21 Facts About Francisco Moreno

Francisco Pascasio Moreno was a prominent explorer and academic in Argentina, where he is usually referred to as Perito Moreno.

Perito Moreno has been credited as one of the most influential figures in the Argentine incorporation of large parts of Patagonia and its subsequent development.

Francisco Moreno shared his spare time with his father searching for artifacts and fossils and, at age 14, created a homemade museum of his extensive collections.

Francisco Moreno embarked on the first of the series of scientific expeditions that made him well known: a survey of Rio Negro Territory, largely uncharted country.

In 1880, Francisco Moreno went to France, where he spoke at a meeting of the Anthropology Society of Paris, discussing two prehistoric skulls he had unearthed in Rio Negro territory.

Francisco Moreno believed one was from the Quaternary period, and the other had ritual deformation in a manner similar to the skulls of the Aymara people of the Andes and Altiplano.

Francisco Moreno was taken prisoner by a Tehuelche aboriginal tribe and condemned to death.

Francisco Moreno was appointed as chief of the Argentine exploring commission of the southern territories, and member of numerous European scientific societies.

Francisco Moreno is known for his role in defending Argentine interests.

Francisco Moreno made defining surveys that led to the Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina.

In honor to this contribution, the Argentinian glacier Perito Francisco Moreno, was named after him.

Francisco Moreno brought artifacts and materials in from remote regions to be examined, catalogued and studies at the museum in the capital.

Francisco Moreno served as the first Director of Museo de la Plata, guiding it until 1906.

In 1902 Francisco Moreno was appointed Perito, in which capacity he disproved Chilean claims to the continental divide in the Southern Cone.

Francisco Moreno proved that many Patagonian lakes draining to the Pacific Ocean were part of the Atlantic Ocean basin.

In 1903, Francisco Moreno donated some of the land previously given to him in order to establish the Nahuel Huapi National Park.

Francisco Moreno was appointed assistant director of the National Education Council in 1911 and helped secure funding for the Bernasconi Institute, a landmark primary school built in Buenos Aires.

Francisco Moreno established the Scouting and Guiding in Argentina, the Argentine Boy Scouts Association in 1912, and joined former US President Theodore Roosevelt in a tour of Patagonia.

Francisco Moreno continued to oversee the La Plata Museum well after his official retirement.

In later years Francisco Moreno responded to political developments in South America at the time of World War I by joining the reactionary Argentine Patriotic League shortly before his death in 1919.

Francisco Moreno was first interred in a La Recoleta Cemetery crypt.