Charles Darwin arrived in Chiloé on 28 June 1834 and was based there for six months, writing about his impressions of southern Chile in his diaries. The archipelago had been an old royalist stronghold, and its inhabitants were known during the 19th century for complaining about not having a king. Darwin wrote of Chiloé in 1834: "The Indians ended all their complaints by saying, 'And it is only because we are poor Indians, and know nothing; but it was not so when we had a King.