This article is about the Pacific island. For the Roman ruins, see Pompeii. For the modern Italian city, see Pompei. For the Classical Roman leader, see Pompey.
Pohnpei (formerly known as Ponape or Ascension, from Pohnpeian: "upon (pohn) a stone altar (pei)") is an island of the Senyavin Islands which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. It belongs to Pohnpei State, one of the four states in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Major population centers on Pohnpei include Palikir, the FSM's capital, and Kolonia, the capital of Pohnpei State. Pohnpei is the largest island in the FSM, with an area of 334km2 (129sqmi), and a highest point of 782m (2,566ft), the most populous with 36,832 people, and the most developed single island in the FSM.
Pohnpei is home to the megaliths and ruined city of Nan Madol, built of artificial islands off the island's eastern shore beginning in the 8th or 9th century. An important archaeological site, it was declared a national historic site in 1985.
Pohnpei contains a wealth of biodiversity. It is one of the wettest places on Earth with annual recorded rainfall exceeding 7,600mm (300in)[1] each year in certain mountainous locations. It is home to the ka tree (Terminalia carolinensis) found only in Pohnpei and Kosrae.[2]
The natives of Pohnpei, especially the 'older' generations, often refer to events in their past as having occurred, e.g., in "German times" or "before the Spaniards," which identifies the historical periods:[4]
Period
Years
Native Period
Before 1825
Pre-Spanish Period
1825–1886
Spanish Period
1886–1899
German Period
1899–1914
Japanese Period
1914–1945
US Period
1945–1986
Independence Period
Since 1986
Pre-colonial history
The earliest settlers were probably Lapita culture people from the Southeast Solomon Islands or the Vanuatuarchipelago.[5] Pre-colonial history is divided into three eras: Mwehin Kawa or Mwehin Aramas (Period of Building, or Period of Peopling, before c.1100); Mwehin Sau Deleur (Period of the Lord of Deleur, c.1100[6] to c.1628);[note 1] and Mwehin Nahnmwarki (Period of the Nahnmwarki, c.1628 to c.1885).[7][10] Pohnpeian legend recounts that the Saudeleur rulers, the first to bring government to Pohnpei, were of foreign origin. The Saudeleur centralized form of absolute rule is characterized in Pohnpeian legend as becoming increasingly oppressive over several generations. Arbitrary and onerous demands, as well as a reputation for offending Pohnpeian deities, sowed resentment among Pohnpeians. The Saudeleur Dynasty ended with the invasion of Isokelekel, another semi-mythical foreigner, who replaced the Saudeleur rule with the more decentralized nahnmwarki system in existence today.[4][12][13]
Pohnpeian historic society was highly structured into five tribes, various clans and sub-clans; each tribe headed by two principal chiefs. The tribes were organized on a feudal basis. In theory, "all land belonged to the chiefs, who received regular tribute and whose rule was absolute." Punishments administered by chiefs included death and banishment. Tribal wars included looting, destruction of houses and canoes and killing of prisoners.[4] Pre-Spanish population estimates are deemed unreliable.[4]
Earliest European contacts
Pohnpei's first European visitor was Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra on 14 September 1529 shortly before his death, when trying to find the way back to New Spain.[14] He charted it as San Bartolomé and called this one and the surrounding islands as Los Pintados (literally, "the painted ones" in Spanish) because the natives were frequently tattooed. It was later visited by the navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, commanding the Spanish ship San Jeronimo.[4] on 23 December 1595; his description is brief, he made no attempt to land.[15]
19th-century visitors
There is good documentation about Australian sailor John Henry Rowe, who arrived in his barque John Bull on 10 September 1825, though he did not land as his vessel was chased off by native canoes. The first lengthy description of the island and its inhabitants is presented by the Russian explorer Fyodor Litke, whose ship Senyavin gave the island group of Pohnpei, Ant and Pakin its name. From 14 to 19 January 1828, his boats attempted to land but could not due to the hostility shown by the islanders, but natives then came aboard his ship, "some trading occurred, a short vocabulary was compiled, and a map made."[4] F.H. von Kittlitz, a member of the Litke expedition made a further descriptive account, including the offshore ruins of Nan Madol, and the two reports together provided the first real knowledge of Pohnpei.[4] It is not clear who the next visitors were; however, when Capt. J.H. Eagleston of the barque Peru sighted the island on 3 January 1832, it was already on his charts as "Ascension Island." Riesenberg writes that it is uncertain who first called it Ascension Island, but the name became established until the Spanish period.[4]
