Bonin Islands - History

History

Prehistoric tools and carved stones, discovered on North Iwo Jima at the end of the 20th century, as well as stone tools discovered on Chichi-jima, indicate the islands might have been populated in ancient times.

The first recorded visit by Europeans to the islands, in 1543, when the Spanish explorer Bernardo de la Torre landed. At that time, the islands were not populated.

A Japanese "discovery" of the islands occurred in Kanbun 10 (1670) and was followed by a shogunate expedition in Enpō 3 (1675). The islands are claimed as a territory of Japan. They are then referred to as Bunin jima (無人島, Buninjima?), literally "the uninhabited islands". In 1727, Ogasawara Sadato (小笠原 貞任, Ogasawara Sadato?), a Ronin, claimed that the islands were discovered by his ancestor Ogasawara Sadayori (小笠原 貞頼, Ogasawara Sadayori?), in 1593, (Tensho 20), and the territory was granted as a fief by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. However, investigation of the claim found that it was a fraud and the very existence of Sadayori was doubtful; as a punishment Sadato is exiled by the shogunate (1735).

The first published description of the islands in the West was brought to Europe by Isaac Titsingh in 1796. His small library of Japanese books included Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (三国通覧図説, An Illustrated Description of Three Countries?) by Hayashi Shihei. This book, which was published in Japan in 1785, also briefly described the Ogasawara Islands.

These groups were collectively called Islas del Arzobispo (Archbishop Islands) in Spanish sources of the 18th–19th century. Japanese maps at the time seem to have been rather inaccurate and therefore considered by some to be deliberately misleading. It is thought that this was an attempt to discourage colonization attempts by foreign nations. Frederick William Beechey used the Spanish name as late as 1831 and believed that the Japanese Boninsima referred to entirely different islands.

Britain claimed the islands in 1827, and five years later the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland published a posthumous, abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation of Sankoku Tsūran Zusetsu.

In 1830, Nathaniel Savory, an American, lands on the island of Chichijima in 1830 and forms the first permanent colony there, along with 29 other people from Hawaii, the continental United States and Europe. The first settlers were Richard Millichamp of Devon, England; Mateo Mozaro of Dubrovnik, Croatia; Alden B. Chapin and Nathanael Savory of Boston; Carl Johnsen of Copenhagen, as well as seven unnamed men and 13 women from the Hawaiian Islands. In 1846, further settlers arrived on board the whaling ship Howard. They established themselves initially in South Island. (One of them, a woman from the Caroline Islands named Hypa, died in 1897 aged about 112, after being baptized on her deathbed.

The islands are claimed as a territory of Japan.) Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy visited the islands in 1853 and bought property at Port Lloyd from Savory for $50. The US "Colony of Peel Island" (Chichijima) is created and Savory is appointed governor.

However, in 1862 (Bunkyū 1), the islands were claimed by the government of Japan. The Japanese names of each island were resolved and 38 settlers from Hachijojima were sent the following year. In 1876 the islands were put under the direct control of the Home Ministry and the islanders of European and US ancestry were granted Japanese nationality in 1882.

A history of the islands was compiled by Lionel Cholmondeley over the course of several years; and his work was published in London in 1915.

In 1917, approximately 60–70 island people claimed ancestry among the 19th century English-speaking settlers; however, in 1941, no Bonin people would acknowledge descent from these early colonists. The current residents include some who claim to be related to Nathaniel Savory.

The Ogasawara islanders were relegated to an insignificant status up through the early Shōwa period. During World War II, most of the inhabitants were forcibly evacuated to the mainland. There was a Japanese military base on Chichijima, whose officer in charge, Major Sueo Matoba (的場 末男, Matoba Sueo?), was known for performing cannibalism and other acts on prisoners of war and was executed for his crimes after the war. Future President George H. W. Bush's plane crashed in the ocean near Chichijima, but he was rescued by an American submarine. The Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, one of the fiercest battles of World War II, was fought on a garrison island in this region of the Pacific.

Following World War II, the islands were controlled by the United States Navy, which expelled all residents except those descended from the original settlers and/or related to them by marriage. while allowing the return of pre-war inhabitants of White American or European, Micronesian or Polynesian ancestry. The islands were returned to Japanese control in 1968, after which time other Japanese citizens were allowed to return.