Spanish Period (1521-1899)

The Spanish Period (1521-1899) began with initial discovery in the early 1500's though Spain made little attempt to occupy or administer the islands until 1885, when the islands were incorporated into the Spanish East Indies.

Spanish Colonial Policy

The Marianas were discovered and claimed by the Spanish though their presence and development was primarily limited to the Island of Guam. Spanish permanence on Guam was also part of its justification for its colonial claim to the Palau, Caroline and Marshall Islands to the south.

The colonial policy of Spain in the Palau, Caroline and Marshall Islands was directed primarily toward maintaining a semblance of authoritative government at a few scattered administrative centers barely sufficient to uphold her claim to sovereignty against nations with imperialistic ambitions in the Pacific, The proselyting efforts of Catholic missionaries were supported, but only half-hearted attempts were made at economic exploitation, and the islands continued to be a financial burden until they wore sold to Germany in 1899.

Limited Early Engagement

Ruy López de Villalobos, in 1543, sighted Yap in the western Carolines and discovered Palau and other islands. Other Spanish explorers visited the area, but Spain made no attempt to establish trade, colonies, or missions in the western Carolines or Palau during either the sixteenth or the seventeenth centuries. Similarly, many of the Eastern Caroline Islands were discovered by Spanish voyagers during the sixteenth century, but for nearly two centuries thereafter they were lost to history. Near the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, they were rediscovered by explorers and whalers of several nationalities, and with each succeeding decade they had become better known.

Knowledge of the islands increased rapidly during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in consequence of visits by traders and explorers of various nationalities, especially the French explorer Duperrey, the Spaniard Don Luis de. Torres, and the Russian Friedrich Benjamin Graf von Lütke. Contacts of the natives with the early Portuguese and Spanish explorers were exceedingly slight. Abortive attempts were made by the Spaniards to missionize Sonsorol in 1710 and Ulithi in 1731, but in both cases the missionaries were slain. Discouraged, the Spaniards withdrew and did not again become active in the Western Carolines or Palau until late in the nineteenth century.

Evolution of Spanish Engagement

From early in the discoveries period the Mariana, Palau, Caroline and Marshall lay within Spain’s sphere of influence, and so long as no other nation was interested in them they were tacitly regarded as Spanish possessions. Captain Wilson in 1783 and Captain McCluer in 1790 raised the British flag in Palau, but Great Britain did not press these claims. On the other hand, Spain never made any formal assertion of sovereignty over the Palau, Caroline and Marshall Islands; she made but two early and unsuccessful attempts to establish mission stations in the Carolines, but until late in the nineteenth century she made no serious effort to administer them.

With the development of trade in the region in the middle of the nineteenth century, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany all experienced a quickening of interest in the matter of sovereignty. German traders had opened trading stations on Yap and Palau In 1873, when a vessel belonging to one of these traders, Eduard Hemsheim, was about to sail for Palau from Hong Kong, the Spanish consul at the latter port demanded that Herrsheim pay customs duties for his trade with Palau and that he deliver over the Palauans on board as Spanish subjects. The British governor of Hongkong refused to support the consul's demands, and Hernsheim disregarded them, Spain took the occasion, however, to assert her sovereignty over the Carolines. Germany, in 1875, protested to Madrid that there was no treaty entitling Spain to make any such claim, and that no representatives of the Spanish Government had ever been established on the islands. Great Britain supported the German position. In 1876, Germany dispatched a corvette to Yap, Ngulu, and Palau to map the area and to protect the interests of German merchants and, at the request of the British Admiralty-, of English traders as well. An exchange of diplomatic notes between Spain, Germany, and Great Britain resulted the following year in an agreement whereby Spain recognized complete freedom of trade in all Pacific areas not actually occupied by a European nation.

Spain now began slowly to mature plans for the occupation of the Western Carolines and Palaus, A Spanish cruiser visited Yap and Palau in 1883, and on February 24, 1885, the Madrid government ordered the governor of the Philippines to take possession of the islands. On August 21 and 22 respectively, two Spanish vessels arrived at Yap with a new governor, soldiers, convict laborers, two priests, riding horses, cattle, water buffaloes, and stone to build a church and a governor’s residence. Instead of raising the Spanish flag immediately, however, the party spent five days in selecting a suitable site, in landing their animals, and in planning an appropriate ceremony. Suddenly, early in the morning of August 25, the German gunboat litis sped into port, landed a party, planted the German flag, and took possession of the islands in the name of the Kaiser. Taken completely by surprise, the Spaniards resorted to the ineffective subterfuge of raising their flag during the night and claiming priority of action. Later, however, they lowered their flag. Within a few weeks the German flag had also been raised on Truk, Ponape, Kusaie, and many of the lesser islands of the eastern Carolines, The reaction in Spain was violent, and serious international complications were avoided only when the issue was referred to Pope Leo XIII for adjudication. The pope confirmed the claim of Spain to sovereignty over the Carolines on condition that she maintain an orderly government there, but he awarded to Germany the right to trade freely, to fish, and to establish settlements and coaling stations in the islands. In return for these concessions Germany relinquished its claims to the Carolines, and withdrew.

