History of the Marshall Islands
[8] They navigated by using the stars for orientation and initial course setting, but also developed a unique piloting technique of reading disruptions in ocean swells to determine the location of low coral atolls below the horizon.
[7] The Austronesian settlers introduced Southeast Asian crops, including coconuts, giant swamp taro, and breadfruit, as well as domesticated chickens throughout the Marshall Islands.
[14][15] When Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue visited the Marshalls in 1817, the islanders still showed few signs of western influence, aside from a few scraps of metal and stories of passing ships.
On the islands he visited, Kotzebue learned that Marshallese families practiced infanticide after the birth of a third child as a form of population planning due to frequent famines.
While commanding the Santa Maria de la Victoria, the only surviving vessel of the Loaísa Expedition, his crew sighted an atoll with a green lagoon, which may have been Taongi.
[24] On December 26, 1542, a fleet of six Spanish ships commanded by Ruy López de Villalobos sighted an island in the Marshalls while sailing from Mexico to the Philippines.
The San Lucas under the command of Alonso de Arellano broke away from the others, possibly because pilot Lope Martín and other crew members intended to engage in piracy in the East Indies, and sailed into the Marshall Islands in their attempt to avoid the fleet's other ships.
Two years later, the American navy schooner Dolphin arrived and found that mutineers had been massacred by the Marshallese due to their brutal treatment of the local women.
One of the traders, Adolph Capelle [de], set up an independent trading firm on the island by partnering with Anton Jose DeBrum, a Portuguese whaler who arrived in 1864.
[69] Godeffroy & Son also established trading posts on five islands in 1873 with a main office on Jaluit,[70] but the European stock market crash later that year caused the firm to cut back its operations.
On Majuro, iroij Jebrik and Rimi fought over the paramount chieftainship for several years, leaving at least 10 islanders dead before Cyprian Bridge of the passing British warship HMS Espiegle mediated a peace treaty in 1883.
[88] In 1875, the British and German governments conducted a series of secret negotiations to divide the western Pacific in spheres of influence and counter American expansion in the region.
[101] A company of marines hoisted the flag of the German Empire over Jaluit, and the Nautilus performed similar ceremonies at seven other atolls in the Marshalls,[100] obtaining the signatures of 18 iroij, most of whom were trading partners of Hernsheim.
The language of the treaty framed the creation of protectorate as a request from the iroij to seek defense from colonization by other western powers and to continue German trade.
[108] Hernsheim & Co. and DHPG both initially opposed administering the colony, but relented to the German government in December 1887 and merged their interests to create the joint-stock Jaluit Company.
[111] Australian firm Burns, Philp & Co. complained that the harbor fees it paid in Marshallese ports were excessive, and the British government protested the Jaluit Company's practices as a violation of the Anglo-German Declarations' free-trade provision.
[120] German accounts from the protectorate period note that aspects of pre-colonial Marshallese culture were being lost in all but the remote northern atolls with little missionary influence.
[130][131] In January 1919, Japanese delegate Makino Nobuaki proposed that Japan annex Germany's Pacific island colonies at the Paris Peace Conference.
United States President Woodrow Wilson opposed the annexation of German colonies by the Allied Powers and argued for a system of League of Nations mandates.
The Australian delegates opposed Wilson's proposal, and the conference adopted a compromise under which mandates would be divided into classes based on size and level of development.
[137] In 1922 and 1923, American intelligence officer Earl Hancock Ellis posed as a commercial traveler and undertook a reconnaissance tour of Micronesia, including several months the Marshall Islands.
[138] In December 1914, the Japanese military created the Provisional South Seas Defense Force to administer Micronesia from its command post at Truk Atoll.
[144] During the first months of the occupation, Japanese scientists, agricultural researchers, medical specialists and other experts and scholars conducted an extensive survey of German Micronesia to assess the islands' economic potential.
[162] The government also sponsored youth associations (青年団, seinendan) devoted to Japanese activities, such as track and field, baseball, handicrafts, and song competitions.
One of the earliest examples was the song "The Chieftain's Daughter" (酋長の娘, Shūchō no musume), which tells the story of a Japanese man who is rescued from drowning by a Marshallese woman.
[187] Military planners initially discounted the Marshalls as too distant and indefensible for extensive fortification, but as Japan developed long-range bombers, the islands became useful as a forward base to attack Australia, British colonies, and the United States.
[205] A report in mid 2017 by Stanford University, some 70 years after 23 atomic bombs were detonated on Bikini Atoll, indicates abundant fish and plant life in the coral reefs.
[207] In 2008, extreme waves and high tides caused widespread flooding in the capital city of Majuro and other urban centres, 3 feet (0.91 m) above sea level.
[209][210] Following the 2013 emergencies, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Tony deBrum was encouraged by the Obama administration in the United States to turn the crises into an opportunity to promote action against climate change.
[212] Thousands of islanders have already moved to the US over the past decades for medical treatment and for better education or employment, many settling in Arkansas; emigration is likely to increase as sea levels rise.
