History of the Marshall Islands

8/10/2019 History of the Marshall Islands

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History of the Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands is a republic of 29 atolls and 5 coral islands. The islands areone of the four main groups that make up Micronesia. The nearest neighbor to theMarshalls are the Federated States of Micronesia. They're only 26 populated islands inthe Marshalls because a lot of the islands are too small to support many people. Thereare two roughly parallel chains of islands that make up the western Ralik groupand theeastern Ratak group. Now that you know what and where the Marshall Islands areI'llexplain the history.

The very early people of the Marshalls had no written language so it isvery hardto predict what went on. The only early history has been handed down from generationto generation in the form of songs, and we can also get some facts from the folklore andlegends. One thing that they do know is that powerful chiefs ruled these largecivilizations able to move such large stones to build temples and cities. They

must havebeen somewhat advanced because they were able to build huge walls that were probablythere to enclose a city. These walls weighed many tons and were 20 ft. long, and evensome walls they have found to be 40 ft. high. Archaeologists are still puzzledof whatkind of machinery they had to move such large stones.

The real knowledge we know about the Marshall Islands history began in theearly sixteenth century. The sea going Europeans were trying to find sources ofthe SpiceIslands that were in very large demand in Europe. English, Dutch, Spanish and

Portuguese sea captains were all sailing around on their hunt for riches. One of the firstpeople we know of to definitely land on the Marshall Islands during this time isFerdinand Magellan. He landed in Micronesia on his journey to circumnavigate theworld. Forty years later in the 1560's after Magellan's voyage Spain claimed most all ofthe islands in Micronesia. Spain wasn't really concerned about Micronesia because theywere busy building empires in South America, Central America, and Mexico. For themost part Micronesia was under loose Spanish control for 300 years.

During those 300 years in 1788 Captain John Marshall named the Marshall

Islands. He was sailing between Australia and China on the boat the Scarboroughandsailed through the islands. Even though many Europeans had been in the Marshallspreviously he has been said to be one of the first people to "discover" the islands.

In the nineteenth century the dried meat of the coconut called copra became animportant trade items for European powers. Since there was much money in the copra


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trade Germany, Spain, and Great Britain started to argue over the control of Micronesia.In 1885 Germany gained control of the Marshalls while Spain kept control of theCarolines and the Marianas. In 1886 the English and the Spanish were unhappy withGermany's claims, but the dispute was settled by Pope Leo XIII in Rome. The Pope gaveall right to trade with these islands to Germany. Then shortly after that in 1898 theSpanish- American war caused Spain to give the rest of Micronesia to Germany. This allchanged though during W.W.I.

In 1914 Japan which was allied with the U.S. and its European Allies took controlof the Marshalls and all of Micronesia with naval ships. Then in 1920 the League ofNations gave Micronesia to Japan.

In 1935 against the agreement with the League of Nations Japan began tofortifythe islands. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations and secretly began to buildairfields and naval bases on the islands. Japan closed the Marshalls and Micronesia fromthe rest of the world. To show just how secret Japan was in 1937 Amelia Earhart

was onher famous trip around the world in the air. She disappeared somewhere in the Japanheld Micronesia and has never been seen since. Many people think that she was short ofgas and made a forced landing on one of the islands. Japan was then upset overwhat shemay have seen and executed her.

After the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941 the Marshall Islands became a veryimportant strategic location in W.W.II. The Japanese used the islands on theirpushsouthward toward Australia, and the U.S. wanted the islands on their push northw

ard.The Marshall islands were the next step for the Allied march toward the Japanesehomeislands. The Kwajalein and Majuro atolls were picked as the two main places toinvade.This operation was code named Flintlock. D-Day was set for January 31, 1944.

On that day Marines at Kwajalein atoll planned to seize five islands around Roi-Namur where a major Japanese airbase was. While other Kwajalein Marines were tocapture four islets near Kwajalein where the Japanese major naval base was. There wassome confusion at both attacks which led to many more deaths than were needed.The

two battles turned out to be very bloody and in all 486 Allied casualties resulted while1,295 soldiers were wounded.

At the Majuro atoll came much an easier battle. The Japanese had both amajornaval and air base on the island. When the Allied troops landed there they found noJapanese troops. Almost all of the Japanese troops had escaped. So no lives were sparedand the Allies turned the two bases into their own.


