V.
Resettlement of Saipan
For more than a century the islands north of Rota remained
They were not completely deserted, for hunters from
uninhabited.
Guam
visited Tinian periodically, searching for wild cattle.
A
full
account of this activity is given by Walter, the chaplain and chroniIn 1742, Anson landed on Tinian, with his
cler of Anson's voyage.
crew in desperate condition through the ravages of scurvy. He spent
several months on Tinian, where he found great numbers of cattle,
hogs,
and
fowl, as well as large supplies of sour oranges, limes,
lemons, coconuts, and breadfruit. Tinian's abundance allowed Anson's men to recuperate, and the island has never before or since
been described
in
such glowing terms as those contained in Anson's
account.
When Anson
landed on Tinian, he captured a small Spanish bark
of about fifteen tons, lying at anchor in Tinian harbor, a Chamorro
sailing outrigger canoe, and a Spaniard and several Chamorro men.
The Spaniard was a sergeant in charge of a party
Chamorros who had come to Tinian to kill cattle and
of
twenty-two
hogs, the meat
of which was to be dried and taken to Guam to supply the garrison.
Whether Tinian's cattle and hogs were introduced prior to the aban-
donment of the island or early in the eighteenth century is not clear.
In any case, they multiplied rapidly, for in the Anson account the
cattle alone were estimated as numbering at least ten thousand head
(Anson, 1748, p. 309).
Tinian continued to be used as a provision storehouse for Guam
through the remainder of the eighteenth century. The island was
by Byron in 1765, Wallis in 1767, Gilbert in 1788, and Mortimer in 1789. Mortimer (1791, pp. 65 66), who landed on Tinian
to secure provisions and water, stated that his party "found several
huts erected by the Spaniards, who came here annually from their
settlement at Guam to procure beef
," though Mortimer found
no one actually living on the island. Whether Saipan was used in
similar fashion is not known. Probably because it had a more accessible harbor and had become known through Anson's account,
visited
.
68
.
.
RESETTLEMENT OF SAIPAN
the few non-Spanish ships passing through the Marianas found
more expedient to stop at Tinian than at Saipan.
69
it
In the early nineteenth century, however, attempts were made
to settle Saipan, as well as Agrihan. Chamisso notes that in 1810,
a Captain Brown, commander of the ship Derby, with one Johnson
sailed for Agrihan but missed the island and
turned south to Tinian. Here two parties formed: one consisted of
Johnson, four other white men, and the Hawaiians, who were to
build a boat and sail north to Agrihan; the other consisted of the
second mate and three other men, who received their discharge from
the ship, bought a longboat from the captain, and prepared to
overhaul it for "commercial purposes," possibly intending to use it
for trading with passing American vessels, which were beginning to
and several Hawaiians,
stop at the Marianas.
Captain Brown presumably went on his way.
parties moved from Tinian to Saipan, which had better
of
timber. When the mate finished his longboat, the Hasupplies
waiians rose up and killed the mate and one other white man. In the
meantime, the Spanish governor heard of the presence of strangers
The two
on Saipan and in June, 1810, brought Johnson, four other whites,
two negroes, and twelve Polynesians seven men and five women
to Guam. Johnson thereafter made Guam his home (Chamisso, in
—
Kotzebue, 1821,
—
vol. Ill, pp. 87-88).
In 1815, the Spanish broke up a settlement on Agrihan, consisting
of some forty persons, including three Englishmen, one American,
and the remainder Hawaiians. At the time of Chamisso's visit in
1818, another settlement had already formed on Agrihan (Chamisso,
op. cit., p. 88). Arago speaks of an American vessel that had been
wrecked on Agrihan, the survivors being taken to Guam by the Spanish; this account may refer to one of these groups (Arago, 1823, p. 10).
