Un viaje a las colonias: Memorias y diario de un ovejero escocés en Malvinas, Patagonia y Tierra del Fuego (1878–1898) brings together Spanish translations of previously-published memoirs and unpublished manuscripts held in the National Library of Scotland by the Scottish shepherd, William Blain. Blain's memoirs and diary offer a first-hand account of life during the fever of sheep-raising in the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, on Tierra del Fuego and on continental South America, providing a personal perspective on this colonisation process at the southern edge of the Americas. Born in 1852, Blain worked in Scotland as a shepherd until his late twenties, when stories of the vast salaries to be earned by emigrating tempted him to the South Atlantic. He first worked as a shepherd in the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, before setting up the Monte Dinero sheep farm, at Punta Dungeness at the far east of the Strait of Magellan. Blain also participated in the introduction of sheep to Tierra del Fuego, as a lower-level administrator for the Tierra del Fuego Sheep Farming Company.

The volume begins with a biographical essay, by Alberto Harambour, providing background on Blain's childhood in the Scottish borders and entry to paid work at thirteen, as well as on how poor prospects prompted the waves of emigration of which Blain formed a part. Taking the decision to emigrate, he contracted with the Falkland Islands Company for five years, earning £65 a year, which included food, lodging and transportation. In comparison, the best possible salary at the time for Scottish agricultural workers was £47 a year, for a married couple. In 1878, after a trip of almost three months, Blain arrived at the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, where British sheep farming was already well established. He spent six years there, amongst the mostly British men, before his itchy feet took him to the South American mainland. In the region around Chilean Punta Arenas, a town of 2,000 people – mostly recently-arrived men – the British held positions of authority in sheep-ranching. Thus, Blain's limited Spanish was not an obstacle in a sector in which English and Gaelic were the common languages. In January 1883, Blain began setting up a new station at Monte Dinero, managing its employees and animals, remaining there until 1890. His last period in South America (1891–8) was spent working in Tierra del Fuego, as one of the pioneers in the destructive – in terms of Selk'nam lives and the environment – introduction of sheep to the island. In fact, Blain's direct superiors were amongst those taken to court, in 1895, for mistreatment of the Selk'nam people, but they were acquitted. Blain, working from stations at Spring Hill and Punta Anegada, was again an administrator, setting up the stations and managing the workers, but especially policing the ranch's borders. Indigenous resistance to the settlers included killing sheep and cutting barbed-wire fences.

Blaine's entries about daily life vividly evoke the physical labour, uncomfortable working conditions and tedium (if tedium can be ‘vividly’ evoked). His texts also offer personal details, from his mending of clothing and what he read, to the cost of acquiring rainproof gear, encounters with pumas and the regular frustration of losing animals. We see the happenstance of the immigrant and lack of a master plan as issues of the moment, based on emerging work opportunities, determined Blain's mobility in this region. We also see Blain's expectation of imperial and racial entitlement when faced with both Chileans, to whom he refers as ‘natives’, and indigenous people. This shepherd cared for his sheep, condemning indigenous people for their treatment of the animals, which he described in one instance as something ‘I could never forgive the Indians for’ (p. 102). Yet Blain himself witnessed, at the very least, hunting of indigenous people: when confronted with a field worker holding 11 bows and arrows, which could only have come from dead Selk'nam men, Blain responded with convenient discretion noting that, as he had not been a witness, he could not ‘offer an opinion on what had happened’ (pp. 102–3). Blain was also a participant in the kidnapping and containment strategies that further decimated indigenous populations. The pervasiveness of ‘scientific’ discourses is apparent, too; during some of his encounters with indigenous people he measured them, if allowed. Despite his participation in a process that resulted in genocide, Blain's descriptions of indigenous life still offer valuable ethnographic and historical material. The importance of this volume is largely thanks to Alberto Harambour's editorial work; he has provided the context and meticulous analysis which frame Blain's writing. For example, the volume includes several pages on the history of colonisation and claims to the Malvinas/Falklands Islands, as well as the history of the colonisation of the Strait of Magellan.

This text will be particularly useful for those wanting to understand the economic history of the region. But it also includes material for histories of colonisation and informal empires, as well as of diaspora, immigrant communities and the Selk'nam people. The text additionally offers evidence of the human networks, in an uneasily multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual place, that criss-crossed the landscape, and shows the circulation of information across the distances and sparse population. It presents a social history of this moment of encounter, which will most likely contribute to local histories. Blain is not always the most engaging narrator, and I often wished he had elaborated on an event (such as being ‘offered’ an indigenous wife). Yet thanks to Harambour's editorial guidance, even the sometimes-sparse entries can be milked for insights. In bringing together valuable primary resources, framed by excellent scholarly discussion, Harambour has created a volume that will become a classic on the region.