The History of Micronesia

A history of the islands of Micronesia from first contact to the dissolution of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, as divided into five sections. - Part One: Early Encounters = Explorers from the west began to reach the islands in the early sixteenth, bringing with them Christianity, metal tools and weapons, tobacco, and disease and profiting off of Micronesian natural resources such as whales and copra. [Settlement to 1885] - Part Two: Planting the Foreign Flag = After centuries of trading, colonialism reaches the Micronesian islands. First, the Spanish claim the islands before selling them to the Germans in 1899. The islands were seized from the Germans following World War I and given to the Japanese to administer. [1885 to 1914] - Part Three: The Sunburst Seas = This section is not included in this video. It is available at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfEKLc9Vztk - Part Four: Ruin & Reconstruction = The Japanese had quietly prepared their island possessions for war and waged war there, forcing the native islanders to hide or evacuate. After the surrender of the Japanese at the end of World War II, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was created and administered by the United States who were charged with 'promot[ing] economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants' while fulfilling their own goal of maintaining the islands and their strategic military value. [1940 to 1960] - Part Five: March Towards Self-Government = The United States struggled on how to handle their poorly managed trust territory, sending teachers and members of the newly created Peace Corps. However, the Micronesians wanted more control of their government, which was controlled almost entirely by the United States with little input from the people being governed. Their efforts to gain power first led to the Congress of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Later, the Trust Territory was divided into four separate political units: Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia (which included the former Trust districts of Yap, Chuuk, and Pohnpei, as well as Kosrae which had been administered as part of Pohnpei) became freely associated states (meaning they would rely on the United States for defense and some international relations, but would handle their own internal governing), and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands came under sovereignty of the United States as a territory. [1960 to 1990s] Project funding was provided in part by a Historic Preservation Fund grant to the Federated States of Micronesia Historic Preservation Program, FSM National Government, administered by the Pacific West Regional Office, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

The History of Micronesia

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