1- European explorers
1521
The first European exploration of the area was that led by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, who landed on nearby Guam and claimed the islands for Spain.
The explorers were met offshore by the native Chamorros, who delivered refreshments to them and then helped themselves to a small boat belonging to Magellan's fleet. This led to a cultural clash because in the old Chamorro culture there was little if any private property and to take something that one needed, such as a boat for fishing, was not considered theft. Due to that cultural misunderstanding, around half a dozen locals were killed and a village of 40 homes were burned by the Spanish before the boat was retrieved. The archipelago thus acquired the ignominious name Islas de los Ladrones ("Islands of the Thieves").
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Three days after he had arrived, Magellan fled the archipelago under attack—a portentous beginning to its relationship with the Spanish. The islands were then considered by Spain to be annexed, and therefore under their governance, from the Philippines, as part of the Spanish East Indies. The Spanish built a Royal Palace in Guam for the Governor of the Islands. Its remains could still be seen in 2006.
Guam was an important stop-over from Mexico for galleons carrying gold and other cargo between the Philippines and Spain. There are several lost sunken Spanish galleons off Guam
In 1668 the islands were renamed by Padre Diego Luis de San Vitores as Las Marianas after Mariana of Austria, widow of Spain's Philip IV.
Most of the islands' native population (90%-95%) died from the diseases brought by the Spanish or intermarried with non-Chamorro settlers under Spanish rule, but new settlers, primarily from the Philippines and the Caroline Islands, were brought in to repopulate the islands. Despite this, the Chamorro population did gradually resurge, and Chamorro, Filipino and Carolinian language and ethnic differences remain basically distinct in the Marianas.
To facilitate cultural and religious assimilation, Spanish colonists forced the Chamorros to be concentrated on Guam for a period of time. By the time Chamorros were allowed to return to the present-day Northern Marianas, Carolinians (from present-day eastern Yap State and western Chuuk State) had settled in the Marianas.
Hence Carolinians and Chamorros are both considered as indigenous to the Northern Marianas and both languages are official in the commonwealth (but not on Guam).
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2- German and Japanese possession:
After the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain ceded Guam to the United States and sold the rest of the Marianas (along with the Caroline and Marshall Islands) to Germany.
Japan declared war on Germany during World War I and invaded the Northern Marianas.
In 1919, the League of Nations, precursor of the United Nations, awarded the islands to Japan by mandate. During Japan's occupation, sugar cane became the main industry of the islands, and labor was imported from Japan and associated colonies (especially Okinawa and Korea).
In the census of December 1939, the total population of the South Pacific Mandate was 129,104, of which 77,257 were Japanese (including ethnic Taiwanese and Koreans).
Hours after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces from the Marianas launched an invasion of Guam on December 8, 1941. Chamorros from the Northern Marianas, then under Japanese rule for more than two decades, were brought to Guam to assist the Japanese administration. This fact, combined with the harsh treatment of Guamanian Chamorros during the brief 31-month occupation, created a rift between the two populations that would become the main reason Guamanians rejected reunification referendum approved by the Northern Marianas in the 1960s.
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3- During World War II
the United States military invaded the Mariana Islands on 15-6-1944, beginning with the Battle of Saipan, which ended on 9-7-1944 with the Japanese commander committing seppuku (a traditional Japanese form of ritual suicide). Of the 30,000 Japanese troops that defended Saipan, less than 1,000 remained alive at battle's end
U.S. forces then recaptured Guam beginning 21-7-1944 .
U.S. forces invaded Tinian on July 24, which provided the take off point for the Enola Gay, the plane dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima a year later. Rota was left untouched (and isolated) until the Japanese surrender in August 1945, due to its military insignificance.
The war did not end for everyone with the signing of the armistice. The last group of Japanese soldiers surrendered on Saipan on 1-12-1945.
On Guam, Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi hid out in the village of Talofofo until 1972.
Between the end of the invasion and the Japanese surrender, the Saipan and Tinian populations were kept in concentration camps. Japanese nationals were eventually repatriated, and the indigenous Chamorro and Carolinians returned to the land.
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4- :Commonwealth
After Japan's defeat, the islands were administered by the United States as part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; thus, defense and foreign affairs are the responsibility of the United States.
The people of the Northern Mariana Islands decided in the 1970s not to seek independence, but instead to forge closer links with the United States. Negotiations for territorial status began in 1972.
A covenant to establish a commonwealth in political union with the U.S. was approved in 1975. A new government and constitution went into effect in 1978. Similar to other U.S. territories, the islands do not have representation in the U.S. Senate, but are represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by a delegate (beginning January 2009 for the CNMI) who may vote in committee but not on the House floor[/left]
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Source:
en-wikipedia
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الجمعة مايو 20, 2011 7:02 pm