Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, and the most populous village is Dededo. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States, reckoned from the geographic center of the U.S. In Oceania, Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and the largest island in Micronesia. As of 2022, its population was 168,801. Chamorros are its largest ethnic group, but a minority on the multiethnic island. The territory spans 210 square miles and has a population density of 775 per square mile (299/km2).
The history of Guam starts with the early arrival around 2000 BC of Austronesian people known today as the Chamorro Peoples. The Chamorus then developed a "pre-contact" society, that was colonized by the Spanish in the 17th century. The present American rule of the island began with the 1898 Spanish–American War. Guam's history of colonialism is the longest among the Pacific islands.
Hagåtña, formerly Agana or Agaña, is a coastal village and the capital of the United States territory of Guam. From the 18th through mid-20th century, it was Guam's population center, but today, it is the second smallest of the island's 19 villages in both area and population. However, it remains one of the island's major commercial districts in addition to being the seat of government.
In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of a U.S. state or the District of Columbia. This includes fourteen U.S. territories administered under U.S. sovereignty, as well as three sovereign states each with a Compact of Free Association with the United States. The term also may be used to refer to the previous status of the Swan Islands, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, as well as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands when it existed.
The Chamorro people are the Indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, politically divided between the United States territory of Guam and the encompassing Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia, a commonwealth of the US. Today, significant Chamorro populations also exist in several U.S. states, including Hawaii, California, Washington, Texas, Tennessee, Oregon, and Nevada, all of which together are designated as Pacific Islander Americans according to the U.S. Census. According to the 2000 Census, about 64,590 people of Chamorro ancestry live in Guam and another 19,000 live in the Northern Marianas.
Edward David Taussig was a decorated rear admiral in the United States Navy. He is best remembered for being the officer to claim Wake Island after the Spanish–American War, as well as accepting the physical relinquishment of Guam by its Spanish governor following the Treaty of Paris in which Spain ceded Guam to the United States following nearly 300 years of colonial rule. Taussig briefly served as Governor of Guam. He was the first of a four-generational family of United States Naval Academy graduates including his son, Vice Admiral Joseph K. Taussig (1877–1947), grandson Captain Joseph K. Taussig Jr. (1920–1999), and great-grandson, Captain Joseph K. Taussig III USMC (1945–).
The Capture of Guam was a bloodless engagement between the United States and Spain during the Spanish–American War. The U.S. Navy sent a single cruiser, USS Charleston, to capture the island of Guam, which was under Spanish control. The Spanish garrison on the island had no knowledge of the war and no real ability to resist the American forces. They surrendered without resistance, and the island passed into American control. The event was the only conflict of the Spanish–American War on Guam.
The Guam Organic Act of 1950, is a United States federal law that redesignated the island of Guam as an unincorporated territory of the United States, established executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and transferred federal jurisdiction from the United States Navy to the United States Department of the Interior. For the first time in over three hundred years of foreign colonization, the people of Guam had some measure of self-governance, however limited. Before that time there was some participation in the Local Administration, through the mayors or "gobernadorcillos" in Spanish times, who acted under the supervision of the Governor of the Mariana Islands.
Hågat is a village in the United States territory of Guam. It is located south of Apra Harbor on the island's western shore. The village's population has decreased since the island's 2010 census.
The Legislature of Guam is the law-making body for the United States territory of Guam. The unicameral legislative branch consists of fifteen senators, each serving for a two-year term. All members of the legislature are elected at-large with the island under one whole district. After the enactment of the Guam Organic Act in 1950, the First Guam Legislature was elected composing of 21 elected members. Today, the current fifteen-member 37th Guam Legislature was elected in November 2022.
Francisco Martínez Portusach (1864–1919) was a Spanish merchant and whaler who was briefly the Governor of Guam, before he was deposed. In the American media of the time, he was often referred to as Francisco Portusach or Frank Portusach.
The Battle of Guam was an engagement during the Pacific War in World War II, and took place from 8 December to 10 December 1941 on Guam in the Mariana Islands between Japan and the United States. The American garrison was defeated by Japanese forces on 10 December, which resulted in an occupation until the Second Battle of Guam in 1944.
William Wirt Gilmer was a United States Navy Captain who served as both the 22nd and 24th Naval Governor of Guam. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he commanded the USS South Carolina during World War I, for which he received the Navy Cross. During his two terms as governor, he proved one of the most contentious leaders in Guam's history. He exercised a large amount of control over islanders' daily lives, including banning whistling and smoking and setting up a curfew. He came into conflict with prominent Americans and Washington Naval leaders when he outlawed marriage between whites and non-whites on the island, believing the Chamorro people inferior. Eventually, concerned islanders gained the attention of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, who had Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt personally order the rescinding of the act. Gilmer was removed for a short time before serving a second term.