These attempts to resettle the islands north of Guam were transitory. The actual resettlement of Saipan was part of a quite different
series of events, which concern the trading voyages and migrations
of Caroline Islanders northward to the Marianas. It was the Carolinians,
who,
in the
nineteenth century, resettled Saipan.
the most adventurous and competent sailors and navigators of Micronesia were the inhabitants of the low-lying atolls
Don Luis de Torres, viceof the central and western Carolines.
governor of Guam during the early part of the nineteenth century,
was a careful observer of both the Chamorros and the Carolinians
who visited Guam. De Torres himself made a trip to Ulithi in 1804.
Among
The Carolinians
told de Torres that
"they had previously had com-
70
-
SAIPAN
mercial intercourse with the inhabitants of this island [Guam], and
only given it up on hearing of the settlement of the white men, and
having themselves been witness of their cruelty." (Kotzebue, 1821,
vol. II, p. 240.)
It seems probable that the Spanish conquest forced
a break in relations long established between the Caroline islanders
and the Chamorros of Guam. The Carolinians returned in 1788,
but on the trip back their fleet of canoes was lost in a storm and it
was not until the turn of the nineteenth century, in 1805, that they
again made regular trading trips by canoe to Guam (Kotzebue, op.
cit.,
pp. 241
ff.).
The commodity
that drew the Carolinians to
Guam
in the nine-
teenth century was iron, which they traded for their own handicraft.
In addition, by this time the Chamorros were no longer canoe-
The canoes described by Anson in 1742
builders and navigators.
were apparently built and sailed by Chamorros, but Freycinet, who
visited the Marianas in 1819, noted that ''the boats that are used to
sail between the islands today are built in the Carolines and are
handled by sailors from that group." (Freycinet, 1829 37, vol. II,
The Carolinians eventually provided the principal transportation between Guam, Rota, Tinian the latter still valuable to
Guam as a source of meat supplies and eventually Saipan.
p. 459.)
—
The accepted date for the settlement of Saipan by the Carolinians
The Carolinians are said to have requested permission to
settle on Saipan because their home islands were devastated by a
typhoon. Their request was granted, provided they would transport
dried beef and pork from Tinian to Guam. The source of this information is Corte (1876) and as he was generally well informed
is
1815.
there
is little
reason to doubt his statement.
Carolinian islanders
who were
living
on
Guam
Chamisso has
in
1816
(in
listed
Kotzebue,
1821, vol. Ill, p. 91) while Freycinet (1829-37, vol. II, p. 327)
stated that on Saipan in 1819 houses were just beginning to be built,
four already being occupied by Carolinians from "Lamoursek"
(probably Lamotrek). Freycinet himself did not land on Saipan,
though Gaudichard, Arago, and B^rard of his party visited Tinian,
where a few Carolinians were staying, as well as a Chamorro alcalde,
and confirmed the fact that Saipan was being settled (Arago, 1823).
There is no doubt that by the early years of the nineteenth century
the Carolinians were moving to Saipan as well as to Guam.
The Carolinians continued to maintain regular trade relations
Guam, as well as to migrate to the Marianas. In 1849, a canoe
arrived at Guam from Satawal, and next day two more from Lamowith
RESETTLEMENT OF SAIPAN
trek, the crews
71
and passengers being permitted to
settle at
Maria
Christina, a small Carolinian village near Agaiia. By this time, the
Carolinians had founded the town of Garapan on Saipan's west
In 1851, the population of the island was 267 (Diccionario
When Sanchez (1865 66, pp. 258, 298) visited
1851).
Saipan some years later, in 1865, he reported that Garapan had 424
Carolinian inhabitants and 9 Chamorros, one of whom was the alcoast.
historico,
calde.
Sanchez was much impressed with the appearance of the
skill as canoe-builders and sailors.
