Europeans first made contact with the CHamoru people in Guam on March 6, 1521. Detail from Ortelius’s 1590 map showing Ferdinand Magellan’s ship Victoria. Wikimedia Commons.

In the fall of 1520, a storm at the southern tip of South America tossed Ferdinand Magellan’s flotilla like the toy boats he had played with during his childhood. Magellan feared he and his men might not return home. On November 1, All Saints’ Day, the captains and crews, fighting for their lives, maneuvered their ships into what looked like a bay. After weathering the storm for forty days, they were amazed to find a strait, or narrow passage, from the Atlantic Ocean to a vast expanse of relatively calm water. Passing through the strait, the men delighted in the calmer waters, calling it the Mar Pacifica. They did not know that huge storms are common to the Pacific.[1] Magellan’s voyage—which we commemorate five hundred years later—was the first European trip through Micronesia and brought the first European contact in Guam with the CHamoru people (a spelling changed in 2021 to reflect indigenous spellings and replace the more Spanish term Chamorro).[2]

Magellan and fellow captains knew little of the geography beyond South America. They optimistically anticipated a short trip through modern-day Micronesia to the Spice Islands (Moluccas) of Indonesia. Days turned to months, and food ran low. In despair the sailors began chewing shoe leather to stay alive. At last, on March 21, 1521, they reached the island of Guam, where they obtained lifesaving food and supplies from the CHamoru, who were also a seafaring culture. Pacific historian Glenn Petersen explained that “when Europeans arrived on the scene, with their histories of imperial expansion, their technologies of domination, and their lusts for superordination, . . . they found populations who were not only committed traders but already possessed fairly sophisticated concepts concerning the possibilities of overlordship, well-developed commitments to making use of it, and skills and tactics for resisting it.”[3]

The CHamoru had offered food and supplies, and in return they took a few items and a small skiff, likely owing to their cultural understanding of reciprocity. Incensed at what appeared to be thievery, Magellan’s forces responded by killing seven villagers. Magellan called the islands Islas de los Ladrones (Islands of Thieves), which would later curtail future visits to the region.[4] Magellan would soon lose his life after taking sides in a battle in the Philippines. Only 17 of his original 270 crew members would make the voyage home, but their voyage changed the lives of the CHamoru people they encountered. Indeed, navigating cultural conflicts with colonial forces would become vital to the survival of the many islanders of Micronesia.

Looking back on those events of five hundred years earlier, CHamoru scholars commemorate Magellan’s visit to Guam as a vital point of cultural contact but not as a cause to celebrate. Dr. Robert Underwood, a CHamoru professor at the University of Guam, noted, “We’re not actually celebrating the anniversary. We’re just acknowledging it and we’re commemorating it in order to be able to present the CHamoru perspective, which we think for over 500 years has been undervalued and not fully paid attention to.”[5]

Including indigenous voices is vital to good history, and such voices are a counterbalance to the colonial perspectives that often dominate history. “Latter-day Saint proselytizing in Micronesia is deeply enmeshed in the history of colonization that preceded it,” writes Phillip McArthur. “The missionaries rode in on the coattails of American imperialism that both facilitated their entrance and provided the background for their initial teaching efforts.”[6] Telling the story of religious proselytizing in Micronesia requires doing so within “indigenous frameworks of understanding and practice,” he adds. As authors, we highly value the voices of Micronesians and have done our best to share the stories of those who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Micronesia and either remained there or are part of the Micronesian diaspora. Many of these stories are first-person accounts of the development of the Church in Guam and Micronesia.[7] Contributors also reflect significant experience in the Pacific and multiple nonindigenous perspectives: American, Asian, European, Jesuit, and Latter-day Saint (including members and missionaries). For example, we interviewed Father Francis X. Hezel, a Jesuit priest who is a foremost authority on Micronesia.

In this book we dive into questions like these:

• What are the major island groups and cultures of Micronesia?
• What were the major waves of colonization?
• How did colonizers affect the various cultures of Micronesia?
• How did Christianity affect the indigenous cultures of Micronesia?
• How did the Pacific War introduce Latter-day Saints to Micronesia?
• What challenges did Micronesians face during and after the war?
• How have indigenous members adapted to Church culture and teachings?
• What have missionaries learned from the indigenous cultures?
• What do Micronesian Saints think about the Yigo Guam Temple and the forthcoming Tarawa Kiribati Temple?

