Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Marshallese nation emerges from the political fragmentation of American Micronesia

1989; Brigham Young University Hawaii; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0275-3596

Leonard Mason,

Island Studies and Pacific Affairs

Prior to World War II, the sole colonial holding by the United States in Micronesia was Guam, largest of the Mariana Islands, which had been annexed after the Spanish-American War in 1898 and was administered by the US Navy Department as a strategic facility. In 1944, American military forces began their occupation of other parts of Micronesia by invading the Marshall Islands. They gained control of the remaining Japanese-mandated islands in 1945 upon the surrender of Japan. These islands, not including Guam, were designated a strategic trust territory in 1947 by the United Nations Security Council. The United States was appointed administrator and charged with fostering self-government or independence according to the wishes of the Micronesian islanders. In this essay, I have chosen to focus on the Marshall Islands, easternmost in American Micronesia, as but one of the several ethnic and geographic groups in the trust area that have emerged as self-governing states after more than forty years of administrative relations with the United States. To understand the issues that now face the Marshallese people and their government it is necessary, first, to recount the wider historical context in which all of the peoples under trusteeship, including the Marshallese, have responded to the changing administrative policies and political interests of the United States since World War II. My choice of the Marshalls as a case study of change in Micronesia, in the second part of this essay, is based on personal research and observa-