An Administrative History
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An Administrative History Evans-Hatch & Associates, Inc. July 2004 Under NPS Contract Table of Contents Administrative History War in the Pacific National Historic Park -- Chapter 1 -- Pre-European Contact 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Visitors From Afar 9 -- Chapter 3 -- America on Guam: 1898 - 1950 23 -- Chapter 4 -- The Organic Act 41 -- Chapter 5 -- Pre-Legislation Planning and Preparation: 1952 - 1978 49 -- Chapter 6 -- Social and Political Context of the Park’s Creation and Evolution 67 -- Chapter 7 -- Lands 79 -- Chapter 8 -- Creating a Park Presence: The Newman Era 1979 - 1982 97 -- Chapter 9 -- Expanding Park Operations: The Reyes Years 1983 - 1991 131 -- Chapter 10 -- Decade of Special Events: Wood and Gustin Era 1991 - 2002 157 List of Appendices Administrative History War in the Pacific National Historic Park -- Appendix 1 -- Land Ownership, 1979 -- Appendix 2 -- Comments During Preparation of the General Management Plan -- Appendix 3 -- Initial Suggested Boundary Changes -- Appendix 4 -- Histories of Units of the Park -- Appendix 5 -- Introductory Comments on the Floor of the House of Representatives by Rep Richard Which, January 18, 1967 -- Appendix 6 -- World War II Historic Sites and Features Extant in 1967 -- Appendix 7 -- Organic Act Land Title Provisions -- Appendix 8 -- The Park’s Enabling Legislation -- Appendix 9 -- C-MAP and CR-MAP -- Appendix 10 -- Plant Communities List of Illustrations Administrative History War in the Pacific National Historic Park 1-1 Schematic of typical asymmetrical Chamorro hull 1-2 Proa anatomy 1-3 Portrait of Chamorro family 1-4 Chamorro multi-family residence 2-1 Martyrdom of San Vitores 3-1 Guam Naval Militia 3-2 Pacific Ocean map showing location of Guam 3-3 U. S. military commanders on Guam, December 1944 5-1 War debris on Agat Invasion Beach in February 1967 5-2 Agat Beach in February 1967 5-3 Navy facility on Asan Point in February 1967 7-1 Table of land ownership in 1950 and 1951 7-2 Portrait of Won Pat 7-3 Table of land ownership inside park boundaries in 1979 7-4 Asan Beach Unit entrance sign 7-5 Piti gun emplacement 7-6 Piti guns 7-7 Gaan Point 7-8 Gaan Point 7-9 Apaca Point 7-10 Map of park lands 8-1 Portrait of Stell Newman 8-2 Portrait of Dr. Ballendorf 8-3 Portrait of Roqua Borja 10-1 Group photograph of park staff, 1996-1998 Chapter 1 BEFORE EUROPEAN CONTACT ______________________ Introduction The original settlers of Guam arrived from Southeast Asia. Their society was stratified by class, was typified by large, physically imposing individuals, and it exemplified both agrarian and maritime characteristics. They were serially monogamous, occupied multi-family housing, and demonstrated knowledge of sophisticated naval architecture. ________________________________ 1 Chapter 1 – Pre-European Contact Administrative History War in the Pacific National Historic Park _______________________________ The first settlers, referred to as Chamorro, are believed to have arrived from Southeast Asia bringing taro, yams, breadfruit, and rice. The first settlers also brought knowledge of pottery making and poultry. Noticeably absent were dogs and other domestic animals. Some anthropologists have commented that Guam’s first residents were the only settlers they were aware of who didn’t migrate with domestic animals. Importantly, they were also the only residents in Oceania who cultivated rice.1 The Chamorro were socially organized in matrilineal extended family groups, monogamous, and were stratified into three distinct classes.2 They lived in single-family residences that were rectangular, had gabled roofs and were elevated above the ground approximately twelve feet. One of the first written descriptions of the Chamorro residents, recorded in 1668, reported that in that year there were approximately 180 villages on the island, each village comprised of between fifty and one hundred such single-family residences.3 There was a total island population of between 35,000 and 50,000. These original island settlers dined on fish, yams, taro, coconuts, bananas, rice, and federico palms. They wore no clothing except hats for men and short aprons for women, and sandals when the going got rough. They also designed and constructed some of the most impressive ocean-going vessels in the world at the time.4 One of the most unique design features of the Chamorro ocean-going vessels (called proas by Euro-Americans) was the asymmetrical hull shape when viewed in cross section. As illustrated by figure 1-1, this unusual shape resulted in the hull making minimal leeway when sailing on a tack. Direction of boat travel Higher-pressure side Wind Lower pressure side Boat Hull Water flow around the hull The vector sum of the pressure (force) differences is a force vector to windward. In other words, with a wind from either starboard or port, the hull tends to move laterally into the wind, permitting the pilot to steer a more direct heading without having to overcompensate for leeward hull drift. Figure 1-1 Source: Evans-Hatch & Associates 1 Erik K. Reed. General Report on Archeology and History of Guam, unpublished manuscript. Santa Fe, NM: National Park Service, 1952. 