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The Marshall Islands is one of the world's most distinctive places. Twenty-nine coral atolls and five single islands form two almost parallel chains known as the Ratak Chain (Sunrise) and Ralik Chain (Sunset). With a total of approximately 1,225 islands and islets, 870 reef systems, 1,000 species of fish, and 250 species of hard and soft coral, the Marshall Islands offers excellent sightseeing, diving, big game, bottom and fly-fishing, plus World War II relics above and below water, beautiful handicrafts, a rich culture, serene beauty — and some of the nicest people you'll ever meet!
A brief history of this fascinating region:
GEOLOGICAL FORMATION
The Marshall Islands first emerged 70 million years ago when volcanic cores erupted at presently extinct hotspots south of the equator. Around 40 million years ago, while the Pacific plate continued to move in a northwesterly direction, the volcanoes began to subside. The islands were initially high, volcanic islands, but over the course of the ensuing 40 million years, they slowly sank back into the ocean from which they came, propelled by their own weight. Microscopic organisms called polyps, which thrive in warm waters with high salinity, salvaged the remaining rim of what was once a volcano to the extend that, with botanical seeds transported by birds and ocean currents, 3,000 years ago small islets had taken form on the reefs, capable of sustaining life. These islets formed circular rings encircling sheltered lagoons, namely our beautiful atolls we today can share with visitors.
PACIFIC COLONIZATION
The predominant theory on the colonization of the Pacific postulates that the initial settlers moved out of Southeast Asia, notably Southeast China and Formosa approximately 5,000 years ago. Over hundreds of years, and with successive advancements in maritime and agricultural technology, migration progressed southeastward along the northern coast of what is now New Guinea, then southeast into what are now the Melanesian island groups of Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia, and sometime between 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, into the Central Pacific: Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and probably Eastern Micronesia. According to linguists, the migrants who first moved out of Southeast Asia spoke in the Austronesian language family and today, nearly all languages in the Pacific are categorized as Austronesian. Over the last several decades, successive developments in different fields such as archaeology, linguistics and biology have shaped, strengthened and won general consensus on this theory.
MARSHALL ISLANDS COLONIZATION
The earliest radiocarbon tests from archaeological sites in the Marshalls generally cluster around the 2,000 years before present mark. This evidence suggests that the first signature of human occupation or activity in these islands occurred in and around the late B.C. or early A.D. period. While the exact settlement pattern that occurred within the Marshalls remains arguable, it is generally agreed upon that the Marshall Islands were colonized from areas to the south and southwest. Linguistic, cultural and biological evidence links Marshallese with the Eastern Melanesia/Kiribati interaction area.
MARSHALLESE CULTURE
While dates and origins may still be arguable, the uniqueness of the culture which evolved on these islands is certain. Marshallese society was and for the most part, still is, stratified into three general classes: Iroij (chiefs), Alap (clan heads), and Rijerbal (workers). The Iroij have ultimate control of such things as land tenure, resource use and distribution, and dispute settlement. The Alap¹s duties include maintenance of lands and supervision of daily activities. The Rijerbal are responsible for the daily work involved in subsistence, construction, agriculture, etc. In addition, land is divided into twelve categories, ranging from Imon bwij, land belonging to the whole lineage, to Kitdre, land given by a husband to his wife as a gift. Inheritance is matrilineal (passed through the mother).
CULTURAL SKILLS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Over the last 2,000 or so years, Marshallese have developed, refined and perfected a number of unique skills and technologies, all of which illustrated their keen adaptation to the atoll and oceanic environment.
Fishing technology, for instance, developed into one with very high specialization. The wide range of fishing environments coupled with the great variation in fish species led to a diverse and highly specialized range of fishing techniques. Few other cultures in the world have developed as many fishing techniques and styles as the Marshallese.
Marshallese canoes, or wa, which range from small rowing canoes to massive high-speed voyaging canoes, have amazed Westerners from Otto Von Kotzebue, who visited the Marshalls in the early 1800s, to modern day world-class sailing enthusiasts. Marshallese canoes are recognized and revered throughout the Pacific for their advanced technical refinements, including the asymmetric hull, the lee platform, and the pivoting midship mast.
Traditional Marshallese navigational skills were equally sophisticated. When the initial settlers of the Marshalls arrived, they were already equipped with complex navigational skills — otherwise, they could not have found their way to these low-lying islands. As time progressed, these skills were only sharpened. Ultimately, Marshallese learned to literally read nature's faint and subtle signs. Stars, clouds, waves, currents, winds, birds, and even the color of the ocean, bore recognizable clues which were easily read by trained navigators. These advancements in both maritime knowledge and canoe design allowed Marshallese to commonly sail as far as Hawaii to the east, Enenkio (Wake Island) to the north, Pohnpei to the west and Kiribati to the south.
"Their canoes display the greatest ingenuity, and I have no doubt that in a 'civilized' country they would be ranked amongst the rarest specimens of human industry....They move through the water with astonishing velocity, and in turning to windward, no boats can surpass them."