Miscreants and missionaries
From this time onward, whaling and trading vessels came in increasing numbers. Very soon a "large colony of beachcombers, escaped convicts, and ship's deserters became established ashore," identified as "chiefly bad characters," according to the log of the Swedish frigate Eugenie.[4] The first missionary to arrive was Father Louis Désiré Maigret, a Roman Catholic priest. He had sailed from Honolulu on the schooner Notre Dame de Paix and began his efforts in December 1837, but he departed on 29 July 1838 for Valparaíso after seven unsuccessful months.[16] In his company were "several Mangarevans and Tahitians," some of whom remained on Pohnpei and left descendants.[4] Ten years later Maigret returned to the Hawaiian kingdom as Bishop of Honolulu.[16] A group of Protestant missionaries from New England established themselves permanently on Pohnpei in 1852. Their letters and journals contain a wealth of information about the island and are preserved at Harvard University.[4]
A drastic population decline occurred after 1854, due to a smallpox epidemic.[4]
During the American Civil War, to counteract the United States blockade of their ports, Confederate States Navy ships hunted Yankee merchant shipping. On 1 April 1865, the CSS Shenandoah surprised four United States whalers at Ascension Island (Pohnpei) and destroyed them all. The local king, Nananierikie, was delighted to receive much of the spoils from this action.[17]
Spanish rule
By 1886 the Spaniards claimed the Caroline Islands which were part of the Manila-based Spanish East Indies and began to exert political authority. They founded the city Santiago de la Ascensión in what today is Kolonia (from Spanish colonia or colony). The Spanish built several government buildings, a fort, a church and a school. Spanish Capuchin friars were also sent from Manila to Pohnpei to preach the Catholic faith. After the 1898 Spanish–American War, the German Empire purchased the Caroline island group from Spain in 1899 together with the Marianas (except Guam) and four years later the Marshall Islands for 17 million goldmark.
German rule and land reform
During the German administration a fundamental change in land ownership was implemented on Pohnpei and throughout the Carolines. Beginning in 1907, the feudal system, in which all land is held in fief, was gradually replaced with the issuance of individual deeds to land. The chief's economic advantages were thus reduced, and only force of tradition granted a first harvest tribute to chiefs.[4]
With land holding, taxes came due and new owners, in lieu of payment, were obliged to work 15 days per year on public projects, such as wharf construction, road building, etc. One such work for taxes engagement sparked the Sokehs Rebellion. It began as an insubordination event during road construction on Sokehs Island, then escalated into the murder of nine people, the subsequent apprehension and trial of 36 Sokehs rebels, the execution of 15 insurgents, and banishment for others to Babelthuap in the German Palau Islands.
The German census of 1911–12 shows 3,190 Pohnpeians, 585 Central Carolinians and 279 Melanesians. Many of the outer islands were resettled (mainly on Sokehs Island) as a consequence of destructive typhoons in their home islands.
A special census conducted in late 1947 shows a total population of 5,628, of which 4,451 were Pohnpeians, and 1,177 were natives of other Pacific islands. By 1963, the population had grown to nearly 10,000.[4]
Japanese rule
With the Treaty of Versailles, Japan as mandatory power assumed control of all German colonial possessions north of the equator, having occupied Pohnpei along with the rest of the Carolines, the Marshalls, the Marianas (except for American-owned Guam) and Kiautschou Bay during World War I. In subsequent years and during World War II the Japanese garrison strength was composed of about 2,000 men of the IJN under Captain Jun Naito and 5,984 IJA men under Lieutenant General Masao Watanabe.[18] However, Pohnpei was bypassed by the United States Navy during the island-hopping amphibious campaigns of 1943–1945.[18]
The island was shelled on several occasions, including by the battleships USS Massachusetts, USS Alabama, and USSIowa, as well as air attacks launched from USS Cowpens. After the war, Japanese nationals were repatriated to Japan by the US Navy.
United States administration, under United Nations oversight
The Federated States of Micronesia achieved independence in 1986 after being administered by the United States under UN auspices since 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
Geography
Detailed map of Pohnpei, showing the borders of the five 'independent tribes'Senyavin Islands (Pohnpei plus two neighboring atolls)
The only land reptiles are a few species of lizard. Originally the only mammals were bats. Pigs, rats and dogs were introduced; pigs have become feral. The lagoons are rich in fish, molluscs, turtles and other marine fauna.
