ABSTRACT
The human history of Galápagos is short and relatively well-known (Bognoly and Espinoza 1904; Rose 1923; Naveda 1953; Hickman 1985; Silva 1992; Latorre 1999), but has seldom been analyzed in relation to the geography of the archipelago and its connections with the rest of the world (Grenier 2002, 2007). Geography studies human footprints on Earth, or rather how the environment is transformed and organized in space and by social action. Spaces are systems of relations between places, and they are social products, or the projections of societies on the planet (Brunet 1986). Geographic spaces have evolved throughout the course of human history, they have different scales and forms (areas – mostly political spaces, or networks – mostly economical spaces), and they are often appropriated as territories. They may also experience changes of geographical situation, that is, of location in relation to other spaces. The isolation or the connectivity of a particular space evolves as a result of human activity. The history of the evolution of geographic spaces is known as geohistory.
