May 8, 2018 • 38 mins
Located about 1500 miles to the east of the Phillipines in Micronesia, Guam is a small US territory with a tiny population, beautiful beaches and an incredibly complicated history. For almost four centuries it was a colonial possession of Spain -- but that all changed in 1898, when Guam, in a strange series of misunderstandings, became a possession of the American government. So what exactly happened? Join Ben and Noel as they explore the bloodless, somewhat ridiculous, capture of Guam.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, welcome to the show, friends and neighbors, thanks for
dropping by. Join us on a journey. We are based
(00:30):
in Atlanta, Georgia, here in the United States, but today
our adventures take us to the northwestern Pacific Ocean, to
a place that was formerly known as the territory of Guam. Hi.
I'm Ben, Hi, my name is not. So we're going
on a bit of a tropical vacae today. We are.
We are and I have wanted to travel to this
(00:53):
area of the Pacific Ocean for such a very very
long time. Our longtime friend of the show and co worker,
Scott Benjamin is actually a very well traveled man. He's
get this noal. He's been to Bora, Bora, I know, man,
I I didn't even think. I thought that was like
an imaginary land. And and and then then you can come
(01:14):
to find out. Scott Benjamin or is I like to
call him f Scott Benjamin has been there. Yes, yes,
Scott Benjamin. So today we're going a true tale that
still feels as surreal as a story by Kurt Vonnegut
or something he does. That's a really good connection, Ben,
because it's got all of the pathos and set up
(01:34):
for a grand you know, battle of epic proportions, a
naval battle, you know, at sea with cannons and all
that good stuff that goes along with it. But there's
a twist and and and then the twist is sort
of a very Vonneguchian Vonna Good esque. Yeah, and that
you know, not much happens. I don't think that's fair.
(01:56):
And I don't mean to pin like to say nothing
happens in Vonnegut books. I justan it subverts your expectations
a little bit. Let's say that. Yeah, it feels in
a very relieving way, somewhat anti climactic. And we're of
course not going on this journey alone, folks. We're bringing along,
in our opinion, one of the best parts of this show,
(02:17):
Super producer Casey Pegram. May he be our spirit guide
on this journey today, Yes, and hopefully our navigator as well,
because I don't remember if we packed the GPS, I
am garbage with directions. As you know, well, we we
already know where we're going and let's travel there through
the magic of podcasting. But first we have to get
(02:40):
to Guam by way of Cuba, because to paint the scene,
we need to talk about something called the Spanish American War.
The Spanish American War declared on April twenty five of eighteen.
You see, the US was doing a lot of business
with Cuba, and Cuba wanted to become independent from Spain,
(03:04):
which was controlling it at the time. It's very true,
and there were rebels, there was an uprising in Cuba
um and they wanted to separate themselves from Spanish rule.
And the US had some pretty significant interests in helping
them accomplish this because they were doing trade upwards of
(03:25):
a hundred million dollars a year with Cuba. One of
those goods, the primary good in this equation being sugar,
and that's in terms, so it's a huge amount of money.
Shall we inflation calculator and my friend, yes, this is
an appropriate enough amount of money that we may want
(03:45):
a drum roll casey one million dollars in eighteen nine
five is equivalent to two point seven five billion dollars
in as it's like an economy of scale, it's massive.
There's really no there's really no way someone in the
(04:08):
US could argue against protecting this valuable trade. And the
US public was behind this as well. They were supporting
American intervention because people were checking out the newspapers of
note at the time, the yellow papers, right of the
like the William Randolph Hurst era of the Yellow journalism,
(04:30):
where it was kind of this, uh alarmist or let
maybe not alarmist, but more um sensationalized coverage, right, yeah,
absolutely sensationalized by muck rakers, by people with a strategic
acts to grind. Spain was taking incredibly brutal measures to
repress the rebellion, and the U. S public learned about
(04:52):
this through graphic depictions in these newspapers, and this caused
American sympathy for the Cuban rebels to rise. As we know,
the best way to get a war going is not
to say it's in our economic interest. It's to say
we are doing a noble thing, humanitarian reasons. Have you
heard of this guy, General Wiler the butcher. Lay it
on me, this is nuts. I did not know this
(05:14):
was a thing. But this gentleman was sent to deal
with by by Spain, to deal with the Cuban rebels,
and he actually rounded them up and put them in
concentration camps. Um. They weren't, you know, gassed like the
Jews were during the Nazi regime, but they were left
in horribly unsanitary conditions to starve and just wither away.