Climate
Kolonia Town looking down from Sokehs RidgeDistrict center of Pohnpei Circa 1971
Pohnpei belongs to the tropical rainforest climate zone (Köppen: Af).[19] It is one of the wettest places on Earth with an average annual recorded rainfall of 4,775mm (188.0in) in towns along the coast and about 7,600mm (300in) each year in certain mountainous locations.[20]
The population of the state in 2010 was approximately 36,196. While the majority of the population consider themselves ethnic Pohnpeians, Pohnpei is more ethnically diverse than any other island in the FSM. This is largely due to more than a century of foreign colonial occupation, bringing in Spanish, German, Japanese, Chamorro, Filipino, US, Australian, other western Europeans, and it being home to the capital of the national government, which employs hundreds of people from the other three FSM States (Yap, Chuuk, Kosrae) having distinct ethnic and cultural origins. The indigenous makeup also includes the multiple regional ethnicities of the outer islands within Pohnpei State, resulting in a mix of Australasian Pacific Islanders and hence making Pohnpei Island the FSM's melting pot.
The FSM is part of the international Olympic movement, originally the work of James Tobin, who now sits on the IOC Executive Board, sending teams to the summer games beginning in 2000 with the Sydney games and continuing every four years to the present with athletes participating in track and field, swimming and weightlifting. The most notable Pohnpeian athlete is marathon runner Elias Rodriguez who ran for the FSM at the Sydney Olympics. Rodriguez finished last in the marathon but was cheered on by tens of thousands of spectators and watched by millions of television viewers as he entered the Olympic stadium for a final lap immediately prior to the closing ceremony which was delayed to allow his finish.[22]
Pohnpei's state football team were coached by the world's youngest national football coach, the Englishman Paul Watson, who led the team on a tour of nearby Guam, winning one match against a local team. [23] The annual Micronesian Futsal Cup has been established on the island, also the work of Watson.
College of Micronesia-FSM, which has a state campus in each of the four states with its national campus in the capital city of Palikir. The COM-FSM system also includes the Fisheries and Maritime Institute (FMI) on the Yap islands.
↑ The Saudeleur era lasted around 500 years.[7] Legend generally dates their downfall to the 1500s,[8] however, archaeologists date Saudeleur ruins to c.1628.[9][10][11]
↑ "they had set forth for the Nan-Matal, that extraordinary group of island ruins clustered along the eastern shore of Ponape in the Carolines"
↑ Flood, Bo; Strong, Beret E.; Flood, William (2002). Micronesian Legends. Bess Press. pp.145–7, 160. ISBN1-57306-129-8. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
↑ Petersen, Glenn (1990). "Isokelekel"(PDF). Lost in the Weeds: Theme and Variation in Pohnpei Political Mythology. Occasional Papers. Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian & Pacific Studies, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. pp.34 et seq. hdl:10125/15545. OP35. Archived(PDF) from the original on 27 January 2012. Retrieved 31 December 2011.
↑ Brand, Donald D., The Pacific Basin: A History of its Geographical Explorations, The American Geographical Society, New York, 1967, p.137
↑ Coello, Francisco "Conflicto hispano-alemán" Boletín de Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid, t.XIX. 2º semestre 1885, Madrid, pp.244,245,294,296
1 2 Bunson, Maggie. Faith in Paradise. Boston: St. Paul Publishing. 1977, pp. 43, 65
↑ CSS Shenandoah, Lieutenant James I Waddell, Annapolis 1960, pages 144-155
Gene Ashby. Pohnpei, an Island Argosy, Publisher: Rainy Day Pr West; Revised edition (June 1987), paperback, ISBN978-0-931742-14-9.
David Childress. "The Lost City of the Pacific". Omega Science Digest (March 1986), pp.48–55, 121.
Thomas Morlang: Rebellion in der Südsee. Der Aufstand auf Ponape gegen die deutschen Kolonialherren 1910-1911. Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag. Germany. ISBN9783861536048.
Oliver Sacks (6 June 1997). The Island of the Colour-blind. Pan Macmillan, paperback, ISBN0-330-35234-2.
Martha C. Ward (1989). Nest in the Wind: Adventures in anthropology on a tropical island. Waveland Press, paperback, ISBN0-88133-405-7.
The Federated States of Micronesia, or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania. The federation consists of four states—from west to east: Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae—that span across the western Pacific just north of the equator, for a longitudinal distance of almost 2,700 km (1,700 mi). Together, the states comprise around 607 islands and a combined land area of approximately 702 km2 or 271 sq mi.
The Federated States of Micronesia are located on the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. The history of the modern Federated States of Micronesia is one of settlement by Micronesians; colonization by Spain, Germany, and Japan; United Nations trusteeship under United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; and gradual independence beginning with the ratification of a sovereign constitution in 1979.
