Marshall Islands – navigators, colonial powers and the nuclear legacy
The atolls of the Marshall Islands were settled by Micronesian seafarers thousands of years ago. Living on narrow strips of coral land, they became master navigators, reading ocean swells with the help of their famous stick charts and sailing canoes between distant atolls. Society was organised around clans and traditional chiefs, the iroij.
European ships passed through from the sixteenth century, and the islands were later named after the British captain John Marshall, who sailed there in the late eighteenth century. Missionaries and traders followed in the nineteenth century. Germany established a protectorate in 1885 and developed the copra trade. At the start of the First World War, Japan took control and later administered the islands under a League of Nations mandate. During the Second World War, atolls such as Kwajalein and Enewetak became battlefields in 1944.
After the war, the islands became part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands administered by the United States. Between 1946 and 1958 the United States carried out nuclear weapons tests at Bikini and Enewetak. Communities were displaced, and the health and environmental consequences are still felt today. The Marshall Islands adopted their own constitution in 1979, entered into a Compact of Free Association with the United States in 1986 and joined the United Nations in 1991.
Today the nation is shaped by its seafaring traditions, close family and clan ties, the legacy of nuclear testing and the challenge of rising seas.
Do you have family stories or memories from your atoll or island? Share them with other members in the Local History section.