Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Indigenous Peoples of the Marshall Islands
Originally Published on March 21, 2002 - Since originally writing this I learned a lot more about the Marshallese people. Not everything I wrote was accurate so what’s new? I would invite my Marshallese readers to correct errors I have made. I would like to restate once again my love and respect for the Marshallese people who treated me so well. I think I increased my understanding of the people the most by spending a week on Airok. One thing that impressed me was that this is principally a pre-agrarian culture that has leaped into the 21st Century. That is to say, that until recently and on the outer islands this is still true, they were basically a hunter and gatherer economy. The men would fish and the women would gather vegetables and fruit. Since the arrival of Asian and European travelers they have made a significant leap in economic evolution yet still retain many of the traits that have helped them to survive hundreds of years. Their ability to adapt to the new culture is a credit to their intelligence and determination.
At long last I have completed my next installment of
my life on Roi-Namur. A lot of expert research went
into this highly informative and interesting article.
Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Indigenous Peoples of the
Marshall Islands
Somewhere between 2000 and 500 BC the first Micronesian navigators are believed to have arrived on the Marshall Islands. They might have followed the route shown in Figure 1 below. They lived here for many years in peace, occasionally committing acts of cannibalism etc. Micronesia was ceded to Spain in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. The first Europeans to site the Marshalls were the Spanish in 1529 who were seeking a western route to the Spice Islands….