(05:36):
And so you know that was happening, and this was
being reported, and so there was strong sentiment for the
humanitarian aid angle there. And tensions are rising, intentions are escalating.
At this point, let's say around the early part of
the year. Right, the American public is largely behind or
(05:57):
supportive of an intervention, but there are people still on
the fence, and that all changes in less than a
few days. Yeah. In fact, with the permission of the
Spanish government, UM President McKinley ordered a battleship, the U. S.
S Main, to hang out in the Havana Harbor to
(06:18):
kind of safeguard American interest during this time of upheaval
in Cuba. And on February in the evening, an explosion
sank that ship, killing two sailors and two officers. And
this was a problem. This was bad what they call
bad optics, ben right, So the means destruction did not
(06:42):
immediately launch a war with Spain, but it uh pretty
much guaranteed that there would not be an easy, peaceful
resolution to this conflict. It's like a Pearl Harbor kind
of moment, you know. I mean, it's not it's not
quite as extreme, obviously because there was no direct proof,
but it is that powder keg moment where the public
(07:03):
really sees, oh, there's a threat here. They got our
guys right, and that those yellow journalists we talked about
really pushed that line, didn't They like saying, oh, they
blamed Spain, even though there wasn't any proof that was
actually what happened. But it seems likely that that's what happened.
It was one of the biggest political, if not the
biggest political issues of that year. Let's fast forward a
(07:24):
couple of months. Spain realizes that the water is slowly boiling,
the flames arising, and they attempt to quell things. They
announced an armistice on April nine of that year, and
they speed up a program to grant Cuba limited autonomy,
limited powers of government. So this would mean that Cuba
is still a part of the larger Spanish Empire, but
(07:46):
they have some latitude agency with local decisions. And I'd
read in a few places that there was a sentiment
that they weren't really that serious about doing those things
that they said. It was all sort of for show.
It's either dis genuine or it's too little, too late,
because very shortly afterwards, the US Congress issued resolutions declaring
(08:10):
Cuba's right to full independence, demanding the withdrawal of all
of Spain's armed forces, and authorizing then President William McKinley
to use force to secure the withdrawal of the Spanish
forces and at the same time to make sure that
everyone knows they're the good guys. I guess in this situation,
the US also says, we're not going to an x Cuba.
(08:34):
We want it to be its own thing. We're sticking
up for you. And you know they gave the British
two finger salute to Spain. This is Congress doing this right, Yeah,
and I think the President had requested sort of a
lighter version of that, and then Congress sort of doubled
down and said, nah, we're gonna really go you know,
ham on this. Yeah, they went hard on the paint
for sure, and Spain, in a game of geopolitical double dare,
(08:59):
said oh, you know what, you're gonna dare us to
get out? Well, double dare, We're declaring war on the
US on April and on the next day the US said,
oh yeah, well you too, buddy. You can't declare war
on us. We're declaring war on you. It's super confusing
because the way it's written, um, the way I've seen
the chronology of this is that they had to retroactively
(09:22):
backdated to April one, which I believe was when the
US established a military blockade of Cuba to protect their
interests more or less again, and that's not like the
official reason. Again, They're going with this humanitarian thing. Oh
the poor Cuban people, you know, the Spanish or just
mistreating them so badly, you know, because America, you know,
(09:44):
we're all about taking care of people, right, and that's
what we do. And maybe we, uh, maybe we, or
at least the the American leaders at the time, maybe
they really did believe that they were doing a noble,
altruistic thing. I know, I'm I'm being flipped, but it's
just it's hard to it's hard, man, it's hard to
have that kind of faith in the goodness of our leaders.
(10:05):
It would be somewhat anomalous and it was not going
to be a fair fight because Spain was not prepared
in naval or military terms to have a war in
a foreign part of the planet with the US who
is not you know, uh, nothing to sneeze at militarily,
even back then. And I mean we're talking Spain in general,
(10:28):
not to mention our little whipper snapper buddies they're in Guam. Yes,
So we've set this stage and the Spanish American War
quickly expands beyond the bounds of Cuba and the surrounding waters.
One of the huge theaters for the Spanish American War
was going to be the Pacific Ocean, specifically the Philippines.