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The speed at which Kwajalein Atoll fell allowed Admiral Chester W. Nimitz tospeed up his attack on Enewetok. This mission was called Catchpole. The forcesmovedin on February 18, 1944. They first went to small Engebi supported by gunfire and byshore based artillery placed the day before on small islets. It took them two days tosecure the island in the Allies favor with a death count of 349 and 555 wounded.

The results of the capturing of the Marshall Islands were a big success. Havingthe Marshall's helped in moving the U.S. a lot closer to Japanese and also it gave them agood place to attack other Japanese held islands. It really cut down the air and navalpower the Japanese had in the Central Pacific.

There are other good things that came out of the war too. One is all ofthe sunkenships and landing barges, airplane crashes, tanks, and big guns are still foundin theMarshall's. So in result scrap metal turned into the second leading exporter tocopra.What is kind of interesting is that Japan was the main place that bought the metals from

their own battles with the U.S.As a result of the U.S. taking over the Marshall Islands the United Nationsgranted the U.S. authority to administer them as a strategic trust. Even thoughwith theU.S. in charge that led to improvements in public health, education, and was obligated to"protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources" the Marshallesepeople were very unhappy. The removal and evacuation of the Bikini and Enewetakatolls for nuclear testing was what made them angry with the new U.S. system. See theMarshall Islands land had no alarming value to the U.S. , but what the U.S. want

ed wasthe great military location and also a small secluded place to test nuclear weapons. Sopretty much from the late 1940's to the present a lot of the history has been the nucleartesting on the island.

The first test came in 1946. The U.S. had the Navy evacuate 167 BikiniIslandersto Rongerik, 125 miles away to the east. They were going to test atomic-bombs the samesize of Hiroshima's. They were named "Able" and "Baker". Since everyone wasevacuated there were no apparent problems with and Marshallese people. The people

weren't having trouble with the tests but many Bikinians were on the verge of starvationon the Rongerik atoll. They had to be moved to Kwajalein where the U.S. provided themwith resources.

Then in the1950's the U.S. discovered the H-bomb or a hydrogen device that ishundreds or thousands times more destructive than the U.S.'s first atomic-bombs.Thefirst to be tested was in 1952 at Enewetak island. The force of this hydrogen d


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evice wasestimated at 10.4 megatons or 750 times greater force than the Hiroshima one. Thisbomb vaporized pretty much the whole island, but again the people didn't know soweren't that upset. The people were upset though after the testing of the nextH-bomb theU.S. decides to drop.

This test was in 1954 at the Bikini Atoll. It was set to be dropped onFebruary 28and the high winds weren't going to stop them. At just seven hours before droptimethere were high winds at 10,000 to 25,000-foot levels with the winds blowing towardsome inhabited islands. The U.S. though decided to drop the bomb. It was reported at 15megatons which is 1,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. Within hours peopleon surrounding islands were enveloped with white ash or kind of a mist. Peoplethatwere exposed experienced naseau, vomiting, and itching of the skin and eyes. Thepeople were taken Kwajalein for observation. Skin burns developed and hair of thosepeople began to fall out. Secret medical groups were established to observe the

exposedMarshallese people. The group decided that the people had been exposed to so muchharmful material that they should never be exposed again because fear of what couldhappen.

The U.S. continues to detonate nuclear weapons on the small islands through the1950's and the last one was set off in 1958. Bringing the total number of nuclearweapons tested on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls up to 66. The damage had been doneandmany Marshallese people were very mad.

One of the reasons people were mad was that they couldn't return to theirhomelands. Thousands of people had been evacuated due to the radioactive materialsspread to their islands. Although almost all of the islands were declared safebut maybeslight lingering radiation people were scared and in effect were very mad at theU.S.

Another one of the reasons was all of the health problems people were having.Like it says before people were having very bad skin and eye irritations and their hair wasfalling out. In 1963 the first signs of thyroid cancer starting showing up, an

d peoplewere just sick and literally "sick" of all of the nuclear testing results. Marshall Islandsofficials started demanded billions and billions of dollars in compensation forall of thepeople and the land. They also started going to the U.S. government demanding theywere purposely exposed to the radiation just so the U.S. could study the long term effectsof radiation.


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Documents

History of the Marshall Islands