Skip to content
  • FR
FR
  • Visit

    Visit

    • Plan your visit
    • Group visits
    • Accessibility and special needs

    About the Museum

    • Advisory groups
    • About the Bank

    Contact

    • Bank of Canada Museum
    • 30 Bank Street
    • Ottawa, ON
    • K1A 0G9, Canada
  • Explore

    Exhibitions

    • Permanent exhibition
    • Special exhibitions
    • Travelling exhibitions
    • Past exhibitions

    Blog

    Collection

    • About the Collection
    • Collection Services
    • Canadian Bank Notes Series
    • Search the Collection
    Man in a superhero costume crouching in an aisle of a home renovation warehouse.

    Economic Opportunity Costs

    With his superpowers, Peter Parker would no doubt do a fabulous job of tiling his kitchen backsplash. But as Spider-Man, he has more valuable things to do with his time.

  • Learn

    Learn

    • School programs
    • Lesson plans
    • Activities
    • Education blog
    • Educational resources

    Lesson Plan: Trading Planets

    Take a trade mission to planet Plutopia to discover why trading without a common currency is hard.

    Understanding Money: Common Questions

    Ever wondered who decides what goes on Canadian coins or bank notes? Or why our coins have certain names and our notes are different colours? Use this guide to help answer some of your money-related questions!

Notice of Temporary Closure

The Bank of Canada Museum remains closed due to COVID-19. Our museum experience is highly interactive, and our top priority is the safety of our staff and visitors. We look forward to welcoming you again once it is safe for us to reopen.

  • Home
  • The Museum Blog

Unpacking the Collection 5

By: David Bergeron


March 31, 2017

Coins from a nation that wasn’t: Araucania and Patagonia

By David Bergeron, Curator

open air meeting / assemblée en plein air

D’Antoine de Tounens in a meeting with the Mapuche people of Patagonia. (Wikimedia Commons, Jules Peco?)

It is not unusual for “micro-nations”— city-states, principalities or minor kingdoms—to produce their own currency. Having a national currency is one way that a fledgling nation can promote its independence—sometimes before there even is a nation. But this coin, from a purely conceptual country in South America, is most intriguing for the history it now represents: the attempt of an indigenous people to establish their own nation in the face of colonization. Even more intriguing, what’s stamped on the coin implies this imaginary nation had already been colonized–by France.

Antique map / ancienne carte

Patagonia from the survey by the British ships Adventure and Beagle. (Wikimedia Commons, John Arrowsmith, 1842)

In the middle of the 19th century, a French lawyer and adventurer named d’Antoine de Tounens became fascinated by the Mapuche people of the Patagonia region of South America. The Mapuche were struggling to protect their ancestral lands, their identity and their culture from colonial expansion by the governments of Chile and Argentina. De Tounens went to Chile in 1858 to meet the Mapuche, whom he admired for what he regarded as their heroic resistance, and took up their campaign for self‑determination and sovereignty. In co-operation with their leaders, de Tounens drafted a constitution for “Araucania and Patagonia”, a region located in the southern half of modern Chile and Argentina. They declared the district a kingdom and de Tounens was named as its first monarch. The Chilean government arrested him in 1862, put him on trial and declared him insane. Narrowly avoiding execution, de Tounens was deported to France.

The National Currency Collection possesses three 2-centavo coins minted for Araucania and Patagonia in 1874. What is so curious about these coins is that they claim this potential nation for France. The legend on the reverse reads “NOUVELLE FRANCE / DOS / CENTAVOS / 1874". De Tounens appeared to have baptized the nation as part of New France, yet this designation is seen nowhere else but on the coins. The coins don’t originate from South America but by some accounts may have been struck, presumably at de Tounens’ request, in Belgium.

 

coin / pièce

Araucania and Patagonia, 1874, 2 centavos pattern, obverse. (NCC 1974.151.3079a1)

coin / pièce

Araucania and Patagonia, 1874, 2 centavos pattern, reverse. (NCC 1974.151.3079b1)

De Tounens intended to take the coins back with him to Patagonia to help re-establish his kingdom. Although he returned and failed on several occasions, a number of countries did choose to recognize his fledgling state. But it was not to be. In 1878, Orélie-Antoine de Tounens (as his magisterial name was) died in France as the exiled King of Araucania and Patagonia. A successor to the office of Royal Highness to the Crown of Araucania and Patagonia (in exile) still lives in France today–Prince Antoine IV.

We want to hear from you! Do you have an idea for a blog post you’d like to see?
Content type(s): Blog
Subject(s): Collection

Subscribe to The Museum Blog
The Museum Blog

June 29, 2020

The Reluctant Bank Note

By: Graham Iddon


Among 1975 $50 bill’s various design proposals were three images, three thematic colours and even three printing methods.
Content type(s): Blog Subject(s): Collection, History
June 11, 2020

Nominating an Icon for the Next $5 Bank Note

By: Graham Iddon


Using a Bank of Canada Museum lesson plan, nearly 200 students told us who they thought should be the bank NOTE-able Canadian on our new $5 bill.
Content type(s): Blog Subject(s): Education
May 5, 2020

The “Streak of Rust” and the King of Newfoundland

By: David Bergeron


Reid was on the verge of ruin, yet insisted on continuing railway construction. Suffering huge losses, and with no credit or cash resources, Reid issued wage notes to pay his employees.
Content type(s): Blog Subject(s): Collection, History
April 22, 2020

Retired Cash

By: Graham Iddon


In January 2021, 17 of our old bank notes will lose their legal tender status—what does that mean?
Content type(s): Blog Subject(s): Collection
March 30, 2020

The Fisher, the Photographer and the Five

By: Graham Iddon


There’s little doubt that the BCP45 is lovingly preserved today partly thanks to being immortalized on this beautiful blue five-dollar bill.
Content type(s): Blog Subject(s): Collection, History
January 15, 2020

Where Futurists Feared to Tread

By: Graham Iddon


blueprint of a self-sustaining town ringed with working homes
Among the laser pistols, hover cars and androids of science fiction, there’s an elderly elephant in the room: money.
Content type(s): Blog Subject(s): History
January 2, 2020

Wrap-up, 2019

By: Graham Iddon


The Bank of Canada Museum set some very ambitious goals at the end of 2018. We have managed to achieve more in one year than we had since we opened in 2017.
Content type(s): Blog
  • « Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • …
  • 28
  • Next »

30 Bank Street
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0G9, CANADA
613-782-8914

Visit

  • Plan your visit
  • Accessibility and special needs
  • About the Museum
  • Contact
  • Explore

  • Exhibitions
  • Collection
  • Collection Services
  • Canadian Bank Notes Series

Learn

  • School programs
  • Lesson plans
  • Activities
  • Educational resources
  • Blog

●●
Bank of Canada Museum

Visit the Bank of Canada web site ›