The land that now constitutes Wladfa had been inhabited by many nomadic indigenous peoples for thousands of years before the arrival of the Spaniards in the 18th and 19th centuries, in the form of missionaries. The indigenous population later destroyed their settlements. In 1865, the Argentinian government allowed for the settlement of the region. Welsh settlers arrived on the ship Mimosa, and settled in the Chubut Valley. The region was disputed between Chile and Argentina until 1881. Chile renounced its claim in order to prevent Argentina from entering into the War of the Pacific, in which it was already fighting against Peru and Bolivia. In the late 19th century, the Argentinian government became wary of the amount of Welsh people in the region, as they worried that the British Empire w