HOM.12
Carolinians drift to Guam, 1715-1728, is the twelfth volume of the History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents (HOM), compiled and edited by Rodrique Levesque.
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The History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents was complied, edited and published by Rod Levesque from 1992 to 2002. Copyrights were obtained by the Habele Outer Island Education Fund, a US nonprofit, in 2022, which digitized the content to facilitate noncommercial access to, and use of, the twenty-volume series. The PDF file for HOM.12 is roughly 65MB.
Levesque's Summary
Volume 12 contains 66 chapters totalling 189 documents and 20 illustrations. The illustration above shows the details of the construction of a Carolinian voyaging canoe. The rear endpaper of this volume shows a very rare map of the Caroline Islands which I found in Prague in 1997. A reliable translation of Father Cantova’s report on the Carolines appears in this volume. We have two more English pirates coming through the Marianas during this period: Captains Clipperton and Shelvocke. The trials of Governor Pimentel and of the French captain Boislor6 show how the Spanish justice system worked in the colonies.
One document on the exploration of the Carolines was a plan to occupy Palau in 1714. Cannibalism was suspected but never proven.
All documents appear in their proper chronological sequence, with footnotes, etc. There is a total of704 large-size pages, full of primary records: extracts from rare books, eyewitness reports such as annual reports, and letters translated from Spanish, French, German, and Italian.
The growth of a nation should be treated as one continuous development from many points of view: political, military, religious, traditional, etc. My job as an amateur historian [in its original meaning of lover of history] is to provide the facts to professional historians, who in turn should view those facts as factors, or variables, while writing interpretations for their social/cultural histories, whatever their chosen frame of reference may be. The task of the professional historian of Micronesia is now easier, since the facts are being made available in this series in their proper time frame, i.e. chronologically, as they happened, with all the factors together at one time, and within their proper context.
Volume 12 is an average volume, in that the period covered by it contains no great rebellion, major discovery, or new visitors to the Islands, except for some Carolinians. The Guam colony has settled into a routine that will last for many decades. Life continues to be a struggle, specially for the natives who suffer from endemic diseases for which there is no cure, oblivious to the opinion of sailors who view their island as a tropical paradise after many months at sea. Even the representatives of the mighty Inquisition have nothing startling to report, other than the case of a defrocked friar here, and a case of bigamy there. On the other hand, the Spanish treasury is always short of cash, although the subsidies keep coming every year, but never without an increase. Europeans long for simple pleasures, like bread and brandy.
The first period of religious conquest of the Marianas is truly over, with the death of the oldest founding missionary, Father Bustillo, in 1716, and the death of Captain Quiroga, the peace-maker, who also preferred to die in his adopted country, among friends. Another period of conquest is about to begin in the Carolines, and for a while, it will generate some real excitement. In the continuing search for a suitable place to set up a colony in the Carolines, specially after a new promoter is found in the person of Father Cantova, an Italian missionary, there was no longer any official interest. The King had indeed appointed a would-be Pizarro as frontier governor of the Carolines, but the gentleman in question did not accept the honor. Admiral Fernandez de Roxas (that was his name) had no money to Finance the military conquest of those Islands, and his plan to colonize the Carolines was considered too costly.
The last of the true pirates, Captain Clipperton, was beaten off Guam. His former associate, Captain Shelvocke simply avoided the island. The two men left at Guam by Clipperton were taken to Manila as prisoners; one died there, but his companion was carried all the way to Spain where he languished in jail for many years, until the British Admiralty admitted responsibility for their acts of piracy.
Carolinians had seen many Spanish ships sail by their islands in the 1710s. They already knew about the Marianas, from their legends, but the deliberate visit by two Carolinian canoes in 1721 was their First recorded visit to Guam. One voyaging canoe was so big that it was mistaken for a Spanish frigate by Chamorros, when still in the offing. Last but not least, Father Bonani, a newly-arrived Austrian Jesuit, did a good review of ancient Chamorro customs.
Publication Details
Lévesque Rodrigue. History of Micronesia : A Collection of Source Documents. Vol. 12 Carolinians drift to Guam: 1715-1728. Gatineau Québec: Lévesque Publications; 1998.
ISBN-10: 0920201121
ISBN-13: 978-0920201121
LCC: DU500 .H58 2000