(10:50):
The Philippines at the time were under Spanish control and
habit for hundreds of years. The US again was going
to clean up this this massive injustice for everyone who
can't see you can't see us in the studios. I
just did a heart arm shake kind of awe shucks,
you know, hey, like you might have done an opery
(11:12):
land when you were a boy. Oh man, you're never
gonna let me live that. But uh, speaking of delights,
when we consider the Pacific theater at the time, or
just when considered the geography of the Pacific, we have
to realize these folks did not have very fast means
(11:33):
of communication and a lot of these islands and archipelagos
were so isolated that they could learn about events in
the rest of the world months after, maybe even more
than a year. And so this is when, uh, we
this is when we come to a captain, captain named Glass,
(11:55):
Captain Glass, which is a cool name, very cool name.
And uh and no, what is what is Captain Glass
doing on his way to the Philippines. Well, Captain Glass
actually received sealed orders, um and and they went a
little bit like this, in fact, exactly like this, dear sir.
Actually they didn't say dear. They wouldn't have been that
(12:16):
polite in the military, just says sir, changes the whole tone. Didn't.
Upon receipt of this order, which is forwarded by the
steamship City of Peking, which was the name of the ship,
to you at Honolulu a place, you will proceed with
the Charleston and the City of Peking in company to Manila,
Philippine Islands on your way. And here's the important part.
(12:37):
You are hereby directed to stop at the Spanish island
of Guam. You will use such force as may be
necessary to capture the port of Guam, making prisoners of
the governor and other officials and any armed force that
maybe there. You will destroy any fortification onset island and
any Spanish naval vessels that may be there or in
the immediate vicinity um And then it goes on to say,
(12:59):
this will probably only take you two days because they
definitely didn't know where we're coming. Yes, yeah, that's we
cannot emphasize that enough, but we will attempt to through repetition.
They were definitely not prepared on the island i Guam
the Spanish governing structure. So Guam had their first contact
with the Spanish Empire when a fellow named Ferdinand Magellan,
(13:20):
the famous Portuguese explorer, landed uh there on March sixth
fifty one. And in the intervening centuries, Spain also controlled
Guam as well as you know, as well as the Philippines.
But Guam was on the edge of the Empire. For
lack of a better phrase, it wasn't and it still
(13:42):
is not a very large place geographically speaking, and it
also wasn't at the heart of a lot of conflict
or a ton of trade exactly. In fact of the time,
the Guam infantry consisted of only fifty five soldiers and
two that's two lieutenants. So Glass has these orders to
(14:05):
capture Guam. He is assured that it is going to
be super easy because they're so unprepared. Oh yeah, I
mean they the way, the matter of fact nature of
that order, the way it's written, it's just like this
is gonna be cake. It's it's on the same level
totally as hey, will you pick up some milk on
your way? And so the Charleston enters a Gana Bay
(14:31):
on the twentie of June, and they were prepared for
a cannonade from Fort Santiago, the Spanish fourth there. And
so Captain Glass got further into the harbor and he
began bombarding Fort Santa Cruz, but received no response because
(14:52):
you see, folks, the fort had long been abandoned. No
one cared, no one, no one knew, no one was
looking except people were looking. And this is where I
kind of want to shift the perspective here too. I
think our mutual favorite character in this story a guy
by the name of Francisco Porta sash or you could,
(15:13):
you could call him Frank if you want to be
familiar exactly. He has uh we have an original source
from a letter that he writes, recounting his experience. He
was a naturalist citizen in the US and on the
morning of the twenty two of June in his brother
Don Jose woke him up and said, you gotta come
(15:36):
see this. You gotta come check this out. And just
a little backstory, I'm like, why was this guy on Guam?
What was he doing? It looks like he had had
a career as kind of like as a whaler. He
seemed like a real man about town, had done some
interesting stuff and like I just wanted to see the world.
But he was from Chicago. Yeah, he uh, he was
a US citizen. He did have whaling background and Guam
(16:00):
he was pretty influential because he ran a general store,
a general store, and he was apparently the only American
on the island, which probably earned him some some street cred.
I guess. He seems like he was beloved and had
support from the community. He wasn't like some kind of outcasts.
(16:24):
So in his letter, the way he recounts it, he
had maybe heard of something about a conflict between Spain
and the US. In fact is his brother is the
one who hipped him to it. But his brother was
a little wishy washy about it too. His brother also,
by the way, it was just visiting from Europe. He
(16:45):
had come there by way of the Philippines and was
just hanging out. So I think it's probably pretty accurate
when you see um, this guy Francisco being described as
the only American naturalized American citizen on the island who
lived there. So his brother says, come to the beach
and see the ships there and where they come from.
And Frank, as I'm gonna call him, started with him.