Carolinians and with their
Tinian had been by-passed by this movement of Carolinians
northward to Saipan, though Tinian continued to be used as a source
of meat supply for Guam. Corte (1876, pp. 82-83), governor of the
Marianas from 1855 to 1866, stated that only about 20 persons were
on Tinian, including a number of lepers. Cattle and hogs were
on Tinian, and the meat was dried and shipped for sale to
Guam on Carolinian canoes. Corte estimated that there were 800
Sanchez
cattle and about 3,000 hogs running wild on the island.
that
the
in
1865
and
stated
Tinian
visited
village
(1865 66, p. 212)
of Sunharon, at the harbor, had about a half-dozen houses, containing
15 persons, who came from Agana and were employed in killing
cattle and drying meat. These people were rotated back to Agana
every two years. In addition, Sanchez noted on the eastern side of
the island a "hospital" for lepers, containing "three wretched morkilled
attended by the same people engaged in killing cattle. The
United States Trust Territory's colony for the treatment of Hansen's
Disease, presently located on Tinian, thus has had less distinguished
tals,"
predecessors.
In 1869, however, an attempt was made to establish a more permanent settlement on Tinian, when one H. G. Johnson obtained a
concession that gave him the usufruct of Tinian for eight years.
He imported some 230 Caroline islanders from Namonuito. The
baptismal records of the Chalan Kanoa church on Saipan show a
considerable number of baptisms of these Carolinians performed on
Tinian in July, 1871. The colony, however, was not successful.
Johnson died in 1875 and a number of years later the people moved
to Saipan.
On
Saipan today the village of Tanapag
is
largely in-
habited by descendants of these islanders, who have held themselves
socially somewhat apart from the Garapan Carolinians.
The Chamorros
did not return to Saipan in
any number
until
the Carolinians had long been established there. If Sanchez is corThe Charect, there were only nine Chamorros on Saipan in 1865.
SAIPAN
72
morros migrating to Saipan also settled at Garapan. Corte wrote
that Garapan was divided into three barrios, one of Chamorros and
two of Carolinians, but it is not clear to what year this condition is
to be referred. Ibanez (1886, p. 142) noted that the census of 1872
gave Saipan 425 inhabitants, though he gave few other details.
Governor Olive (1887, p. 52), reporting for the year 1886, stated
that there was one town on Saipan namely, Garapan divided into
three barrios, the northern one being Chamorro and the southern
two Carolinian; that there were 145 houses in the town; and that
the total population numbered 849, of which two-thirds were CaroThis figure was confirmed by Marche (1891, p. 251), who
linian.
—
visited the island in 1887.
growth on Saipan
is
The
also given in
general trend in the population
official report on the Marianas
an
1885 (Islas Marianas, Informe
1885), which gives the following population totals for Saipan: 1835, 128; 1863, 420; 1881,
751; 1885, 797. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century
the number of Chamorros on Saipan slowly increased, with a marked
influx in the early years of the German regime.
in
.
.
.
,
These two groups the Carolinians and the Chamorros who
resettled Saipan in the nineteenth century maintained their separate
As Joseph and Murray (1951, p. 29)
social and cultural identity.
have pointed out, each group preserved its own language and customs. By this time the hybrid Chamorro culture had crystallized,
and though there were numerous individual culture traits shared by
the Chamorros and their Carolinian neighbors, the cultures of each
had markedly different configurations. The Carolinians clung to
The
their own dress, their house types, and their canoe-building.
women were taro-, yam-, and sweet-potato-growers; the men were
fishermen.