Geography of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a country located in the western Pacific Ocean, and in the Micronesia cultural and ecological sub-region of Oceania. While its total land area is very small at 702 km2 (271 sq mi), it has the 14th largest exclusive economic zone at 2,996,419 km2 (1,156,924 sq mi).
Palikir is the capital city of the Federated States of Micronesia located in the western Pacific Ocean. A town of slightly under 5,000 residents, it is part of the larger Sokehs municipality, which had a population of 6,647 as of 2010, out of the nation's total population of 106,487. It is situated on the northwest side of Pohnpei island, a high volcanic island surrounded by a fringing coral reef. Nearby to the northeast is the island's largest settlement, the coastal town of Kolonia. It was declared the capital of Micronesia in 1989.
The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the central and eastern parts of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end. Historically, this area was also called Nuevas Filipinas or New Philippines, because they were part of the Spanish East Indies and were governed from Manila in the Philippines.
Nan Madol is an archaeological site adjacent to the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei, now part of the Madolenihmw district of Pohnpei state in the Federated States of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. Nan Madol was the capital of the Saudeleur dynasty until about 1628. The city, constructed in a lagoon, consists of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals. The site core with its stone walls encloses an area approximately 1.5 by 0.5 kilometres and it contains 92 artificial islets—stone and coral fill platforms—bordered by tidal canals.
Pohnpei State is one of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Its capital is Kolonia. With an area of 346 miles, it is the largest state.
The Senyavin Islands belong to Pohnpei State in the Federated States of Micronesia. They consist of a larger volcanic Pohnpei Island and two small atolls Ant and Pakin.
The Saudeleur dynasty was the first organized government uniting the people of Pohnpei island, ruling from c. 1100-1200 CE to c. 1628 CE. The era was preceded by the Mwehin Kawa or Mwehin Aramas, and followed by Mwehin Nahnmwarki. The name Deleur was an ancient name for Pohnpei, today a state containing the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia.
Kolonia is a coastal town and the capital of Pohnpei State in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). It's not to be confused with the far smaller Colonia, the capital of the State of Yap. It was also the former FSM capital before being replaced by Palikir in 1989, located nearby to the southwest in the municipality of Sokehs. It has 6,074 people.
The College of Micronesia-FSM (COM-FSM) is a public community college in the Federated States of Micronesia. It began operation in 1963 as the Micronesian Teacher Education Center.
Nett also written as Net, is one of the administrative divisions of Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia.
The Federated States of Micronesia's National Police is the small national police force of the Federated States of Micronesia and is a division of the FSM Department of Justice.
Micronesian Americans are Americans who are descended from people of the Federated States of Micronesia, although the term may also include people descended from the US unincorporated territory of the Northern Mariana Islands. According to the 2020 US Census, a total of 21,596 residents self-identified as having origins in the country, which consists of four states. More than half of these residents identified their origin as Chuuk State (12,464) with the rest as follows: 4,918 people from Pohnpei, 2,066 from Yap, and 2,148 people from Kosrae.
Madolenihmw is one of the administrative divisions of the Micronesian island of Pohnpei. It is located in the central east of the island, to the east of Mount Nahna Laud and south of Mount Kapwuriso. The coast of Madolenihmw includes a large bay which contains the island of Temwen, famous for its Nan Madol ruins.
U, also written Uh, is one of the administrative divisions of Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia. U bears the shortest place name in the Federated States of Micronesia, and one of the shortest in the world.
Sapwuahfik, formerly Ngatik, or the Raven Islands is a 110-square-kilometer (42 sq mi) atoll in Pohnpei state of the Federated States of Micronesia. It is a village and municipality of roughly 430 people on a land area of 1.5 square kilometers (0.58 sq mi).
Isokelekel was a semi-mythical hero warrior and demigod who founded pre-modern Pohnpei sometime in the 1500s to the early 1600s. He invaded the island, ended the oppressive rule of the Saudeleur, and instituted the decentralized chiefdom (nahnmwarki) system that has survived through modern times.
Bailey Olter High School, formerly Pohnpei Island Central School (PICS), and Pacific Islands Central School, is a senior high school in Kolonia, Pohnpei Island, Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia. As of 2018 the school, operated by the Pohnpei State Department of Education, has about 1,500 students, making it the state's largest high school. Its service area includes Kolonia, Nett, Sokehs, and U.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Federated States of Micronesia refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The church's first known missionaries arrived on July 5, 1978. As of December 31, 2022, there were 5,966 members in 23 congregations in FSM. The LDS Church has congregations in every state in the FSM.
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