[6] In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Argentine government encouraged emigration from Europe to populate Argentina and south Patagonia particularly, which until the Conquest of the Desert had sparsely rural and coastal settlements.

[13]: 22  Thus, the original proposal was to establish a new Wales overseas where Welsh settlers and their culture would be generally free from foreign domination.

[13]: 23–30  Jones had been corresponding with the Argentine government about settling an area known as Bahía Blanca where Welsh immigrants could preserve their language and culture.

[citation needed] Towards the end of 1862, Captain Love Jones-Parry and Lewis Jones (after whom Trelew was named) left for Patagonia to decide whether it was a suitable area for Welsh emigrants.

They first visited Buenos Aires where they held discussions with the Interior Minister Guillermo Rawson then, having come to an agreement, headed south.

[15] The Mimosa settlers, including tailors, cobblers, carpenters, brickmakers, and miners, comprised 56 married adults, 33 single or widowed men, 12 single women (usually sisters or servants of married immigrants), and 52 children; the majority (92) were from the South Wales Coalfield and English urban centres.

At the coast there was little drinking water, and the group embarked on a walk across the parched plain with a single wheelbarrow to carry their belongings.

The mouth of the Chubut River was difficult to navigate, being shallow and with shifting sandbanks, and it was decided that a railway was required to connect the Lower Chubut valley to Puerto Madryn (originally Porth Madryn) on the Golfo Nuevo on the southern side of the Valdes Peninsula.

By the end of November 1885 they had reached a fertile area which the Welsh named Cwm Hyfryd (Pleasant Valley).

By 1888, this site at the foot of the Andes had become another Welsh settlement,[16] named in Spanish Colonia 16 de Octubre.

In 1893, a Welsh-language newspaper called Y Drafod (The Conversation) was founded by Lewis Jones to promote Welshness in Y Wladfa.

Argentina and Chile agreed that the United Kingdom should act as arbitrator, and the views of the Welsh settlers were canvassed.

There was also disagreement between the settlers and the government of Argentina, which introduced conscription and insisted on males of military age drilling on Sundays.

This ran counter to the Sabbatarian principles of the settlers and caused much ill-feeling, though the matter was eventually resolved by the intervention of the president of Argentina, Julio Argentino Roca.

These factors, and a lack of unclaimed farmable land, caused 234 people to leave for Liverpool aboard the Orissa on 14 May 1902, with 208 of them subsequently travelling to Canada, arriving at Saltcoats, Saskatchewan, in late June,[18] although some of these families later returned to Chubut and later migrated to Australia.

The Welsh have left their mark on the landscape, with windmills and chapels across the province, including the distinctive wood and corrugated zinc Capel Salem[where?]

A 2001 BBC article described in detail the recent visit to Chubut Province by Archdruid Meirion Evans [cy] and 30 members of the Gorsedd Cymru in order to revive the Gorsedd Y Wladfa in a ceremony held in a specially constructed stone circle near Gaiman.

[21] BBC reporters attended the 2001 Eisteddfod del Chubut at Trelew and watched as the Bardic Chair was awarded for the first time in Y Wladfa to a female poet: Gaiman hotel owner Monica Jones de Jones, for an Awdl on the subject of Rhyddid ("Freedom").

The article's author continued, "The Patagonia Eisteddfod itself, while sharing those elements common to Eisteddfodau in Wales itself, nonetheless is, in other respects, quite a different affair.

"[22] Current Eisteddfod competitions are bilingual, in both Patagonian Welsh and Argentine Spanish, and include poetry, prose, literary translations (Welsh, Spanish, English, Italian, and French), musical performances, arts, folk dances, photography, and filmmaking among others.

[citation needed] In 2019, 1,411 people undertook Welsh courses in the region, which was the highest number on record for the project.