history of the marshall islands

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 group and theeastern Ratak
group. Now that you know what and where the Marshall Islands are
I'llexplain the history. The very early people of the Marshalls had no
written language so it is very 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 puzzled of 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
of the SpiceIslands that were in very large demand in Europe. English,
Dutch, Spanish andPortuguese 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 MarshallIslands. He was sailing between Australia and China
on the boat the Scarborough andsailed 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 copratrade 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 to
fortifythe 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 over what 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 their pushsouthward toward Australia, and
the U.S. wanted the islands on their push northward. The Marshall islands

were the next step for the Allied march toward the Japanese
homeislands. The Kwajalein and Majuro atolls were picked as the two
main places to invade. 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. Thetwo 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 a
majornaval 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. The speed at which Kwajalein Atoll fell allowed
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz tospeed up his attack on Enewetok. This
mission was called Catchpole. The forces movedin 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 of the sunkenships and landing
barges, airplane crashes, tanks, and big guns are still found in
theMarshall's. So in result scrap metal turned into the second leading
exporter to copra. What is kind of interesting is that Japan was the main
place that bought the metals fromtheir 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 though with 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. wanted 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
Bikini Islandersto 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 peopleweren'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 device 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 next H-bomb theU.S.
decides to drop. This test was in 1954 at the Bikini Atoll. It was set to
be dropped on February 28and the high winds weren't going to stop
them. At just seven hours before drop timethere 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. People thatwere 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 done andmany 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 safe but maybeslight lingering radiation people
were scared and in effect were very mad at the U.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, and peoplewere just sick and literally "sick" of all of the
nuclear testing results. Marshall Islandsofficials started demanded
billions and billions of dollars in compensation for all 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. In 1986 the Marshall Islands became
self-governing because they thought theycould manage their country a lot
better than the U.S. thousands of miles away. Theyestablished compact

of free association and it was finalized. Even though officialrecognition of
the Marshall's did not come until 1991 when the United Nations
removedthem from the trusteeship. The Marshall Islands is definitely
on its way to be a lot happier. They are stillgetting billions of dollars a
year for compensation and the islands are getting moreradioactive free
every year.