Captain of U.S. Schooner Dolphin, 1824
"Their sails consisted of finely braided mats, and were shaped with so much art, that even the closest sidewind could not fail to catch them. A canoe which left Ormed at the same time with us, sailed to our great astonishment, as fast as the Rurick."
Otto Von Kotzebue, captain of Russian vessel Rurick, Voyage of Discovery, 1820
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While all islanders in the Pacific possessed some sort of navigational technology, Marshallese developed perhaps the most advanced methods of teaching this skill. Young apprentices spent much of their training "feeling" the waves beneath them as they lay on their backs in the ocean, in the process gaining the skill of "seeing" the island causing that wave pattern beneath them. In addition, navigational stick charts of various size and shape were devised to depicted complex wave and wind patterns in relation to individual islands, atolls and atoll groups. With these charts, elders were able to more easily explain and teach complex navigational concepts such as wave refraction and swell pattern identification.
Meanwhile, Marshallese woven craft have come to be known as the best in the Pacific. Fans, baskets, mats, ornaments, and the kili bag (made famous by Jackie Onassis) all come from the Marshalls and continue to win tremendous praise for their unique and highly intricate designs. Many creative forms of this time-honored craft can be seen in the more modern handicrafts.
COLONIAL HISTORY
The Marshall Islands possess a unique colonial history characterized by early contact with Westerners and a number of colonial regimes. The significant effects of this colonial history have contributed much to the shaping of the modern-day Marshall Islands.
Contact with the Western world occurred relatively early in these islands. The Spanish were the first Europeans to sail into and explore the Pacific (with Magellan landing on Guam in 1521) and during that century at least eight Spanish ships sailed through the Marshall Islands. During these brief early visits, the Marshallese became some of the first Pacific Islanders to establish contact and initiate trade with Westerners.
Foreign visits subsided over the next two centuries but quickly resumed in 1788 when British captains Marshall and Gilbert sailed into the islands. These islands would later be named after Captain Marshall. Other British ships followed, including the Brittania in 1797, the Rolla in 1803 and the Elizabeth in 1809.
Following the British came the Russians, who visited the Marshalls aboard the Rurik, captained by Otto Von Kotzebue, throughout the years 1816 through 1823. The Rurik's crew, which included artist Ludwig Choris and naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso, conducted the first ever hydrographical, botanical, and ethnological studies on the Marshall Islands. Choris' artistic interpretations of the islands the Rurik visited are some of the earliest throughout the Pacific.
Whalers also visited the Marshalls during the early half of the 1800s but had ceased their whaling activities by 1850 mainly due to the introduction of kerosene which made oil whale obsolete.
In 1857, the first missionaries, from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFDM), arrived from Honolulu with missionaries from both New England and Hawaii. Initially starting their work on the atoll of Ebon, the missionaries gradually branched out and by the end of the century they had established churches on almost every inhabited atoll. Today, Christianity and other forms of Western religion are an important part of Marshallese society.
Germans also entered the Marshalls during the 1850s, with Adolph Capelle, a German trader, arriving on Ebon from Samoa in 1859. Capelle was joined by Jose deBrum, a Portuguese, and together they built the first trading post in the Marshalls and also became the first Europeans to start families and live permanently here. Following Capelle and deBrum, several German firms began establishing themselves in the Marshalls. In 1885, two individual German trading firms merged to form the Jaluit Company which took on the dual role as trading company and colonial administrator. With the development of the Jaluit Company the Marshalls were finally declared a German protectorate with headquarters on Jabor, Jaluit.
When the First World War broke out 29 years into official German rule, Japan, which had joined the allies quickly after the beginning of war, sent naval squadrons into the Marshalls and took military possession of the islands in October of 1914. Japan began to increase its presence in the Marshalls with its population centered on Jaluit and Majuro. From these two atolls, the Japanese continued the work of the Jaluit Company, replacing it with the Nanyo Boeki Kaisha Company (NBK). In 1922, Japan was awarded Micronesia (including the Marshall Islands) as a Class "C" mandate by the League of Nations. When Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933 it began military fortification of several atolls in the late 1930s.
WAR YEARS AND INDEPENDENCE
After heavy fighting in the Pacific and especially in the Marshall Islands, the Japanese were defeated in the Second World War and the United States was the next major power to occupy the Marshalls. After the U.S. takeover in 1945, the U.S. Navy governed the Marshalls (in addition to the Northern Marianas, Palau, Yap, Chuuk and Pohnpei) and in 1947, the Marshalls were given by the United Nations to the U.S. as a Strategic Trust. In 1951, the administration of the Marshalls switched from the U.S. Navy to the Department of the Interior.
In the mid to late 1970s, while still under the U.S. Trust status, a growing sense of identity and desire for greater independence led the Marshall Islands to embark on an endeavor towards self-determination. This was ultimately manifested in 1986 through the Compact of Free Association, which transformed the country from a U.S. Trust to a freely associated nation, the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
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