Foreign Land Holdings in the Marshall Islands: A preliminary listing of leased and purchased land until World War I

Spennemann, Dirk

From the Introduction: "The Imperial German Government purchased the the Caroline and the Marshall Islands from Spain in 1885, at the cost of (then) $4.5 million, and had established a district administration office on Jaluit. The German government regulated the trade and passed land regulations which restricted the sale of locally owned land to Europeans in order to protect the property held in private indigenous land from a total sell-out. The archives of the German Colonial administration regarding its South Seas possessions show a wealth of data and communications between the German district administrator in Jaluit and the Governor General in Rabaul on the legal transactions regarding the possession and the purchase of Marshallese land. These files had been formerly kept in Rabaul (New Britain, Papua New Guinea), and are now accessible in the National Archives of Papua New Guinea, with copies in the Australian Archives (Canberra, Australia). The ownership of the land held in foreign hand prior to the establishment of the German Protectorate was confirmed and entered in a property register, the Grundbuch." Project funding was provided by a Historic Preservation Fund grant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands Historic Preservation Office, administered by the Interior Regions 8, 9, 10, and 12, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior.

Foreign Land Holdings in the Marshall Islands: A preliminary listing of leased and purchased land until World War I

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