page_title: Puerto Soledad
section_title: Port St. Louis
hierarchical_section_title: Puerto Soledad / Port St. Louis
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of French explorer and navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811)
context_page_description: Puerto Soledad was a Spanish military outpost and penal colony on the Falkland Islands, situated at an inner cove of Berkeley Sound.
context_section_description: The settlement was established as a French colony under the name Port Saint Louis in 1764, and within a year reached a population of 75 (most of them Acadians), with three marriages and two births recorded (once of the births was François Benoit in 1764, son of Agustin Benoit and Françoise Thériault. Sébastien died in 1839, Bay St. George, Newfoundland) – apparently the first ever in the islands' history. After three years of French possession the settlement was ceded to Spain, and all the French settlers left to be replaced by Spaniards. Acting on personal instructions by King Carlos III, the Spanish Government reimbursed the founder of Port St. Louis, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, 618,108 French livres.
  Bougainville himself sailed to Port Saint Louis on board the Boudeuse, accompanied by the Spanish ships Esmeralda and Liebre to hand the settlement over to Felipe Ruíz Puente, the first Spanish governor (1767–1773) of Puerto Soledad, as the settlement would become known.  The ceremony took place on April 1, 1767, and from Puerto Soledad Bougainville set sail to make the first French circumnavigation of the world.
caption: Louis Antoine de Bougainville
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