(17:06):
Around daylight. They went to uh they went to the
shore close enough to look through a pair of glasses
which probably binoculars, and he recognized two of the steamships,
China and Australia, and he wasn't sure what the other
one was. But at this point his brother said, he said,
do not say anything, as I think war is declared
(17:28):
between the United States and Spain. If so, I will
go on board and take with me the Spanish officers
and one of your boats, and you can go on
your whale boat afterwards. That's another thing that's important about
the story. Frank. You see had like a like a
many fleet of ships, and they call them lighters, which
were these specialized boats that you would use to transport
goods um to bigger ships, right that couldn't get close
(17:50):
enough to shore, maybe didn't have a port they could
pull in. Yes, So how do you think the brother
knew the war? Thing? Though? It seems like they were
not hip to this on that was he just kind
of conjecturing because he had traveled from he didn't think
to mention this earlier. You know, it's a laid back,
laid back guy they're painting here. But as they arrive,
(18:10):
they see the Charleston begin to shell this fort, as
we had mentioned, and there's no response because as Frank
and everybody else on the island knows, that Ford has
been abandoned for years, and they believe the ship the
Man of War is saluting the fort of Santa Cruz,
(18:31):
and so on the island side they say, okay, well,
let's get somebody together, let's get the artillery together, and
we'll send a salute too. And this this sounds weird
for a lot of people. The idea of a salute,
What is that? Why are you are you just firing
a gun to say hello to people? I mean, there's
the whole twenty one gun so it always strikes me
as queer. I mean, anytime people shoot guns in a
(18:54):
celebratory manner, that always is a little strange to me. Right,
So we can give you a little bit of background
on what a salute actually is and why it exists.
This comes to us through the official blog of the U. S.
Navy named Navy Live, and Tim Comerford is writing about
(19:15):
the history of the salute in salutations with a Bang,
the military Salute. The idea here, according to him, is
that the the origins of this practice run clear, but
we have some good estimates about this, and they date
back to some ancient warfare. It's intended to show deference
on the part of the person saluting to the person
(19:38):
being saluted. And it's also supposed to indicate that the
person or the people who are saluting are unarmed or
somehow defenseless, because in the old days of raising your
hands to salute, you were showing that you didn't have
a sword, didn't have like a they're saluting with live ammunition,
(19:59):
they hand. Yeah, how does this? How does this work?
Great question? The cannons, once you fire them in a salute,
they take a while to reload, and so the idea
is in a salute, the idea is they're shooting not
to not to hit anyone, but to say like okay, boom,
there you go. Now you know we're not carrying loaded cannons.
But this was clearly a mistake on the Islanders side
(20:23):
because they were trying to shell the fort I mean
that would have interpreted it as a piss poor salute.
I'm like, come on, you're supposed to like aim away
from us or up in the air something, But no,
they were definitely trying to shell that fort Um. But
that misunderstanding did happen, and so uh, a sort of
onovoy was gathered to row out to the ship the
(20:48):
man O War yeah, this floating murder machine and say hello. Yeah,
I almost I kept picturing, you know, the scenes where
they send a landing party and star Trek or something.
So Frank arrives, he gets on the ship, and uh
they find out that he is an American citizen and
(21:12):
how's he ended up going along? Like he he's already
there watching and he has like because I know there
was some actual officials that went as well, because there
was the commander of the Guam Navy, who is a
guy named Don Pedro Duerte, and he is the one
who said, oh, they're saluting us, we should go to
dang it, we don't have we're all we're fresh out
(21:32):
of gunpowder, so we better go. You know, be polite. Everybody,
get your own guns if you have them, and we'll
try to organize this. Yeah, they were. They were trying
to be cool. They thought they were showing customary um
deference or the rules of engagement. And to paint the
picture here, imagine a really small town where not a
(21:54):
lot of big stuff happens. Everybody in town is who
has heard about this is coming out to check out
the scene. They want to see what happens. So this
is not like a situation where there would be a
group of battle hardened veterans preparing to die. This is
someone saying like, ah, hey, Tim, did you hear there's
(22:15):
a big ships out there, and the other guy going
oh no way, Like yeah, they said we gotta um
bring our guns to salute him, and he's like, oh yeah, alright.