Her claim to the Carolines confirmed, Spain, in 1886, dispatched nine priests and monks of the Capuchin order to found missions on Yap and Palau, and established on Yap a government office for the administration of the western Carolines. Here, as on Ponape in the Eastern Carolines, fortifications were built and a military garrison maintained. Ponape was made the administrative center for the Eastern Carolines, and in 1887 a governor arrived with a secretary, a physician, 50 Filipino soldiers with Spanish officers, and six Catholic priests and lay brothers of the Capuchin order.

Pohnpei and Kosrae

The Spaniards established a strong garrison at Pohnpei Colony, fortified the settlement, and built a stockade. During the next few years they devoted themselves to building roads to the centers of the three remaining Protestant districts of Kiti, Madolenihmw, and U, and to establishing Capuchin missionaries alongside the various Protestant stations, The Protestants were indignant at what appeared to them to be persistent hostile encroachment. When, in 1890, a native preacher in Metalanim protested and was jailed, the chief of that district revolted, attacked the Spanish garrison, and slew 33 soldiers. The American mission gave refuge to the surviving troops and the Capuchins, and conducted them to safety. An overland punitive expedition failed with considerable loss of life, but Metalanim was then successfully stormed and taken from the sea. Hostilities dragged on, and the Spaniards attempted to partition Metalanim, giving half to Catholic Not and half to the chief of U, who embraced Catholicism for this purpose, deposed this chief and fought at the side of Metalanim. Months of fighting left Metalanim undivided and U the hands of its new Protestant chief. Kiti meanwhile was successfully countering the Spaniards with guile.

Matters were still deadlocked when an American corvette arrived to investigate the complaints of the Boston Mission. The natives flocked aboard to testify, annoying the Spaniards whose summonses they had repeatedly ignored. Unquestionably the American missionaries had given tacit support to native resistance, and the Spanish governor insisted upon their expulsion. The Amerioan commander, after at horough inrestigation, advised the missionaries to withdraw from the island until peace had been restored, he transported the Bev, Frank S. Rand, who had replaced Doane, and two women missionaries to Kosrae. After diplomatic negotiations the Spanish government paid the United States $17,500 to indemnify the Boston Mission for buildings destroyed by troops during the rebellion.

During the remainder of the Spanish occupation peace was never fully restored, and the American missionaries were refused permission to return to Ponape. Metalanim, Kiti, and Uremained Protestant under their native pastors. A state of armed truce prevailed on Pohnpei, punctuated by occasional sniping at Spanish patrols and several incipient revolts. All parties were relieved when Spanish rule came to an end. Since the Spaniards never attempted the actual occupation of Chuuk, Kosrae, and the coral atolls, conditions on these islands remained much as they had been during the period of virtual independence.

Palau and Yap

Missionary endeavor, though modest, was the principal activity of the Spaniards throughout the period of their rule. They interfered very little in local affairs, and from what little effort they expended they reaped no economic rewards, for the trade of the area was monopolized by Germans, Americans, and Japanese. On several occasions Spain dispatched warships and troops to punish the natives of outlying islands for offenses against traders or missionaries, but her hold over the region remained tenuous and her influence small.

End of the Spanish Period

At the close of the Spanish-American War, in 1899, Germany negotiated a treaty with Spain by which she acquired the Caroline and Marianas Isands, except for Guam, in return for apayment of 25 million pesetas. On July 18, 1899, an imperial edict declared these regions a German protectorate and placed them under the administration of the Governor of German New Guinea. This marked the start of the German Period (1899-1914).

Resources

Hezel, Francis X. 1994. The First Taint of Civilization. First. University of Hawaii Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824847173

Hezel, Francis X., and Maria Teresa del Valle. 1972. “Early European Contact with the Western Carolines: 1525–1750.” The Journal of Pacific History 7 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/00223347208572199

Hezel, Francis X., and Marjorie C. Driver. 1988. “Spain in the Mariana Islands 1690-1740.” The Journal of Pacific History 23 (2). https://doi.org/10.1080/00223348808572585

Parejo, Rafael Gracia Y., and Patricia Bieber. 1973. “Considerations on the Rights of Spain over the Caroline Islands.” 1. Miscellaneous Work Papers. Honolulu. https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/d98827cf-127e-4d4c-bf70-833c54b2fc30

Stephenson, Charles. 2012. “Tectonic Shift 1: 1898–1899. Spain and the USA, Germany, Micronesia and Samoa.” In Germany’s Asia-Pacific Empire. https://doi.org/10.1017/upo9781846157264.005

Viana, Augusto de. 2013. “Fr. Juan Antonio Cantova and the First Christian Mission in the Caroline Islands.” Philippiniana Sacra 48 (144). https://doi.org/10.55997/ps2004xlix144a3