The Marshall Islands and the Germans, 1860-1914

Abstract

The Marshall Islands are to be found in the very heart of the Pacific Ocean and are quite the furthest of all South Sea Archipelagos from the major ports of the large continents bordering on the Pacific Basin. This geographical position meant that the Marshall Islanders were far away from the traditional shipping routes of the early sailing vessels and remained undisturbed by the events of the outside world. Their contacts with exogenous elements up to the beginning of the nineteenth century were brief and accidentaL‘ But unlike other South Sea island groups this isolation extended well into the middle of the nineteenth century as the violent reputation of the Marshallese chiefs and the relatively inhospitable nature of the people assisted in keeping passing ships at bay. The frequent calling of whaling vessels and the intermittent residency of deserters, that was so much the norm in other Pacific Island'chains , was almost non-existant in the Marshalls.

This independence on the part of the Marshall Islanders was eventually eroded, not by the more violent and belligerent elements of South Sea pirates like Bully Hayes and Captain Ben Pease, but by quiet, peaceable missionaries from genteel parlours of Boston middle class suburbs.

Their settlement in the islands in 1857 prized open the door of trade and allowed the irreversible contact and influence of outside cultures. The first trader to take advantage was a German from Braunschweig, Adolf Capelle, but his roots were not firmly implanted in the Germanic States (Germany was not founded as a nation until 1871L and his connections did not extend beyond the Pacific area. The linking of the Marshalls to German shores came through the later establishment of the Hamburg trading houses of Godeffroys and Hernsheims in the 1870s. It was the activities of these companies and their demands for German government support of their trading interest that led to the founding of a German Protectorate in the islands in 1885. This ensured a continual social, political and economic relationship between the German nation and the Marshallese people until the outbreak of the First World War.