The Carolinians
also preserved the essential features
maternal lineages and clans,
the men's house, patterns of sex relationships, the widespread
practice of adoption, and their system of chieftainship. They continued their ancient dances. They remained only superficially affected by the forms of Catholic ritual. In all these features of life
they differed from the Chamorros.
of their social organization, including
Chamorro
culture, westernized in a seventeenth
and eighteenth
century sense, also included attitudes of superiority towards the
Carolinians. The Spanish administrative system, extended weakly
to Saipan, was nonetheless in the hands of the Chamorros. Sanchez
(1865 66, p. 258) remarked on the simplicity and docility of the
Carolinians and their respect for the few Chamorro residents, who
RESETTLEMENT OF SAIPAN
73
were really in authority. There was apparently little tension and
relations were amicable enough, but there is little doubt, from state-
ments that go back to Chamisso's day, that the Chamorros considered themselves decidedly superior to their unacculturated neighbors. A reflection of this was caught by Safford (1933 34) on Guam
1900, during the
in
observed
first
year of American occupation, when he
:
The Guam people treat the Caroline islanders kindly, but look upon
them as savages and heathen. On one occasion I asked a Chamorro lady
why the ladies of Guam do not wear flowers in their hair when going to a
fandango.
She
replied,
"Why
seiior,
do you take us
for Carolinas?"
Nevertheless, though the two groups of Chamorros and Carolinians preserved their separateness, they both lived on one island,
in one principal town- Garapan (and later a small subsidiary village,
Tanapag) and formed a single Saipan community. If Guam was
a remote corner of the Pacific world, Saipan was even more so.
During the mid-nineteenth century and just before, the Marianas
were frequently visited by whaling ships, but this was a transitory
phase in the nineteenth-century history of Saipan. Sanchez, for
1865, stated that "no one visits the Marianas except perhaps some
English or American whaling ship," and, with regard to Saipan,
".
.
.
365.)
(Sanchez, 1865-66, p.
scarcely a single vessel comes here."
Except for the Carolinian canoes, there was no inter-island
transportation.
A
few contemporary notes
nineteenth century.
Most
fill
out the picture of Saipan in the
of these relate to the Carolinians.
They
maintained a canoe-building yard, where Sanchez saw two vessels
being built and several others careening, and where the pilots had
an informal school for the young. Every year in the spring months
the Carolinians made trips to Guam during the good weather. On
these trips they brought dried meat from Tinian, as well as some
pigs, a little tobacco, and coconut line cables and ropes, made locally on Saipan.
Corte (1876) provides the following description of the island:
The island is covered everywhere by a luxuriant forest growth with many
coconut palms and breadfruit trees, while ifil, dago, and other timber trees
All the different types
of the same type as those in Guam grow sparingly.
of plants which grow on Guam are found on Saipan or can be raised there,
—
—
while some things tobacco, for instance grow better. No produce, how^ever,
is cultivated in quantity because the people, being very few in numbers and
of simple wants in the midst of great abundance, are satisfied to plant a few
camotes and to raise a few pigs and chickens for the occasional whaling ships
SAIPAN
74
that pass by ...
bring to
Guam
.
The
islanders also
grow a small tobacco crop which they
for sale or barter.
Corte noted that the houses on Garapan were arranged on either
made it the best town of the islands, after
The town included a timber chapel or church, a residence
side of broad streets that
Agana.
and one for the missionary, though at the time of
Corte's visit there was no priest in residence. Periodically, priests
came to Saipan from Guam to baptize children and perform marfor the alcalde
oldest baptism recorded in the Chalan Kanoa church
dated 1856. In 1865, Sanchez (1865-66, pp. 260 261)
noted that the Carolinians "have scarcely any notion of ChristiToward the end of the Spanish period, however, Augusanity."
tinian priests were in residence, and the Catholic missionaries were
riages.
The
records
is
more active. Elderly Chamorros remember Padre Thomas Queba,
who built a masonry church at Garapan. At the end of the century,
Tanapag village, a few miles north of Garapan, had become estaband here too a small masonry chapel was built.
The Spanish-American War at the close of the nineteenth century
marked the final disintegration of the Spanish colonial empire.
Guam passed to American hands, and Germany purchased all the
Mariana Islands north of Guam. With this event, the Marianas
entered a new phase in their history. Thereafter, the cultural influences affecting Guam largely stemmed from contact with Americans, while German, and, later, Japanese influences were important
lished,
on Saipan.