This introduction briefly covers the first four topics. The title, “Micronesia Matters,” refers, of course, to important aspects of Micronesia, but it is also a play on words: Micronesia matters in the history of the world. We hope this introduction provides a concise overview of how the waves of culture, colonization, and Christianity have mingled to create today’s Micronesia and how missionaries and members have tried to navigate cultural conflicts.

Geography

Many people have heard of Guam or Micronesia but have a hard time placing them on a map or globe. Micronesia consists of about twenty-one hundred small islands located in the Central Pacific about midway between Hawai‘i and the Philippines.

Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. Wikimedia Commons.

Pacific scholars divide this vast region into three groups:

1. Micronesia, meaning “small islands”
2. Melanesia, meaning “black islands”
3. Polynesia, meaning “many islands”

Polynesia gets significantly more historical attention because of its larger population base and interactions with Western culture. In a recent interview, Father Hezel provided a concise overview of Micronesia:

Most of Micronesia was settled . . . just a couple of centuries before the time of Christ—with the exception of Palau and Yap, which were settled probably earlier, and the languages are very different, and probably from a different part of southeast Asia, although we’re not sure where. When we talk about Micronesia, we’re generally talking about Kiribati, Nauru, and then the Carolines and Marshalls and the Mariana Islands. Those places constitute the cultural entity known as Micronesia. Now, there were certain features that were common in this area. One of the features was matrilineality. So people just traced their descent from their mothers’ side. It’s quite different from, say, Polynesia, where it’s a more patrilineal type of society. It’s not to say that women don’t have any authority, but the social organization is very different from traditional Micronesian societies. So that’s cultural Micronesia. When we talk about political Micronesia, what we mean is the Caroline, Marshalls, and Marianas because of their association with one another and with the US.[8]

Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. Wikimedia Commons.

Geographically speaking, Micronesian islands cluster roughly into four archipelagos, or island chains. We’ll discuss these from east to west and then move northward.

In the southeast is the nation of Kiribati (pronounced Ki-ri-bas), previously a British colony known as the Gilbert Islands. The thirty-three islands of Kiribati are scattered throughout eighteen hundred miles of the Pacific and are located just south of the equator. The capital and government buildings are located at Ambo, Bairiki, and Betio, islets of South Tarawa.[9]

Just to the northwest are the Marshall Islands, two chains of low coral atolls running parallel to each other: the Ratak (“sunrise”) to the east and the Rālik (“sunset”) to the west.[10] Majuro is the capital of this island nation. Kwajalein is the largest atoll in this chain. It is about eighty miles long and encloses a lagoon of about 840 square miles. The United States conducted many nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, which resulted in many long-lasting environmental and health concerns.

Map of "American" Micronesia. By 1898 Spain had claimed Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Caroline Islands. After the US captured Guam in 1898, Spain sold its remaining islands to Germany, which already controlled the Marshall Islands. During World War I, Japan took Germany's territories. The large loop shows the Japanese-controlled region that, after World War II, became the Trust Territory of the Pacific, (under US control). In the 1980s the political alignments developed as shown here. Reprinted from R.D.K. Herman, "Inscribing Empire: Guam and the War in the Pacific National Historical Park," Political Geography 27, no. 6 (August 2008): 630-51, with permission from Elsevier.

The Caroline Islands run east to west and are named after Spanish king Carlos II. This island cluster is the longest and most diverse—with low atolls and tall volcanic islands—including the islands of Pohnpei (formerly Ponape), Kosrae (formerly Kusaie), Chuuk (formerly Truk), Yap (formerly Guap), and Palau (formerly Belau). On Pohnpei are the impressive high basalt walls of the canal city of Nan Madol.[11] Kosrae has similarly impressive ruins at Lelu.[12] The Chuuk lagoon is one of the world’s largest, a huge ring of sand and coral islets encompassing about 820 square miles in area. Inside the lagoon are sixteen islands and the largest population of the Federated States of Micronesia. The lagoon floor is home to well-preserved World War II shipwrecks. Yap is an archipelago in the western Caroline Islands consisting of the islands of Gagil-Tamil, Maap, Ramung, Yap, and many small outer islands. It is best known for its currency—large stone disks used as money. The Republic of Palau includes the islands Babelthuap (Babeldaob), Koror, Malakal, Arakabesan, and Peleliu.

