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Truk, A Brief History
People have inhabited the Truk Lagoon for at least 2,000 years.  The first European ship to visit the lagoon was the Spanish vessel San Lucas in 1565.  The natives appeared hostile, so the captain, Alonso de Arellano, fired a few cannon shot before sailing across the lagoon and out to sea.  It was 250 years before another European ship entered the lagoon.  In 1814, the Spaniard, Manual Dublon, captain of the San Antonio, came to Truk to collect sea cucumber.  He anchored at Tonoas island, naming the island after himself.  There was sporadic contact for the next 60 years.  Europeans generally stayed away because of the fierce reputation of the Trukese.


In 1886, the Spanish established their rule over all the Caroline islands, administering from their headquarters in Pohnpei.  The Spanish largely ignored the Trukese as they considered them too hostile. The Spanish did introduce Christianity and increased the amount of manufactured goods, including guns.  The availability of firearms increased the severity of warfare, and had significant impact on local boundaries and family power.  The Spanish expanded coconut plantations as part of their increasing trade with German and Japan.

German bought the Caroline Islands in 1899 following the Spanish American War.  The U.S. Congress was not interested in administering such far flung and scattered islands.  They decided the U.S. would keep Guam as a coaling station for U.S. ships and allowed German to buy the rest of the islands from Spain. The German administration headquarters remained in Pohnpei, but sent armed forces to Truk to attempt to end indigenous warfare.  In 1904, the Trukese turned in many of their guns to the Germans ending most of the local conflicts. The Germans made Dublon their base in Truk.

The Japanese Occupation
(Taken in it's entirety from Truk Underwater Archaeology by Francis X. Hezel and Clark Graham, Micronesian Endowment for Historic Preservation, U.S. National Park Service, 1997, pp 11-22)

Early Japanese Interests

Japanese first visited Truk in 1891 with a shipload of trade goods and a small band of young men who were to remain their as resident traders.  Only a few years earlier, in an era of expansionism, Japan had struck out to the South Seas for the first time.  It was a time when the stirrings of nationalism were mingled with private financial ambition.  The South Pacific B the new frontier for romantic Japanese B beckoned those without any promising prospects in their homeland.  The children of former samurai, now jobless, shipped to Truk and other parts of Micronesia through the 1890's to set up a network of commercial outposts.

The business ventures were small and had a high failure rate in the beginning, but the Japanese nonetheless succeeded in establishing a foothold in the area.  By the end of the century there were 30 Japanese traders living in Truk.  Even after the Germans replaced the Spanish as the colonial overlords of Micronesia, Japanese trading interests continued to grow, and in 1908 a merger of two companies gave birth to Nanyo Boeki Kaisha, the organization that ruled the island copra trade until the end of World War II.

At the outbreak of World War I, the Japanese found themselves in a position to acquire political control over the islands over which they had already achieved commercial domination.  In October 1914, less than two months after Japan declared war on Germany, its navy seized the German possessions north of the equator.  Japan's European allies were suspicious of the intentions of this new Asian power, but dared not oppose Japan outright at such a critical time.  The Second South Seas Squadron, a naval unit that renamed the Provisional South Sea Islands Defense Force. Administered Micronesia for the next eight years from its headquarters in Truk.

America and the major powers of Europe were distressed at Japan=s bold move into the Pacific, but Japanese control of Micronesia was a fait aacompli by the time these nations met to resolve the question of what to do with the former German possessions.  Japan was well aware of the strategic value of the islands as stepping stones for its advance into the Pacific and as a spur toward its development as a great naval power.  A compromise of sorts was reached.  Japan was allowed to retain its claim to the Carolines, Marshalls and Marianas under a mandate by the newly formed League of Nations.  By the terms of the mandate, Japan was not to fortify the islands and was to issue yearly reports on conditions there to the League of Nations.  Japan=s wartime allies were determined that it would not be permitted to use the islands as bases for advancing into the South Pacific or Southeast Asia.  Yet, Japan was given leave to administer the islands as virtual possessions, and no “open door” policy was ever agreed upon.

In early 1922 he Japanese navy turned over the administration of the mandate to a civilian institution, the Nanyo-cho, which had its headquarters in Palau.  Hundreds of administrative bureaucrats, far more than the Spanish or Germans who preceded them, took up their posts in the islands.  Hospitals were built and health care extended to the outer islands.  A public education system offering up to five years of schooling for the local people was established.  The Japanese appointed island and sectional chiefs, who were paid small salaries for performing the duties the government imposed on them.  In Truk, there was a branch office on Dublon with a corps of 200 Japanese to supervise the various operations and development programs.

The major economic interests of the government were the sugar production that was centered in the Marianas and the phosphate mining carried on in Palau.  Throughout the pre-war period these two operations were the backbone of the economy.  During these years, hundreds of young Micronesian men were sent off to Anguar to provide labor for the phosphate mines.  Others found limited earning opportunities, as they always had, by making copra.  In time the Japanese government developed a major fishing industry tied to the production of kastubushi for export.  With a fishing cannery and kastubushi plant on Dublon, the value of fish exports from Truk reached two million yen by 1937.

Most of the workforce that was required for the main economic development projects was brought to the islands from Japan and Okinawa.  By 1930 there were over 20,000 Japanese nationals living in the islands.  By 1935, that number had grown to 50,000, and by 1940, it stood at 85,000.  Truk was better off than most other islands groups.  In 1935 its Japanese population numbered 2,000 out of a total population of 17,000.  The massive importation of labor had, from a Japanese viewpoint, the benefit of providing some relief for Japan's internal economic problems and unemployment pressure.  But it also had enormous consequences on Japan=s colonial policies in Micronesia.  The government's social programs began to focus less on the local people than on the transported Japanese nations.  Most of the facilities built during the 1930's were designed for Japanese.  Far more important, the government began to lease, and then to purchases outright large tracts of land for its projects, in a dramatic reversal of its former policy.  By the mid-1930's the Japanese government held title to three times as much land as was owned by Micronesians.

A decade before the outbreak of the war, for reasons that were economic and social rather than military, a major upheaval occurred in Micronesia. By the early 1930's the local population was eclipsed by a growing immigrant population.  Even at that relatively early date, Micronesians were finding themselves mere tenants on what had once been their own land.
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