Guam The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Guam:
The Orote Peninsula is a four kilometer-long peninsula jutting from the west coast of the United States territory of Guam. A major geologic feature of the island, it forms the southern coast of Apra Harbor and the northern coast of Agat Bay. Its tip, Point Udall, is Guam's westernmost point and also the United States' westernmost point by travel, not longitude. The peninsula historically was the site of the important Chamorro village of Sumay, as well as Fort Santiago of the Spanish colonial period. In modern times, the peninsula is politically in the village of Santa Rita, but it is controlled in its entirety by Naval Base Guam.
José Sisto, also called José Sisto Rodrigo and José Sixto, was twice Governor of Guam, first after overthrowing Francisco Martínez Portusach, and again after being legitimately placed in the position by the United States government. He served as Spanish administrator of the Public Treasury in Guam until the United States captured the island during the Spanish–American War. When Martínez was named Commissioner, Sisto quickly staged a coup d'état and claimed the position as the highest ranking Spanish official on the island. He began arming native guards and commandeering ammunition, but was briefly overthrown by Venancio Roberto and other pro-American elements on December 31, 1898, but was officially put into power by officers of the United States Navy only two days later after they decided he held a legitimate claim to the position. His second term was brief, and he officially relinquished control on February 1, 1899 after learning that the United States had obtained Guam.
Ivan Cyrus Wettengel was a United States Navy captain who served as the 25th Naval Governor of Guam. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Wettengel commanded a number of ships. He received the Navy Cross for his command of USS Wisconsin during World War I. He also commanded USS Texas and the Naval Training Station Hampton Roads. During his tenure as governor, he overturned many of the unpopular policies of William Gilmer. He also attempted to assemble a bull-mounted Guam Cavalry, but the initiative failed. A number of locations in Guam are named in his honor.
Lieutenant General Henry Louis Larsen was a United States Marine Corps officer, the second Military Governor of Guam following its recapture from the Empire of Japan, and the first post-World War II Governor of Guam. He also served as the Military Governor of American Samoa alongside civilian Governor of American Samoa Laurence Wild. Larsen was among the first troops overseas in both World Wars. During World War I, he commanded the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines and participated in numerous battles in France, earning the Navy Cross, three Silver Stars, the Croix de guerre with palm, and the French Legion of Honour. In between the World Wars, he served during the United States occupation of Nicaragua, where he earned his second Navy Cross, the Presidential Medal of Merit from President of Nicaragua José María Moncada Tapia, and his first Navy Distinguished Service Medal.
Sumay, also Sumai, was a village on the United States territory of Guam. It was located on the north coast of the Orote Peninsula along Apra Harbor. It was inhabited by Chamorro people before contact with Europeans. Sumay became a prosperous port town serving whalers and other sailors in the 1800s and the second most populous settlement on Guam after Hagåtña, the capital of the Spanish Mariana Islands. Following the Capture of Guam by the United States in 1898, the village was the site of Marine Barracks Guam. In the early 1900s, it was a link for two firsts connecting the United States and Asia: the first submarine communications cable for telegraph and the China Clipper, the first air service. After the Japanese invasion of Guam in 1941, the residents were evicted and the village turned into a Japanese military garrison. Sumay was leveled during the U.S. liberation of the island in 1944. The U.S. military prohibited the residents from returning, relocating them to the hills of nearby Sånta Rita-Sumai. In 1948, the U.S. military exercised eminent domain and took all private and commercial property at Sumay. Its former location is now on Naval Base Guam.
Guam is an island in the Marianas archipelago of the Northern Pacific located between Japan and New Guinea on a north–south axis and Hawaii and the Philippines on an east–west axis. Inhabitants were Spanish nationals from 1521 until the Spanish–American War of 1898, from which point they derived their nationality from United States law. Nationality is the legal means in which inhabitants acquire formal membership in a nation without regard to its governance type. In addition to being United States nationals, people born in Guam are both citizens of the United States and citizens of Guam. Citizenship is the relationship between the government and the governed, the rights and obligations that each owes the other, once one has become a member of a nation. Though the Constitution of the United States recognizes both national and state citizenship as a means of accessing rights, Guam's history as a territory has created both confusion over the status of its nationals and citizenship and controversy because of distinctions between jurisdictions of the United States.