The south–north archipelago consists of the Mariana Islands—fifteen islands of volcanic origin with limestone deposits: Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and others. These islands are home to the CHamoru people.

Cultural Crosscurrents

Above all, Micronesians are adaptable people of the sea. Just as currents mix while they make their way across the Pacific, powerful waves of colonial and Christian culture have mingled with indigenous culture. European, Asian, and American nations have variously claimed or colonized the islands of Micronesia, exerting influence in politics, education, and the economy and treating the islands as strategic bases or resources. The indigenous people have adapted to each wave of colonial influence, pragmatically tolerating an intermixing of foreign cultural elements. “Colonisation did not destroy Micronesian cultures and identities,” claims Chuukese scholar Gonzaga Puas. “Their success rested in the indigenous doctrines of adaptation, assimilation and accommodation deeply rooted in the kinship doctrine of eaea fengen (sharing) and alilis fengen (assisting each other).”[13]

The various island cultures have much in common. Most islanders are members of Christian churches, and “agriculture, fishing, and village functions dominate Micronesian life.”[14] Despite such commonalities, each island group has distinct linguistic and cultural differences that are natural because of the vast distances between islands and the separate colonial and cultural influences that unfolded over hundreds of years. As a result, the peoples of Micronesia speak about a dozen languages.[15] Many speak English as a second language because of the cultural influence of the United States and Great Britain.

Latte stones in Senator Angel Leon Guerrero Santos Latte Memorial Park (Latte Stone Park), Guam. Photograph by Lance Vanlewen, Wikimedia Commons.

In the west, in the Marianas, the CHamoru descend from seafaring people who likely sailed thirteen hundred miles from the northern Philippines about thirty-six hundred years ago.[16] Recent analysis of DNA from two ancient skeletons found on Guam suggests early Filipino ancestors voyaged as far as Vanuatu and Tonga.[17] For thousands of years before the colonial era, the CHamoru people had developed a complex, caste-based culture that relied on subsistence agriculture and fishing. We can find tantalizing clues to the earlier CHamoru culture of the Marianas in the large latte (pronounced lah-ti) stones that line the coasts and are found in a few inland locations. These conical stones, which are capped by a cup-shaped stone, are believed to have been foundation stones for houses. Carving the stones must have taken tremendous strength and community cooperation. Today’s CHamoru culture is a rich blend of indigenous culture and influences from Spain, the Philippines, Japan, and the United States. Because of the changes in governance over many centuries, the CHamoru have a multilayered mix of epistemologies, or ways of understanding the world.

Most Micronesian islands have a matrilineal society that includes an extensive power system of chiefs and a network of noble families.[18] “The Marianas may have also had distinct social classes before the Spanish conquest. In all of these areas there appear to have been some chiefs who were supported principally by tribute from their subjects, who were the object of considerable deference, who could punish offenses (especially against themselves and their own relatives) by fines, destruction of property, or death, and whose principal wives were generally members of other high-ranking families. Often they had subordinate chiefs and officials.”[19]

House built on latte stones. Courtesy of theguamguide.com.

Over many centuries, Micronesian cultures adopted certain aspects of colonial culture while retaining core aspects of their own. Stated a different way, indigenous peoples have preserved core cultural values while outwardly complying with colonial demands. Despite Spanish, British, German, Japanese, and American cultural pressures, indigenous culture continues in values,[20] in traditions about weddings[21] and funerals,[22] in housing styles,[23] and many other forms not obvious to outsiders. Father Hezel wrote, “Foreigners had come and gone for years, often imposing new obligations even as they peddled their trade goods or proclaimed new religious beliefs. The islanders, unfailing pragmatists that they were, took what they thought they could use and found ways to humor their guests even as they parried demands they were not prepared to meet.”[24]

Early Spanish Influence

In 1565 Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi formally claimed the Mariana Islands for Spain.[25] Thereafter, “Guam served as a port of call for Spanish galleons crossing from the Philippines to Mexico.”[26] In 1563 the small Spanish craft San Lucas, which had become separated from the rest of its fleet, became the first recorded European ship to enter the Chuuk lagoon, located toward the center of Micronesia. Guided by gestures from the indigenous people, the crew maneuvered the ship into the lagoon before the ship was threatened by “hundreds of canoes full of men armed with lances, clubs, and slings, rapidly bearing down on them.”[27] The Spaniards retreated.

