Bernhard Philippi was a Prussian naturalist, born in Charlottenburg in 1811, who came to Chile collecting plants, animals and fossils for European museums. He was aboard the schooner Ancud in 1843 when Chile took possession of the Strait. Later he mapped Chiloé and, from 1848, recruited German settlers for the south; his brother, the naturalist Rodulfo Amando Philippi, sailed to Chile on the same ship as one of those groups.
In 1851 the Cambiaso mutiny wrecked Punta Arenas and killed its governor, Benjamín Muñoz Gamero. On 15 May 1852 Philippi was named governor of the ruined colony; by one account the post was a punishment for bringing in Protestant settlers.
He did not last the year. He rode inland with a few men to meet an Indigenous chief and never came back. His body was never found. Memoria Chilena says he was presumed killed by Tehuelche seeking revenge for 1851, when four Aónikenk were executed during the mutiny; another account says a porter later confessed that the party was killed in retaliation. On the Costanera, the monument to the Ancud's crew remembers the voyage he made.
