Thereafter, the archipelago was visited only by fishing ships; its political status was undisputed until 1820, when Colonel David Jewett, an American privateer working for the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, informed anchored ships about Buenos Aires' 1816 claim to Spain's territories in the South Atlantic [REF].
In the first half of the 20th century, the Falklands served an important role in Britain's territorial claims to subantarctic islands and a section of Antarctica.