Challenge: Independent Patagonia

Could a sovereign state of Patagonia exist on the southernmost tip of South America independent of both Argentina and Chile?
 
I'd always figured that if Max can stay on the Mexican throne and if France can put aside its differences with Austria that Napoleon III might get bigger delusions of grandeur and back Orélie-Antoine I in Auracania and Patagonia.

There's quite a few ifs in that statement, but I thought it would be a nifty French client state if it survived.
 
I'd always figured that if Max can stay on the Mexican throne and if France can put aside its differences with Austria that Napoleon III might get bigger delusions of grandeur and back Orélie-Antoine I in Auracania and Patagonia.

There's quite a few ifs in that statement, but I thought it would be a nifty French client state if it survived.

The so-called "King of the Mapuche" may have been genuinely concerned about their plight, but he was also a transparent huckster. Any attempt to organize the Mapuche into a European-style kingdom would be treated by them as any other attempt to colonize them, and would be met with violent resistance.
 
Wait, on a scale from James Brooke to Paddy Roy Bates, just how good was Orélie-Antoine in actually ruling the place, if at all?
 
Aside from the Mapuches, Orèlie-Antoine should also deal with the Spanish-speaking Patagonians, better known as Chilotes, as they came from the island of Chiloé.
 
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