Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ In the aftermath of World War II, the newly formed United Nations placed a group of Pacific Islands into a trusteeship that was to be administered by the United States.  After several decades, that trusteeship was dissolved and it resulted in three independent countries, one US territory, and a unique system of international relations.  Learn more about the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and the countries of Micronesia, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. -------------------------------- Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EEDailyPodcast/ Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the aftermath of World War II, the newly formed United Nations placed a group of Pacific Islands into a trustee ship that was to be administered by the United States. After several decades, that trustee ship was dissolved, and it resulted in three independent countries, one U.S. territory, and a unique system of international relations. Learn more about the trust territory of the Pacific Islands and the countries of Micronesia on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep, only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow?

That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension. Nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday.

I had an internal debate with myself about where to start this episode and what to limit it to. Micronesia, as a geographic location, is roughly located north of Papua New Guinea and east of the Philippines. And it's not the same as Polynesia. The Polynesia, the Polynesia, the Polynesia, migration was, historically speaking, a relatively recent event, and most Polynesian languages are relatively similar to each other. The people of Micronesia arrived in their islands much earlier, and they're much closer to Asia, and their languages have diverged to much more. Geographically, Micronesia consists of the countries of Kiribati, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the U.S. territories of Guam and the Commonwealth

of the Northern Mariana Islands. The fact that there is all the United States, the Marshall Islands, also a country called Micronesia, just makes it all the more confusing. For the purpose of this episode, I'm going to be focusing on the modern geopolitical region called Micronesia, which is everything I just mentioned above, except for Kiribasa Nauru. I had previously done an episode on Nauru, and both of those countries were formerly British colonies before they achieved independence. So, with that being said, the islands in question were originally colonized by the Spanish, who then lost Guam to the Americans in the Spanish-American War,

and then sold the rest of them to the Germans in 1890. After the First World War, they were given to Japan by the League of Nations, and they were called the South Sea's mandate, even though all of them were north of the equator. This story starts after World War II. Japan was defeated, and the United States was occupying these islands, having taken them over during the war. On July 28, 1947, the United Nations Security Council passed

Security Council Resolution 21, which established the trust territory of the Pacific Islands, or TTPI, which was to be administered by the United States. It was initially managed by the United States Navy out of Guam, and in 1951, control was switched to the Department of the Interior, who ran operations out of the island of Saipan. The TTPI was divided into six districts, Chuk, the Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Ponape, and Yap. Later in 177, a 7th district was created with the island of Kossari. For all practical purposes, the TTPI was treated as if it were a U.S. territory, even though technically it wasn't.

They used the U.S. dollar, adopted similar electrical systems, drove on the right, and English became the official unifying language for the region. The entire region at the time had a very small population. In the 1950s, the entire region, including all 100 populated islands, only had a population of about 100,000 people. All of these different regions, however, didn't really have that much in common, other than the fact that they happened to live on islands that were generally in the same part of the Pacific Ocean. Initially, the United States wasn't interested in granting independence to the islands, but over time it became obvious that the people in the TTPI did want independence. There was never really any effort or desire to make the entire region a single country.

No one who lived there wanted it because, again, the islands were too different from each other and too spread out. Each of the island groups took a totally different path, which resulted in the state of affairs we have today. The first island group was the northern Mariana Islands. These islands are located just north of Guam, which is the southernmost and largest of the Mariana Islands. The people in these islands are Chamorro, which is the same ethnic group and the same linguistic group as the people in Guam. It is a historical accident that Guam has been separated from the other islands in the chain. In 1958, a referendum was passed in the Northern Marianas to merge with Gromis. Guam, and a similar motion was approved by the Guam legislature, but nothing was ever done.

Similar referendums were held in 1961 and 1963, both again passed overwhelmingly. A fourth referendum was held in 1969, and once again the people of the Northern Marianas voted to unify with Guam. But another referendum was held in Guam, and it was rejected 58% to 42%, mostly because of concerns about increased taxes. With dreams of merging with Guam off the table, the people of the Northern Marianas went for the next best thing, which was a similar status to Guam as a U.S. territory. In 1975, a referendum was approved by 79% of the vote to become a U.S. territory, and in

1977, a new constitution was approved with 93% support. The UN Security Council approved the arrangement, and on November 4, 1986, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands became a territory of the United States, and the people on the islands became U.S. citizens. There is still some support for unification of the Marianas Islands. as regardless if the future should be independence or statehood, anything would be easier if they are unified. As of today, however, nothing has yet been done. The Nord of the Marianas is a really interesting place to visit.