To the east, Marshall Islanders made first contact with Spanish explorers when Álvaro de Saavedra briefly stayed on an atoll in 1529.[28] Decades later, in 1592, Spain formally laid claim to the Marshall and Caroline Islands. Europeans had brief contact with the Yapese people on February 15, 1625. A Dutch fleet reported seeing Yapese natives in canoes bearing fruit, but the rapid speed of the ships made longer contact difficult.[29]

The Roman Catholic Church began sending Jesuits to evangelize the indigenous people of the Mariana and Caroline Islands. Hezel observed that “intense contact started with the Marianas in the late 1600s, when the first mission project was launched out of the Philippines. That was the first religious mission project, not just in the Marianas but in anywhere within what we today call the Pacific Islands. The Spanish Catholic mission began in 1668, a good century or so before any of the other missions in the Pacific were started. Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores arrived in the Marianas with five Jesuit companions and thirty-one lay catechists and teachers from the Philippines and Mexico.”[30] San Vitores chose the name Mariana Islands to honor Spain’s queen, Mariana of Austria.[31]

Catholic missionaries taught the people of the Mariana Islands in relative peace for years until there was a breach of trust. Pacific historian Doug Herman wrote, “In 1672, San Vitores secretly baptized the infant daughter of a local chief, Matå‘pang, against the chief’s wishes, a last straw that ended with San Vitores’s death. His death was the turning point that transformed this hitherto-ignored Spanish outpost into a subjugated Spanish colony.”[32] Spain soon sent soldiers to enforce Spanish rule and protect the missionaries. To maintain control over the indigenous population, Spanish colonizers forced the CHamoru people from the Northern Mariana Islands to resettle in villages in Guam that were overseen by priests. They banned canoeing to keep the people from escaping and imposed the Spanish language and Roman Catholic teachings.[33] Father Hezel argued, “The loss of life through violence, which may have amounted to 150 or so, was eclipsed by the loss suffered through the host of contagious diseases introduced by the Spanish. The local population sank from about forty thousand to forty in a forty-year period. The survivors were grouped into larger villages, converted to Catholicism, and began a two-century period of Spanish rule.”[34]

British Colonization of Kiribati (Gilbert Islands)

Captains Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall were returning from carrying convicts to Australia’s Botany Bay in 1788 when they sailed through eastern Micronesia. The islands were named les îles Gilbert (the Gilbert Islands) in 1820. Throughout that century, many whalers and merchant vessels arrived, introducing European diseases and triggering tribal conflicts. To restore some order, on May 27, 1892, Captain E. H. M. Davis declared the Gilbert Islands and the neighboring Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) a British protectorate. The islands were a crown colony in 1916 until regaining independence in the mid-1970s.[35]

Catholic and Protestant Missionary Inroads

Business ventures such as trading, whaling, and copra farming led the way for Catholic and Protestant missionaries to formally establish missions in Micronesia. From the work of the early Spanish Jesuits to the American Protestant churches of the nineteenth century, Christianity developed deep roots in the islands. According to Father Hezel, “Catholic operation in the Carolines and Marshalls . . . really began in about the late 1800s, after Spain took over the Caroline Islands. Spain set up two administrative centers: one in Pohnpei and one in Yap. Catholicism, then, was introduced to Pohnpei, an island that had already been Christianized.”[36]

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, overlapping hierarchies in Catholic and Protestant churches emerged that intermingled caste, colonial, and Christian cultures. “The church has a long pedigree in Micronesia,” observed Father Hezel. “Today, more than 300 years after the first church was established in Micronesia, Christianity has found a lasting place in the social landscape and is woven into the life of people everywhere in the region.” He added, “The church, once brought by Westerners, has been digested by the local cultures everywhere and is now a standard part of these island societies.”[37]

Missionaries who achieved success with converts typically worked with the political structure of chiefs and families in hierarchies of power that are not immediately obvious to outsiders. For example, the largely isolated people of the Marshall Island atolls have a “proud culture called manit, which revolves around family, co-operation and warm hospitality. . . . All Marshallese still belong to clans called jowi led by chiefs called iroij and clan heads known as alap.”[38] Similar chiefly and family structures exist throughout Micronesia.

