Chuuk State Census Report - pacificweb.org

2000 FSM Census of Chuuk StateChapter 1. Introductionwho visited the area in 1824 and mapped half of the Chuuk lagoon, reported the same experience at Pollap. "The wordloulou is always on their lips," he wrote. "Axes, knives, nails and large fishhooks are all objects of great value forthem." When the Russian naval party under Feodor Lutke spent a week in the Mortlocks in 1828, he found the peopleto be surprisingly demanding traders. They scoffed at the iron bars and hoop they were offered and insisted ontinderboxes and knives instead. The iron based traffic with Guam and the passing contact with European and Americanships had given the outer islanders cosmopolitanism that sometimes astonished ship captains. Tobacco had alreadymade its way into many of these islands and cock fighting was a popular pastime on Murilo by the early 1920s. Oneold man from the Namonuitos astonished a captain by carrying on a conversation in Spanish while devouring pate-defoie-graswith unfeigned relish.Throughout this period of contact, the high islands of Chuuk remained something of a backwater. Like the inhabitantsof other volcanic islands in Micronesia, the people there had lost their navigational skills through disuse over the years.They were also less visited than the atolls and were less accustomed to dealing with foreign merchants and seamen.Moreover, the high islands were plagued by the incessant war between districts that was carried on amid ever shiftingalliances. Dumont d'Urville, the last of the great French naval commanders to visit Micronesia, brought his two shipsinto the Chuuk lagoon in 1839 and anchored off Fefen. The Frenchmen found the islanders thoroughly unfamiliar withmuskets, European food (cheese and wine and biscuits), and even clothes. The French visit ended tragically when adozen Chuukese were killed in a battle that broke out between the visitors and the people of a nearby island. The nextvisitor to Chuuk, Andrew Cheyne in 1844, was also attacked. As Cheyne's schooner lay at anchor off Siis, severalhundred men rushed the European seamen and killed several before they were routed. Cheyne publicized the attack ina maritime journal and issued a warning that "no vessel should visit the island group unless well-manned and armed, asthe natives will be certain to attack any vessel that they may find in a defenseless state" (Gorenflo & Levin, 1992).Ship captains seemed to have heeded Cheyne's warning and given Chuuk a wide berth for the next 30 years. One whodidn't -- Captain Alfred Tetens of the Vesta -- almost lost his ship in a surprise raid in 1868. For years, Chuuk -- or"dreaded Hogoleu", as it was sometimes called -- bore a notorious reputation among Western mariners. Islandersinitiated not all the violence, however. The infamous Carl and two or three other blackbirding vessels visited theMortlocks in the early 1870s and shanghaied dozens of men for work in the plantations of the South Pacific. Yearslater a handful of these recruits returned, decked out in Western clothing and eager to tell of their adventures -- butwithin four months all were dead, possibly victims of diseases they had contracted during their long stay abroad.When three Pohnpeian missionary couples were taken to the Mortlocks in 1874 to introduce Christianity to the islandsfor the first time, they were greeted with a sullen silence. Memories of the black birding visits were still painfully freshin the minds of the Mortlockese. Yet, the missionary couples were reluctantly allowed to remain, and within threeyears had won over 800 converts to Protestantism. The Mortlocks, which had long been the gateway to Chuuk, sentone of the Pohnpeian teachers to Uman in 1879. The spread of Christianity throughout the lagoon islands followedquickly, aided by the work of Robert Logan and other American missionaries. Under the impact of these missionaries,the warfare that was always breaking out between different sections of Chuuk slowly began to subside, although it wasanother 20 years before it ended altogether.Merchants soon followed the missionaries into Chuuk, as they did in so many other parts of the Pacific. AugustHartman opened a trading station on Fefen, Charles Irons went to Polowat, and Frederick Narruhn established abusiness on Weno, with Pierre Nedelic and Jack Ehlers coming after them. These pioneer traders found a market forWestern goods, including calico and serge, but their work was not without its risks. Hartmann and two of the earlytraders in the Western islands were killed, and a couple of others were forced to flee for their lives. Even so, commerceand Christianity were by this time firmly rooted in Chuuk.Spanish annexation of the Carolines in 1885, which ushered in the era of colonial rule, passed virtually unnoticed inChuuk. The Spanish government, which had its capital on Pohnpei, was kept so occupied by the uprisings andintrigues on that island that it had neither the time nor the inclination to extend effective rule to any of the other islandsin the eastern Caroline. A Spanish warship stopped off at Chuuk in July 1886 to raise the flag over the island group.The next visit was nine years later when the gunboat Quiros came to put an end to the hostilities between Uman andpart of Fefen. The chiefs were assembled on board the ship, a peace treaty was signed, and the Spanish steamed off,confident that they had accomplished their purpose. They were badly mistaken. Within a year fighting between Umanand Fefen resumed, Romanum slaughtered a deputation of chiefs from Udot, and a Japanese trader was strangled toChuuk Branch Statistics Office, Division of Statistics, FSM Department of Economic Affairs 3