Caroline Islands

Not to be confused with Caroline Island, part of Kiribati (Southern Line Islands), also in the central Pacific Ocean.

The Caroline Islands form a large archipelago of widely scattered islands in the western Pacific Ocean, northeast of New Guinea.

Description

The group consists of about 500 small coral islands, east of the Philippines, in the Pacific Ocean; the distance from Manila to Yap, one of the larger islands of the group, is 1200 miles.

Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end.

Most of the islands comprise low, flat coral atolls, but some rise high above sea level.

People and culture

The native inhabitants, of the Polynesian race, speak a variety of Micronesian languages including Yapese, Pohnpeian, Chuukese, and Kosraean, as well as the Western Malayo-Polynesian language Palauan. Other significant populations would include Filipinos and Japanese.

The natives live mainly by hunting and fishing, also supplementing their diet with many different varieties of bananas and taro, either of the "swamp" or "purple" varieties. They wear very little clothing and build small huts of branches. The language spoken in commerce is English, but the aborigines have several dialects of their own. They traditionally believe in a Supreme Being (Yalafar) and in a bad spirit (Can), yet they have hardly any religious rites. Due to extensive missionary work, Christianity is the primary religion practiced in this region of Micronesia.

History

Discovered to the occidentals in 1526, by the Spanish Toribio Alonso de Salazar, he called them "Carolinas" after the emperor Carlos the 1st of Spain, and 5th of Germany. The Portuguese Diego da Rocha, explorer of the Carolines, also named them the Sequeira Islands in 1527. Though early Spanish navigators in the area (from 1543) called them the Nuevas Filipinas ("New Philippines"), Admiral Francisco Lazeano named them the Carolinas after the Spanish King Charles II in 1686.

Some few Western travellers subsequently visited the islands, but an early visit of missionaries (1732) resulted in one of several murderous attacks on the newcomers; and only in 1875 did Spain, claiming the group, make some attempt to assert her rights. The Caroline Islands were subsequently placed under the Spanish East Indies, administered from the Philippines. Germany, which had occupied Yap, disputed the Spanish claim, and the matter went to the arbitration of Pope Leo XIII in 1885. He decided in favor of Spain, but gave Germany free trading rights. The Spanish did not occupy any island formally until 1886.

Then on 1 June, 1899, after the Spanish-American War of 1899, Spain sold the islands to Germany for 25,000,000 pesetas (nearly 1,000,000 pounds sterling), which administered them as Karolinen, administratively associated with German New Guinea.

Japan occupied the islands in 1914 and received a League of Nations mandate over them in 1920, but after World War II the islands became trust territories of the United States, eventually gaining independence (1986 / 1994).

German colonial officers

District officers (from 1889, styled Bezirksamtmann):

In the western Caroline islands (Yap and Palau [and from 1907 Saipan])-

29 June 1886 - 18.. Manuel de Elisa
.... - .... ....
before November 1897 - after November 1898 S. Cortes
1899 - 1909 Arno Senfft (b. 1864 - d. 1909)
1909 Rudolf Karlowa
1909 - 1910 Georg Fritz
1910 - 1911 Hermann Kersting
1911 - 1914 Baumert

In the Eastern Caroline islands (Ponape [and from 1911 Marshall Islands])-

June 1886 - 1887 Capriles
14 March 1887 - 1887 Isidro Posadillo (d. 1887)
October 1887 - January 1891 Luis Cadarso y Rey (d. 1898)
c.1894 Concha
before November 1897 - after November 1898 J. Fernandez de Cordoba
12 October 1899 - August? 1901 Albert Hahl (b. 1868 - d. 1945)
1 September 1901 - 30 April 1907 Victor Berg (b. 1861 - d. 1907)
1907 - 1908? Girschner (acting)
1908 - 1909 Georg Fritz
1909 - 18 October 1910 Gustav Boeder (d. 1910)
191. - 7 October 1914 August Überhorst

Ecclesiastical history

Two Jesuits, John Anthony Cantova and Victor Walter, attempted missionary work there in 1731; the former was soon murdered, the latter obliged to flee. Two other Jesuits were killed later. In 1767 the Jesuits were suppressed in the Spanish dominions, and during the next 120 years there is no trace of a missionary.

The controversy between Germany and Spain concerning the possession of the Carolines having been settled by Pope Leo XIII in favour of Spain, the king directed Spanish Capuchins to the islands, 15 March, 1886, and the Propaganda Fide officially established that mission, 15 May, 1886, dividing it into two sections, named West and East Carolines respectively. Until then the islands had belonged ecclesiastically to the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia. The Spanish Capuchins had a catechism and prayer book printed in the Ponape dialect, and Father Anthony of Valentia wrote a small grammar and dictionary of the Yap dialect in 1890.

When the Spanish Fathers had laid the foundations of the mission, these islands passed by purchase into the hands of Germany in 1899. Spain had contributed more than $5000 a year towards the mission; Germany granted no support. Spain had compelled the aborigines to send their children to school; Germany gave full liberty in this regard, and the somewhat lazy people consequently began to neglect school as well as church. The mission thereby suffered greatly, and the Propaganda finally deemed it advisable to replace the Spanish Capuchins with others of German nationality (7 November 1904) and to erect one Apostolic prefecture instead of the two separate missions (18 December 1905). The Very Reverend Father Venantius of Prechthal was appointed first prefect Apostolic.

In 1906 twelve fathers and twelve brothers were working in thirteen stations, and several Sisters of St. Francis left Luxembourg to take charge of the ten schools, in which were 262 children. Ninety adult converts were the harvest of that year, and the Catholic population is given as 1900 among 11,600 heathens and a few Protestants. The United States Government sent, 1 July, 1905, a Jesuit from the observatory at Manila to erect a meteorological station on the island of Yap, of which station the Capuchin Father Callistus was appointed director. The origin of the East-Asiatic typhoons had been traced to these regions, and twice a day observations are made, and notice is frequently given to Manila by cable.

Postage stamps

In their first year as a German Schutzgebiet, the Carolines used postage stamps of Germany overprinted "Karolinen". Few examples of these survive today, especially in cancelled condition. In 1901, Germany issued its "Yacht" series with a common design for all of Germany's colonies, featuring the Kaiser's yacht Hohenzollern. The issues for the Carolines featured the inscription "KAROLINEN", all with mark and pfennig denominations. Many unused copies of the low values still exist today, left over after the Japanese occupation, but as one might expect from the short period of German rule and the very small numbers of letter-writers living in the Carolines, genuinely used stamps are both uncommon and prized.

Sources and references

(incomplete)

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
WorldStatesmen- Micronesia (not yet properly exploited)