American Influence in Guam

In the late nineteenth century, American and European forces aggressively colonized much of the Pacific. The United States has a long and complex history in Guam as a colonizing influence. Led by the spirit of manifest destiny in the late 1800s, America entered the Spanish-American War in 1898. When the USS Charleston sailed to Guam’s harbors, it fired warning shots from its cannons. The isolated Spanish troops in Guam were unaware of the war and thus peacefully transferred power to the Americans.

Historian Doug Herman wrote, “The 1898 Treaty of Paris between Spain and the U.S. would later formalize the handover of Guam. The reason why Guam remains a US territory, while the rest of Micronesia is not, can be traced to an ironic accident of history and geography. The American negotiators neglected to inquire about the Spanish claims to the rest of the Marianas and much more of Micronesia, and Spain quickly sold these other islands to Germany.”[39]

German Colonization of Micronesia

Father Hezel summarized German colonization efforts:

Germany decided that it would move into the Carolines, because it already had big copra [coconut] interests there. So in 1885 they sent a ship out to take possession of one of those islands. Spain had presumably claimed the Carolines sometime in the remote past but had never acted on it. So Spanish naval vessels and German warships came to Yap to plant the flag just about the same day within a few hours of one another. It looked like there was going to be a firefight as a consequence. The Germans planted their flag first even though they arrived a little after the Spanish. After all, they had that renowned German efficiency even in those days. All through Europe, when they found out about this contest, there were riots. Finally, they called on the pope to arbitrate the matter, since the pope was still called on to do that sort of thing. The German chancellor Otto von Bismarck then served notice to the pope that Germany would be willing to turn the islands over to Spain as long as it was allowed to trade freely in the islands. Spain took all the Carolines, while Germany took the Marshalls by agreement that same year. Spain held the Carolines until the end of the Spanish-American War in 1899. After Spain’s defeat, it was forced to sell off their island possessions, with the Carolines and Marianas going to Germany. So Germany had the Marshalls, the Carolines, and now the northern Marianas.[40]

Germans imposed colonial order in Yap, locking the caste system in place rather than allowing individual islands and tribes to compete for ascendancy. This topic is the focus of chapter 8.

Japanese Colonization

The lush isles of Micronesia appealed to Japan’s colonial instincts. “Resource-hungry and overpopulated, Japan saw these islands lying close to home as valuable possessions for an expanding empire.”[41] With the aid of Great Britain, Japan built a strong navy and by October 1914 seized Germany’s colonies in Micronesia.[42] In 1920 the League of Nations awarded Japan the German islands north of the equator, with the mandate prohibiting Japan from building defenses.[43]

Historian Robert C. Kiste noted that “Japan’s influence was pervasive and well orchestrated; the Japanese had clear objectives in mind. Micronesians were to be absorbed into the Japanese empire, and eventually Japanese and other Asians would come to outnumber Islanders in their own homeland by a ratio of two to one.”[44] Poyer, Falgout, and Carucci added that “every island of Micronesia was linked with a colonial system providing basic schooling and health care,” and electricity was soon brought to islands in the 1920s. Although many interactions between the Japanese and Micronesians were friendly, “Japanese assumptions of superiority resulted in discrimination both official and unofficial: in limits on schooling and employment, in segregated living and working arrangements and even brothels, and in marriage, permitted only between Japanese or Okinawan men and Islander women, not vice versa.”[45] The Japanese considered the Micronesians “third class people” and the CHamoru “the most advanced and adaptable,” with the “Carolinians and Marshallese” below them and the Yapese as the most “stubbornly resistant to Japanese institutions.”[46]

Japan’s colonial leaders in Micronesia were competent, “top-drawer professionals.”[47] They recruited the village chiefs and others of royal lineage to lead the people but with reduced authority, and Micronesians largely yielded to the Japanese.[48] Many islander lands transferred to Japanese control.[49]

Then Japan attacked Manchuria in 1931 and began to fortify Micronesia by 1932, denying rumors of military buildup. The Japanese government formally withdrew from the League of Nations in 1935.[50] Following that announcement, the Japanese military government replaced the civilian government, treating many Micronesians like second-class citizens.