I gotta say, though, this brother, this Don Jose, seems
like a real piece of work. I mean, he is,
you know, hasn't included anyone into the fact that there
maybe war going on. I think he's trying to play
(22:36):
it like he's trying to, you know, save his own butt,
because he is the one who assembles this group of officials,
military officials, which so the party that went out there
to meet the boat were Frank, his brother, Lieutenant commander
of the Navy and captain of the port, Don Francisco Guccierrez,
a naval surgeon, Don Jose Romero, Captain Pedro du To
(23:00):
day uh and Ukar who was part of the Marine Corps,
and also Don Jose six To, who was the civil paymaster. Um.
And they all are kind of roped into doing this
by the brother who still doesn't clue them into the
fact that this could be a problem. Well, he told
his brother. He was like, Frank, be cool, but I
(23:20):
think there's a war going on. So what does strike
me as he's looking out for him and his brother's
best interests and not the native people, true of the land,
true important point. Here's where it becomes, for a moment
as casual as a sitcom. So Frank and the rest
of the party are there and then they get on
board to Charleston and he's sell you know, across the
(23:41):
bow in his own boat, and then he hears someone
yell at him, Frank, come on board, hey buddy. Yeah,
And he looks up and it's a guy named Captain
Hellett who he knew a number of years before as
a whaling captain whaling days. And he's actually on whaling
ship that was the one that he was flying the
(24:01):
flag with. Yeah, and so he gets on board and
he recognizes somebody else. He sees a guy who used
to be a reporter for the Chronicle in San Francisco.
And the guy walks up and he shakes his hands
and he's like, man, I'm glad to see you here
in Guam. And then someone comes up and says, why
are you flying that American flag? Dude? Frank clearly got around. Man,
(24:24):
what are the chances? This is very strange? Yeah, this
is really weird. Yeah. So this this tough customer walks
up in his officer's dress, military dress and says, what
right have you to fly this American flag from thou ship?
Thy ship? So that's how they spoke. Any like grins
(24:45):
Frank grins and you know, shrugs a little and yeah,
and says, well, I guess I have the right to
have that flag up for if I did not have
the right, I would not have it there. Oh snack, whoa, Okay,
you be in smart with me boy, right, it's pretty
much he say, I do what I want. And the
guy says, can you prove your right? Yeah, he sounds
(25:06):
like a character from like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, right,
And he says, yes, sir, and he pulls out his
naturalization papers as a citizen of the US, and the
guy looks him over and his tone completely changes. Yeah.
At that point, they're they're just buzzom buddies. He says, Okay, Chicago,
you're from Chicago, Illinois. Um, United States, twenty two of October.
(25:30):
This is birthday, Cook County, State of Illinois, is what
he says. Um. And at that point he says, follow me, chum. Yeah,
let's go meet the captain. And so they go to
meet the captain, who is thrilled to meet Franks Captain
Glass and the officer hands Glass Frank's papers and then
Glass looks him over and says, I'm glad to meet you.
(25:51):
And then he says, look, your brother Joe told me
that you had some lighters and some boats and could
you let me have some of those just to get
some coal on the steamer. I'll pay you, and I'll
pay you. I'll pay you. And this guy Frank says,
you know what, you don't have to pay me. I'm
(26:13):
the only US citizen on the island and it's my
duty to give all aid i can, because apparently we're
at a war. It's true, it's true, and you know,
so that happens. He gives him. He says he can
use his boats. Frank goes back to his family. They
have a nice meal. Um and at that point the
(26:33):
letter is delivered to Frank's home from the governor, a
man by the name of Juan marina Um signed L
Gobnador this letter and it says, translation is, if you
offer any assistance to the American men of war, you
will be executed tomorrow morning at the beach. And you know,
Frank's like, yeah, right, big words. So he reads the
(26:59):
note and he's pretty much giggling at it. It's like,
but his wife, you know, she she she thinks it's
a serious business. But Frank knows something that she does
not know. Right, So he he said to his wife,
who is beside herself with fear and sorrow. He says,
don't worry, cheer up. If anything comes the worst, I'll
(27:21):
have ships to take care of you and the kids.
And he shows the note to his brother and he said, look,
I already promised Captain Glass the lighters. I'm gonna send
him anyway, and uh Jose said, hey, watch out man.
Uh So, then he went to the Charleston again after lunch,
he showed the letter to Captain Glass, and Captain Glass said,
(27:44):
I got you, I got you. Yeah, he said, look,
I'm going to have the island delivered before daylight. What
they mean when they say island delivered is it's going
to officially become something under the control of the United States.
And the way that all went down, um, let's give
you the quick and dirty. Um. He sent an envoy
up to meet with the governor, the man who very
(28:06):
sinisterly threatened the life of our of our buddy Frank.
