140 



CAEOLINE ISLANDS. 



are exceedingly productive, and abound in 

 fruits, such as bananas, pineapples, mangoes, 

 and limes. Yams are grown in great quantities. 

 The land is covered with rich vegetation. On 

 Kusaie, the smaller island, the population does 

 not exceed 400, all Christians. Several Ameri- 

 can missionaries reside among them. The ex- 

 portation, amounting to 48 tons of copra, is in 

 the hands of a German firm. Ponape is the 

 headquarters of the American missionaries. 

 There are 11 of them on the island, and about 

 as many traders, agents of an English, a Ger- 

 man, and an American house. The exports 

 are about 40 tons of copra, 3 tons of black- 

 edged pearl, and a large quantity of the nuts 

 of the ivory-palm. On Ponape are the ruins 

 of a city built up out of the water on stone 

 foundations. In Kusaie are ruins of artificial 

 harbors, small canals, a paved street, and a 

 large rectangular stone edifice. 



In the atolls of the Marshall group American 

 missionaries and German and English trade- 

 agents are the white residents. Ebon Atoll, 

 the chief station of the missionaries, and Na- 

 morik, export but little. Milli Atoll produces 

 for export 90 tons of copra. The exportation 

 of Arnho, with 3,000 inhabitants, is 220 tons, 

 divided between the Hernsheims and the South 

 Sea Trading and Plantation Company, and the 

 English house of Henderson & Macfarlane. 

 The export of majuro, 350 tons, passes mainly 

 through English hands. The produce of both 

 islands is often greatly diminished by native 

 wars. In Jaluit, which produces TO tons, and 

 exports large quantities collected by the traders 

 from the other islands of the group and the 

 Caroline Islands, the German firms alone are 

 represented. 



Spanish Claims of Sovereignty. In the absence 

 of any contending claims, the Caroline Islands, 

 or at least the Central Carolines and the Pe- 

 lews, have usually been considered as forming 

 a part of the colonial empire of Spain. They 

 were discovered by Spaniards; they lie near 

 Spanish colonies ; until recent times the Span- 

 iards alone held communication with the isl- 

 anders ; and they have been marked on the 

 maps as Spanish territory since their discovery 

 in the days when Spain and Portugal were the 

 only colonizing powers, and when the whole 

 New World was divided between them in a 

 bull issued in 1594 by Pope Alexander VI, 

 who drew a line across the map as the bound- 

 ary of their respective dominions. The Span- 

 ish Government has exercised authority over 

 the islands by such acts as carrying off the en- 

 tire population of some of the smaller ones to 

 the Ladrones. Its sovereignty was never con- 

 tested until the question was raised by the 

 English ^ and German Governments in 1875 in 

 connection with an attempt of the Spanish 

 consul at Hong-Kong to perform official acts 

 with reference to the Carolines. He demand- 

 ed that certain natives of the islands who were 

 rescued at sea should be placed in his care, and 

 that a German vessel clearing for the islands 



should call at one of the ports declared open 

 for trade. On March 4 of that year Mr. Layard 

 and Count Hatzfeldt presented simultaneous 

 notes denying that Spain had any jurisdiction 

 over the islands. Mr. Layard's note said that 

 her Majesty's Government refused to admit 

 the right claimed by Spain over the Caro- 

 line or Pelew Islands, " over which she haa 

 never exercised, and does not now exercise, 

 any actual dominion." The German note was 

 of the same purport. To these protests no 

 answer was ever returned by the Spanish Gov- 

 ernment. In the German note Count Hatz- 

 feldt said that " in accordance with the princi- 

 ples of modern international law the Imperial 

 Government would not be able to recognize 

 those alleged rights" (of sovereignty and power 

 to levy customs) " in so far as they are not sanc- 

 tioned by treaty, or appear to have been de facto 

 exercised." In 1876 Senor Canovas del Cas- 

 tillo, when Prime Minister, said to Mr. Lay- 

 ard that Spain had never claimed sovereignty 

 over the Caroline group. The following year 

 the Foreign Minister, Senor Calderon Collantes, 

 officially declared that the pretensions of Spain 

 in the Eastern Archipelago were limited to Sulu 

 and the adjacent islands. The British Govern- 

 ment sent a squadron in 1882 to punish the 

 natives of the northern island of the Pelew 

 group for an outrage committed on a wrecked 

 British crew two years before, and on the re- 

 port of outrages on the natives committed by 

 O'Keefe's agents in Yap, sent a man-of-war to 

 investigate the matter. 



In the spring of 1885, after Germany had 

 planted her flag in Papua and New Britain, 

 and had laid down the doctrine at the Congo 

 conference that the effective exercise of sover- 

 eignty alone confers sovereign rights, the Span- 

 ish governor of the Philippines published a de- 

 cree ordering the naval authorities to make 

 arrangements, for the purpose of taking effect- 

 ive possession of the island, to send war-vessels 

 to Yap to hoist the Spanish flag. 



The spring and summer passed away without 

 this intention being carried out, until the dis- 

 patch of a German gunboat for the purpose of 

 occupying them in the name of Germany im- 

 pressed the Spanish authorities with the neces- 

 sity of prompt action. 



In August naval Lieutenant Capriles was 

 commissioned as governor of the Caroline and 

 Pelew Islands, and sent in the steamer Car- 

 riedo to take possession, with an infantry lieu- 

 tenant as his secretary, 28 soldiers, and 25 con- 

 victs to build stations. He was accompanied 

 by four Spanish monks, who went to convert 

 the natives. 



The natives of Yap, who suffered from the 

 arbitrary and unjust dealings of O'Keefe and 

 the other Europeans, and who wished a stop 

 to be put to the endless wars among them- 

 selves, petitioned the Govern or- General of the 

 Philippines for a Spanish protectorate in Sep- 

 tember, 1884. Captain Holcombe, the Ameri- 

 can trader, prepared and presented the docu- 



