed to be located in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, near South America. It is named for the pirate Edward Davis, who supposedly sighted it in 1687. Never found again, it was also believed by

William Dampier William Dampier (baptised 5 September 1651; died March 1715) was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavi ...

to possibly be the coast of

Terra Australis Incognita (Latin: '"Southern Land'") was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that ...

Discovery

It was sighted in 1687 by Edward Davis, a pirate who was carrying out raids on Spanish settlements along the coast of Mexico, Peru, and Chile, while he was sailing in the Pacific Ocean southwards from the Galapagos Islands towards

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramír ...

. He saw a low sandy island and in the distance, hills extending to the northeast. Davis made no attempt to investigate any further, more interested in continuing his voyage home. Davis's supposed discovery was along the southern latitude of 27 to 28 degrees, which was on the same latitude as the Spanish-controlled gold mines of Copiapó. At the time, it was believed that gold could be found elsewhere along this latitude so on learning of the news of Davis Land, several navigators were instructed to seek it out on their voyages. In 1767, the French explorer Jean-François de Surville set out from

Pondicherry Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

in French India on an exploration and trading voyage with one of its objectives being to locate Davis Land and set up a trading post there. He was encouraged by rumours of the recent discovery by

Samuel Wallis Samuel Wallis (23 April 1728 – 21 January 1795 in London) was a British naval officer and explorer of the Pacific Ocean. He made the first recorded visit by a European navigator to Tahiti. Biography Wallis was born at Fenteroon Farm, n ...

, of , of a rich island, inhabited by Jews. In fact, this was

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...

, but the French conflated the discovery of "Wallis's Land" with Davis Land. Surville ended up rediscovering the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

, made his way to the northern coast of New Zealand and then onto Peru, where he drowned seeking help for his ailing crew. In 1770

Felipe González de Ahedo Felipe González de Ahedo, also spelled Phelipe González y Haedo (13 May 1714 in Santoña, Cantabria – 26 October 1802), was a Spanish navigator and cartographer known for annexing Easter Island in 1770. González de Ahedo commanded two ...

found

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly ...

and named it ''Isla de San Carlos'' or ''de David''. It was translated as "Davis's Island". In Wikimedia Commons. Never found, Davis Land was also believed by

, who had sailed with Davis for a time, to possibly be the coast of

. By the 1770s, with the Pacific now much better known, cartographers began to remove Davis Land from their maps. Dunmore notes that it is likely that Davis had sighted the islands of

San Ambrosio The Desventuradas Islands ( es, Islas Desventuradas, , "Unfortunate Islands" or ''Islas de los Desventurados'', "Islands of the Unfortunate Ones") is a group of four small oceanic islands located off the coast of Chile, northwest of Santiago in t ...

and San Felix, part of the Desventuradas group of islands.

Notes

References

* *{{cite book, last=Lee, first=Michael, title=Navigators & Naturalists: French Exploration of New Zealand and the South Seas (1769–1824), year=2018, publisher=David Bateman, location=Auckland, New Zealand, isbn=978-1-86953-965-8 Phantom islands Islands of the Pacific Ocean