I spent several days on Saipan, and there's a whole episode about how they managed to skirt U.S. minimum wage laws and the aftermath of closing that loophole. Of the six remaining divisions of the TTPI, four of them came together in 1979 to ratify the Constitution of the Federated States of Micronesia. These four were Yap, Chook, Panopay, and Kosarai. These four divisions became the states in the Federated States of Micronesia. Each state is centered around the main island, which shares the name of the state. On November 3rd, 1986, just one day before the Northern Marianas adopted their constitution,

the Federated States of Micronesia became an independent country and signed a compact of free association with the United States. I'll be talking more about what a compact of free association is in just a bit. The Marshall Islands didn't want to join the Federated States of Micronesia. Not only were they physically and culturally separate, but they also had a very different relationship with the United States. I've spoken many times in the past about atomic bomb tests which were conducted in the Marshall Islands, primarily on the atolls of Bikini and Ewanitak. The United States was paying compensation to the Marshallese for these tests, for cleanup,

and for the families that were moved off of their home islands. The Marshallese didn't want to share this money with the other islands, so they set off on a course of independence. They also became independent in 1986 and signed a compact of free association with the United States. Both the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia became members of the United Nations on September 17, 1991.

The final group, and one of the smallest, was Palau. Many of the dates I've mentioned for the previous islands were all very similar. Palau's path was a little bit different. Technically, Palau was part of the Caroline Islands with the rest of the Federated States of Micronesia. They were the westernmost islands, and during the later stages of World War II, they were actually administered out of Manila. Palau voted for independence and became the Republic of Palau in 1981,

and signed a compact or free association with the United States in 1982. Even though they were officially the first of the Micronesian countries to become independent, they were the last to join the United Nations in 1994. One of the odd things about Palau is that they're one of the smallest countries in the world with a population of only about 18,000 people. Yet, it has 16 different states. Moreover, when I visited Palau, I noticed that each state had its own license plate. The smallest state of Hadobe has a population of only 25 people, but I have no clue if they even have cars there. So, the federated states of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands are now all independent countries, and they

have all signed a compact of free association with the United States. So what exactly? as a compact of free association. It's an agreement that explicitly sets out the rights that each country and its citizens have with each other. While each country has a separate agreement with the United States, there are broad similarities. For example, each country's citizens can visit, work, and live in the United States without applying for a visa or requiring a green card. There are about 20,000 marshalese who live in the United States, with the largest community being in Honolulu and, believe it or not, Springdale, Arkansas. The reason is that the reason there in Arkansas is that word got around that there were jobs at chicken processing plants with

Tyson foods and the Marshallese move there. The flip side is that American citizens can visit all three countries without a visa and they can stay there indefinitely. All three countries use the U.S. postal system. Believe it or not, there are zip codes and state codes assigned to all of the countries and you can send packages to any Micronesian country for the same rate as sending a package to the United States. This actually caused a diplomatic incident years ago when the Postmaster general of the U.S., apparently not aware of the compact, was going to change postal rates to the Marshall Islands as international. The postal agreement is actually a huge deal for these islands as it allows items to affordably be delivered. Without the postal agreement, life in these

islands would be significantly more expensive. I'm kind of curious to go back just to see how Amazon Prime has affected them. The state codes for the countries are FM for Micronesia, MH for the Marshall Islands and PW4 Palau. The United States also provide services delivered by the military. When I visited, I saw a unit of army engineers working on a school in Maduro in the Marshall Islands, and I saw a Navy unit building a basketball court in Palau. A Navy medical ship had arrived in Maduro just a week before I visited, which did checkups for local people. The biggest thing that the United States provides, of course, is economic aid and defense for all three countries. Citizens of all three countries can volunteer to serve in the U.S. military without having to become naturalized

citizens. Micronesia actually has high rates of service, and you can find U.S. military veterans in almost every village. There is a documentary made about Micronesians who serve in the U.S. military military, called Island Soldier. The U.S. has a single military base in the region, a missile testing range on the island of Quadaline in the Marshall Islands. This region gets very few visitors. It actually isn't hard to visit, as there are regular flights on United Airlines. However, few people bother to do. do it. The Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia can be reached on a flight called the Island Hopper, which goes from Honolulu to Guam and then Guam to Honolulu every other day.

Guam is the hub for the region, and from there you can easily reach Yap, Palau, and Saipan. It is a fascinating part of the world, and one I wish more people would visit. The ruins of Nanmodole on the island of Panopae are one of the most underappreciated historical treasures in the world, and should be considered on a par with Easter Island. Palau has some of the best scuba diving in the world and is probably done more than any other country to protect their marine environment because so much of their economy is dependent upon tourism and scuba diving. I've been all over the world, and the region of Micronesia is one of my favorite, and I fully intend to return someday. Even though it doesn't get a lot of visitors, the region of Micronesia, formerly the

trust territory of the Pacific Islands, is a unique place with unique people and a fascinating story. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. If you'd like to support the show, you can do so over at patreon.com. And remember, if you leave a review or send in a question, you two can have it read on the show.