To achieve its goals, Japan shrouded its Micronesian holdings in secrecy. American aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared on her attempt to fly around the world in 1937, and some believe that she landed on Saipan (the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands) and was executed because she had learned the secret of Japan’s military buildup.[51] Indeed, the winds of the Pacific War were building and intensifying across Micronesia.

Overview of Major Points and Organization

In this book we describe how the islands of Micronesia became strategic battlefields between the Japanese and American forces during the Pacific War. We share stories of how Latter-day Saints arrived during and after the war, helping rebuild the damaged infrastructure and gradually planting branches of the Church that spread throughout Micronesia.

We take readers on an island-hopping journey across Micronesia, focusing on how the gospel message sprouted island by island, with some seeds sprouting faster (as in Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia).

We observe that navigating cultural crosscurrents—chiefly and family clans, colonial culture, and Church patterns—became challenging for both missionaries and converts. Mission leaders and missionaries tried to communicate in a half dozen languages while going about their work of integrating Church practices and patterns into existing cultural communities on each island. Striking a balance between respectful mentoring and insistence to obedience proved vital in retaining indigenous converts and leaders. Calling and mentoring indigenous leaders and seminary teachers became essential in establishing branches and districts on each island.

New converts tried to negotiate competing demands of family, community, and faith cultures. Some new converts sought to establish their own family trees in the soil of Church culture and patterns. Some returned to former churches or cultural patterns of using alcohol, betel nut, kava, or tobacco. This is the story of how Latter-day Saints tried to navigate such cultural crosscurrents in Guam, in Micronesia, and in the Micronesian diaspora throughout the world.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge a generous grant from the Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University that enabled travel to Chuuk, Guam, and Hawai‘i to collect oral histories vital to this history. We are grateful to about fifty indigenous Micronesians, local leaders, mission presidents, and missionaries who took time to share their stories and photographs. We acknowledge the important research of Father Francis X. Hezel in providing not only pathbreaking research but also a concise and helpful history of colonialism and Christianity in Micronesia. Thanks to Elder William H. K. Davis, Clinton D. Christensen, and Rodney Ching Batimana for placing a draft of this history in the Yigo Guam Temple cornerstone. Thanks to Jared W. Ludlow and Joany O. Pinegar for arranging the insightful peer reviews that improved this manuscript. Thanks to Matthew Grow and Ben Whisenant for arranging access to Church History Library archives on Micronesia. We appreciate Don L. Brugger, Alaina Dunn, Annalyn Douglas, Abby Larkins, Scarlett Lindsay, and Erica Smith for their excellent editing work. Thanks to Brent R. Nordgren and Alex Socarras for their outstanding design work and help in locating and preparing historical photographs for publication.

Notes

[1] History.com, s.v. “Ferdinand Magellan,” October 22, 2019, https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/ferdinand-magellan.

[2] Jerick Sablan, “Language Commission Launches Latest CHamoru Orthography,” Pacific Daily News, January 21, 2021, https://www.guampdn.com/news/local/language-commission-launches-latest-chamoru-orthography/article_c900f6fc-6655-54b6-acad-4e761b11e347.html.

[3] Petersen, “Indigenous Island Empires,” 26.

[4] Gina E. Taitano, Guampedia, s.v. “CHamorus: A People Divided,” https://www.guampedia.com/chamorros-a-people-divided/.

[5] Quoted in Bruce Lloyd, “Magellan Visit to Be Recalled from CHamoru Point of View,” Pacific Daily News, October 23, 2019, https://www.guampdn.com/news/local/magellan-visit-to-be-recalled-from-chamoru-point-of-view/article_ee1b8661-d5e2-5f26-b19c-3329bfcaa087.html.

[6] McArthur, “The Church in the Marshall Islands,” chapter 4 in this volume.

[7] In this book the capitalized term Church refers to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and lowercase church refers to other faith communities. This shorthand differentiation does not constitute or imply a value judgment.

