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Marshall Islands Travel Guide

Thousands of coral islands

The Marshall Islands is located north of Nauru and Kiribati, east of the Federated States of Micronesia, and south of the U.S. territory of Wake Island, to which it lays claim. Although the Marshall Islands were settled by Micronesians in the 2nd millennium BC, little is known of their early history. People traveled by canoe between islands using traditional stick charts.

Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar was the first European to see the islands in 1526, but they remained virtually unvisited by Europeans until the arrival of British Captain John Charles Marshall in 1788. The islands were named after him in the British maps. However, they were claimed under the Spanish sovereignty as part of the Spanish Oceania. In 1874 the Spanish sovereignty was recognized by the international diplomacy. They were sold to Germany in 1884 through papal mediation.

A German trading company settled on the islands in 1885. They became part of the protectorate of German New Guinea some years later. Under German Imperial control, and even before then the Marshall Islands were from time to time visited by Japanese traders and fishermen, but contact with the islanders was not on a regular basis. After the Meiji Restoration the Japanese government undertook a policy of turning Japan into a great economic and military power in East Asia.

In 1914, Japan joined the Entente powers during World War I, and found it possible to capture German colonies in China and Micronesia. On September 29, 1914, Japanese troops occupied the atoll of Enewetak, and on September 30, 1914 the atoll of Jaluit the administrative center of the Marshall Islands. After the war, on June 28, 1919, Germany renounced all of its Pacific possessions, including the Marshall Islands. On December 17, 1920, the Council of the League of Nations approved the mandate for Japan over all former German colonies in the Pacific Ocean, located north of the equator. The Administrative Center of the Marshall Islands atoll remained Jaluit.

Unlike the German Empire, which had economic interests primarily in Micronesia, the accession of the territory to Japan, a small area and with few resources, would to some extent solve Japan's problem of increasing population but the ever increasing scarcity of land to house the exploding population. During the years of colonial rule in the Marshall Islands Japan moved more than 1,000 Japanese to the Marshall Islands. Unlike in the Mariana Islands and Palau, their share in the archipelago never exceeded the number of indigenous people. The governance of the Marshall Islands in the Japanese period was highly effective: a greatly enlarged administration was introduced and local leaders were appointed by the Japanese, which weakened the authority of local traditional leaders. The Marshall Islands were an important geographical position, being the easternmost point in Japan's defensive ring at the beginning of World War II.

In World War II, the United States, during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, invaded and occupied the islands (1944) destroying or isolating the Japanese garrisons. The archipelago was added to the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, along with several other island groups in the South Sea. In the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kwajalein Atoll was the administrative center of the Japanese 6th Fleet Forces Service, whose task was the defense of the Marshall Islands. After the Battle of Tarawa ended, the U.S. military minimized further losses by capturing individual Japanese bases and circumventing others. Nevertheless, the battle in the Marshall Islands caused irreparable damage, especially on Japanese bases. During the American bombing, the islands' population suffered from lack of food and various injuries. In 1944, Americans captured Kwajalein Atoll, Majuro and Enewetak in just one month, and in the next two months the rest of the Marshall Islands except Wotje, Mili, Maloelap and Jaluit. In 1979, the Government of the Marshall Islands was officially established and the country became self-governing.

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Guide of Marshall Islands Travel Guide