2 Ibid. 3 Garcia, Life of Sanvitores, as report in Reed, General Report on Archeology and History of Guam, 14. 4 Reed. 24. ________________________________ 2 Chapter 1 – Pre-European Contact Administrative History War in the Pacific National Historic Park _______________________________ wooden pole to which mast stay (made of sail is attached coconut fiber sennit) lateen sail bamboo mast brace (made of woven pandanus matting) WIND leeward side asymmetrical hull outrigger CHAMORRO PROA Which is the bow end and which is the stern depends upon the tack – if on a starboard tack, the bow would be to the reader’s left, if on a port tack, it would be to the Source of graphic: Micronesian Area Research reader’s right. The Center, University of Guam. asymmetrical hull minimizes the hull’s sideward movement when under sail. Figure 1-2 The first residents were reportedly serially monogamous, young unmarried men lived communally in a single large house. The more affluent lived in single-family houses constructed atop 12-foot high stone pillars, called latte stones, the less affluent used wooden posts to support their houses. It has been established that there were more than 250 latte sites on Guam prior to World War II.5 Walls and roofs were constructed of wood and palm fronds. There is also evidence of residences being established in island caves, although these quarters may have served primarily as refuges during Spanish occupation. A late seventeenth century ethnographer described the houses he observed as being two rows of wooden posts, five posts in each row. 5 Reed, 26 ________________________________ 3 Chapter 1 – Pre-European Contact Administrative History War in the Pacific National Historic Park _______________________________ The posts supported the roof as well as serving as framework for the walls. The roofs were plaited coconut fronds as were the walls. The floors were approximately one meter above the ground, and the houses reportedly had neither decorations nor carvings.6 By the last quarter of the seventeenth century, disease and physical violence between Chamorro and the newly-arrived Spanish priests and soldiers had reduced the Chamorro population to approximately 4,000, and the European island residents who fancied themselves in charge began successfully encouraging Filipino settlement of the island. Popular history records that the Spanish priests (though somewhat uncomfortable with the Chamorro custom of public nudity) got along well with the residents. There was, however, a Chinese resident on the southern end of the island, according to local history, who was anti-Spanish and anti-Roman Catholic. This Chinese resident, Choco by name, had reportedly shipwrecked on Guam and not only been assimilated into island culture, he had acquired influence. Choco claimed that the priests were baptizing infants with poisonous water causing the children to become ill, and, in some instances, to die. Violence flared in 1670 when a priest was purportedly killed on Saipan. It would appear that Figure 1-3. Chamorro family hulling rice, early 1900s. residents took Source: Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam. exception to the propensity on the part of the priests to forcibly remove children from their parents and burn the village for failure to attend church. The Chamorro-Roman Catholic violence culminated in an organized assault on a fortified church in September 1671 by 2,000 Chamorro. The siege lasted approximately forty days. Spanish reports of the protracted battle allege that there were no Spanish casualties. Afterwards, governors Salas and his successor, Jose de Quiroga, directed organized violence against Chamorro towns and villages for several years. The Chamorro united behind a local leader named Agualin. They fought the Spanish with clubs and with lances tipped with sharpened human bone. They did not have bows and 6 Fritz, Georg. The Chamorro: A History and Ethnography of the Mariana Islands. Translated by Elfriede Craddock, N.M.I. Division of Historic Preservation, October 2001. 18. [Note: Georg Fritz was a District Administrator of the Mariana Islands in the late 1800s. He wrote this paper in 1904.] ________________________________ 4 Chapter 1 – Pre-European Contact Administrative History War in the Pacific National Historic Park _______________________________ arrows. After a prolonged struggle, many of the Guam residents fled the Spanish, and relocated on Rota.7 Guam residents, like much of the world population first contacted by Europeans in the late 1600s and early 1700s, contracted diseases to which they had no immunity. Europeans had developed some immunity to smallpox, whooping cough and influenza, at least population immunity to the degree that exposure would not always result in a high morbidity or a high mortality rate. Guam residents had no such immunity. Consequently, the presence of the smallpox virus within a Chamorro community would inevitably result in most of the members contracting the disease, and, when contracted, the disease would often be fatal.