[8] Francis X. Hezel, interview by Fred E. Woods and R. Devan Jensen, July 8, 2020, copy in author’s possession.

[9] Encylopaedia Brittanica, s.v. “Kiribati,” https://www.britannica.com/place/Kiribati.

[10] Encylopaedia Brittanica, s.v. “Marshall Islands summary,” https://www.britannica.com/summary/Marshall-Islands.

[11] Rainbird, Archaeology of Micronesia, 181–89.

[12] Rainbird, Archaeology of Micronesia, 208–12.

[13] Puas, Federated States of Micronesia’s Engagement with the Outside World, 1.

[14] Stewart and Martinich, “Federated States of Micronesia,” in Reaching the Nations, 1:507.

[15] Encylopaedia Brittanica, s.v. “Micronesian languages,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Micronesian-languages.

[16] Guampedia, s.v. “Origin of Guam’s Indigenous People,” https://www.guampedia.com/origin-of-guams-indigenous-people/; see also Vilar et al., “Origins and Genetic Distinctiveness,” 116.

[17] Irina Pugach et al., “Ancient DNA from Guam and the Peopling of the Pacific,” PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), January 5, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2022112118.

[18] Poyer, Carucci, and Falgout, “Micronesian Chiefs under American Rule,” 105–32.

[19] Encylopaedia Brittanica, s.v. “Social hierarchy and political organization,” https://www.britannica.com/place/Micronesia-cultural-region-Pacific-Ocean/Social-hierarchy-and-political-organization.

[20] Pacific Worlds, s.v. “Chenchulé,” http://www.pacificworlds.com/guam/stories/story5.cfm.

[21] Pacific Worlds, s.v. “Weddings,” http://www.pacificworlds.com/guam/stories/story4.cfm.

[22] Pacific Worlds, s.v. “Funerals,” http://www.pacificworlds.com/cnmi/stories/story5.cfm.

[23] Pacific Worlds, s.v. “Houses,” http://www.pacificworlds.com/guam/native/native2.cfm.

[24] Hezel, Strangers in Their Own Land, 9.

[25] Taitano, “CHamorus.”

[26] Poyer, Falgout, and Carucci, Typhoon of War, 6.

[27] Hezel, First Taint of Civilization, 24.

[28] Rainbird, Archaeology of Micronesia, 14.

[29] Rainbird, Archaeology of Micronesia, 14–15.

[30] Hezel, interview.

[31] Taitano, “CHamorus.”

[32] Doug Herman, “A Brief, 500-Year History of Guam,” Smithsonian Magazine, August 15, 2017,https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/brief-500-year-history-guam-180964508/.

[33] Herman, “Brief, 500-Year History of Guam.”

[34] Hezel, interview.

[35] McIntyre, “Partition of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands,” 135–46.

[36] Hezel, interview.

[37] Francis X. Hezel, “The Church in Micronesia,” Micronesian Seminar, May 2008, http://www.micsem.org/pubs/counselor/frames/churchmicronesiafr.htm. For a detailed analysis, see Hezel, Catholic Church in Micronesia.

[38] iExplore, s.v. “Marshall Islands—History and Culture,” https://www.iexplore.com/articles/travel-guides/australia-and-south-pacific/marshall-islands/history-and-culture.

[39] Herman, “Brief, 500-Year History of Guam.”

[40] Hezel, interview.

[41] Poyer, Falgout, and Carucci, Typhoon of War, 6.

[42] Peattie, Nan’yō, 34.

[43] Peattie, Nan’yō, 56, 60.

[44] Robert C. Kiste, “Editor’s Note,” in Peattie, Nan’yō, vii.

[45] Poyer, Falgout, and Carucci, Typhoon of War, 17, 31.

[46] Peattie, Nan’yō, 112.

[47] Peattie, Nan’yō, 71.

[48] Peattie, Nan’yō, 75–76, 78.

[49] Peattie, Nan’yō, 98–99.

[50] Peattie, Nan’yō, 243.

[51] “Amelia Earhart Mystery: Lost Pilot Spent Days in Prison before Being Killed in Saipan, Says New Evidence,” Newsweek, November 25, 2017, https://www.newsweek.com/amelia-earhart-disappear-theory-saipan-722338.