Guam’s history is also one of multi-colonialism, with the last 400 years of Guam’s history marked by administrations of three different colonial powers: Spain, the United States and Japan. In a series of Supreme Court rulings known as the Insular Cases of 1901, it was decided that new territories might never be incorporated into the union and were to receive only unspecified ‘‘fundamental’’ Constitutional protections. And as is always the case in these struggles between external powers, the presence of the Chamorro, the indigenous peoples of the islands, is lost. Terms of Use The word Chamorro is derived from Chamorri, or Chamoli, meaning “noble.” English and Chamorro are the official languages; although Chamorro is still used in many homes, English is the language of education and commerce. Nonetheless, indigenous culture continued in other ways—in values, in traditions surrounding weddings and funerals, in housing styles, and many other forms not obvious to the outsider. The Spanish governor settled them on Saipan, where they still live alongside of—if not intermarried with—Chamorros who were allowed to return there in the mid-19th century. The project, Pacific Worlds, is an indigenous-geography cultural documentation and education project, sponsored by Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL). A clan-based society arose by 800 A.D. that included villages characterized by impressive latte houses, one-story houses set atop rows of two-piece stone columns; these were still in use as late as 1668. The original inhabitants of Guam are believed to have been of Indo-Malaya descent originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2,000 B.C., and having linguistic and cultural similarities to Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. To their surprise, the island was instead placed under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Navy, and was ruled by a series of military governors who, though generally benign, wielded absolute authority. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. To America, they are forgotten. The leading exports are motor vehicles and parts, fish and other food products, scrap metal, and tobacco products. They were positively received by President Franklin Roosevelt and by members of Congress. The island’s rate of natural increase, although about average for the region, is high compared with that of the United States, partly because of a low death rate. The ceding of Guam to the United States as an unincorporated territory after the Spanish-American War in 1898 introduced Chamorros to democratic principles of government and the modern American lifestyle, while keeping them subjects of a sometimes oppressive US Naval administration. 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Central Intelligence Agency - The World Factbook - Guam, Guam - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Guam - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Advertising Notice Chamorros and other Micronesians constitute about half the population. Guam’s history is also one of multi-colonialism, with the last 400 years of Guam’s history marked by administrations of three different colonial powers: Spain, the United States and Japan. Journalist, Suva, Fiji. Privacy Statement The American negotiators neglected to inquire about the Spanish claims to the rest of the Marianas and much more of Micronesia, and Spain quickly sold these other islands to Germany. Vote Now! And then because of that, Magellan calls the islands the ‘Islands of Thieves.’". By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Guam has a pleasant tropical climate tempered by the northeast trade winds and the north equatorial ocean current that flows west across the Pacific. . It was 500 years ago, in 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan’s ships, weary and hungry, pulled up to this island, beginning 300 years of Spanish conquest. 401 Pale San Vitores Road Tumon, GU 96913. Thus began a rift between the Chamorros of Guam and those of the Northern Mariana Islands. By 1898, with the Spanish-American War, the nation’s ambitions expanded beyond the U.S. continent, and extended American “Indian-hating” to the far western Pacific. But the Navy convinced the federal government to reject the petition. Major imports—mostly from the United States and Japan—include food products, motor vehicles and parts, and shoes and other leather products. Finland, Japan, and the Federated States of Micronesia are the main export destinations. The Spanish maintained a lazy rule over the islands for the next century and a half. Instead, military historians tend to envision the Pacific Islands as “a tabula rasa on which to inscribe their histories of heroism and victimization,” forming “a body of discourse in which only Japanese and Americans constitute the agents of change and continuity in the region, erasing the agency and voice of indigenous peoples.”. They have a non-voting representative to Congress. Oceans Across the World: Fact or Fiction? The Chamorros persisted in their pursuit of democracy, sometimes with moderate support from the naval governors, sometimes not, but always without success. The Chamorro language is an Austronesian language that has, over time, come to incorporate many Spanish words. The 1898 Treaty of Paris between Spain and the U.S. would later formalize the handover of Guam. You have the following items saved in your itinerary. The plateau is covered with a thick growth of jungle, while the volcanic hills support mainly sword grass. Public Law 103-197 authorized construction of a monument to commemorate, by individual names, those people of Guam who suffered during the occupation. Today, the Chamorro language retains its traditional grammar, but 55 percent of the vocabulary borrows from Spanish. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Nowadays most Americans, if they know of Guam at all, think of this and neighboring Saipan as sites of World War II battles. Whatever happens with North Korea, which has threatened to attack Guam with a nuclear weapon, let us not forget that Guam and its fellow Mariana Islands are a locus of indigenous peoples, culture, history and traditional civilization. All rights reserved. It was from neighboring Tinian that the Enola Gay took off to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. The island was formally claimed by Spain in 1565, and its people were forced into submission and conversion to Roman Catholicism beginning in 1668. In 2002, I conducted community-based research in the southern village of Inarahan (Inalahan in Chamorro). The original inhabitants of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands were the Chamorro people, who are believed to be descendants of Austronesian people originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2000 BC. They didn’t know that war had been declared between the two nations, and mistook their cannon fire for a salute. Palm trees, ferns, and other tropical plants abound. The Spanish empire was approaching its twilight years by the time the United States acquired California from Mexico in 1848, an era when the ideology of “manifest destiny” justified aggressive American expansion. Foodstuffs were imported in increasing amounts at the expense of local cultivation, and Guam now imports most of its food. By then, the Chamorros had developed a complex, class-based matrilineal society based on fishing and agriculture, supplemented by occasional trade visits from Caroline Islanders. About three-fourths of the people are Roman Catholic, and one-eighth are Protestant. U.S. Navy facilities, located around the island, include a naval air station, a naval base with a ship repair yard, communications centres, and a hospital. The island is awash with a history that dates back to the Latte Period of 2000BC, the period of Ancient Chamorro life before a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived on March 6, 1521. Relations were tense with occasional violence. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). or While geographically, Guam is among the Mariana Islands, so named by Spanish missionaries in 1668, it is a separate U.S. territory from the Northern Mariana Islands, which is … Native Guamanians, ethnically called Chamorros, are of basically Malayo-Indonesian descent with a considerable admixture of Spanish, Filipino, Mexican, and other European and Asian ancestries. Tourism is the most prominent component of the economy, with more than a million visitors arriving per year. Archaeological evidence indicates rice cultivation and pottery making prior to European arrival in the 16th century. However, as a result of the accidental introduction in the 1940s of the brown tree snake, an invasive species from New Guinea, indigenous bird life on Guam has been devastated. As late as 1936, two Guam delegates, Baltazar J. Bordallo and Francisco B. Leon Guerrero, went to Washington to petition in person for Chamorro citizenship. Cookie Policy That all changed when an aggressive Jesuit missionary, Father San Vitores, arrived in the Marianas in 1668. Last Updated: Oct 14, 2020 See Article History Guam, island and unincorporated territory of the United States in the North Pacific Ocean, the largest, most populous, and southernmost of the Mariana Islands. In his book Cultures of Commemoration: The Politics of War, Memory and History in the Mariana Islands, Chamorro scholar Keith Camacho remarks that in military narratives of World War II’s Pacific theater, Pacific Islanders play no central role. The development of Guam into an important U.S. military base brought about profound changes in the island’s agricultural patterns after World War II. At least 1,123 died. Andersen Air Force Base and its annexes are concentrated at the northern end of the island. The northern islands were off limits, until typhoon-devastated Caroline Islanders arrived from the south—as was their traditional practice—looking for temporary shelter around 1815. Today, Guam has a diverse population that enjoys a rich, multicultural, modern and urban lifestyle, yet continues to carry the indigenous spirit, language and culture of its people. As one legal scholar noted in 1903, the new insular possessions became “real dependencies—territories inhabited by a settled population differing from us in race and civilization to such an extent that assimilation seems impossible.” With these newly acquired lands, the U.S. became an empire in the manner of Britain, France and Germany. Guam remained a Spanish possession until 1898, when, in the course of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. warship Charleston steamed into Apra Harbor and bombarded the old fort. More than 13,000 American subjects suffered injury, forced labor, forced march or internment. The contradiction of a “free,” “democratic” country holding colonies unfolded powerfully on Guam over the ensuing century. The Navy maintained the island—both physically and discursively—as an essential American forward base, and under their administrations, Guam was run like a well-ordered battleship under what was essentially martial law.