So as promised, Glass decides that he's he's ready to
set this in motion. Um. So the next day, June one,
he sends an envoy a guy by the name of
Lieutenant William brown Strewn Brown Browner, Browner's writer. He also
says that he's not sure if he's spelling the name
in the letter. That's right, Yeah, very true, And I'm
(28:28):
not sure I'm I'm saying it right. But that's I'm gonna.
I'm gonna commit to that. And they send a letter
by way of the Governor's people to deliver to him saying,
come come on the ship, Come hang with us, let's
chat on our turf on the ship, to which the
governor very civilly, at least the language in his response
declines because he says it is against Spanish law to
board a foreign vessel. And at the at the same time, uh,
(28:53):
this is still the twenty three of June. At the
same time, Uh, Frank has probably my favorite conversation in
this store. He goes back on board the Charleston and
he's talking to Captain Glass, and Glass says, hey, Frank,
you're the only US citizen on the island. We gotta go,
so could you take care of the island. Yeah, because
(29:14):
we're gonna have this stitched up real quick like, because
after the governor refused, he said, come hang with me
on the shore. Right. That's that's that's that's the best
I'm gonna do. So, um, Brown's right there. No, it's Browner.
Browner's right there. I'm gonna say it like that. He
goes with it with a few buddies, and he meets
up with the governor and he lets him know that, hey,
(29:37):
we've got a pretty formidable gun ship, you know, trained
on your island, and we're gonna give you thirty minutes
to deliberate with your people, and if you, uh, you know,
do not surrender, we're going to shell you and take
all you prisoner anyway, to which the governor replies, all right,
give me a minute, Give me a minute. He goes
(29:59):
and confers, returns with a sealed envelope. And what's in
the sealed envelope. Well, the thing that's funny is he
hands it to Brown's right. Browner's right. I'm never gonna
get it right. It's fine, um, and it's addressed to glass.
But our boy Mr B opens it himself, to which
the Governor responds, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not for you, man,
(30:21):
that's not diplomacy. Slow your role, to which Mr B responds,
I represent him here. Back off. Yeah, And so long
story short, maybe a little too late, but this far
story short the Spanish officials are taken into custody and
(30:45):
they go aboard the boat and they're bound for the Philippines. Yeah,
it's all very civil too, because they're like, whoa man,
I don't have him a toothbrush. I all got out
of the clothes on my back. And the Americans are like, yo,
it's cool. We'll let you write to your family, will
let them bring you a knapsack, you know, an overnight bag,
and you'll you'll be comfortable, You'll be taken care of
(31:05):
and uh, and all we need you to do is
get all of your troops to line up and come
aboard our ship to be our prisoners. And you know what,
That's exactly how it went down. Yeah. Not a not
a violent death at all, nary a drop of blood
was spilt, right, just an awkward uh salute that left
(31:25):
both both sides of the conflict feeling as lame as
you know, someone who had a high five that wasn't returned,
if that's ever happened to you, and you just hold
your hand up. But the story isn't over. It does
get a little bit fuzzy here because the Charleston and
cost set off for the Philippines, and General Glass says, hey, Frank,
(31:47):
you're in charge because you're literally the only U. S.
Citizen here, to which Frank says, tight, yeah, I'll make
it happen. And the problem is that he has not
given any written appointment from Commander Glass, and they're just
meant to be temporary, right, Like it's just sort of
like in the interim, it's like hold the spot. So
(32:08):
this makes him the first American governor of the island.
But there's another character here, and it's not a it's
not in a cut and dried story. The man we
mentioned earlier, Jose six Though, the paymaster, the paymaster, it's
always I knew there was a twist. Yeah, the Paymaster
still has a lot of control, and he is with
(32:29):
the former Spanish government. And now these two men are
in kind of an informal fight for power, and I
missed this part entirely. Go on. Well, So after Glass
leaves and after Frank becomes the governor, six Though refuses
to surrender the island's treasury to Frank, and there are
(32:52):
no American sailors or marines. There's nothing supporting his claim
to power. Why wasn't he arrested along with all the
other officials. I guess he's just a just a nimble
guy easily. But he he just said, I'm going to
keep paying any Spanish bureaucrats, I'm gonna pay members of
the militia. And this consolidates his influence over the island.
(33:13):
Sounds sticky, and he was bad with money. Because he
bankrupts the treasury, law and order starts to break down.
The native residents of Guam and Filipinos that are living
on the island begin fighting their riots. And for his part,
Frank is doing his best because he says, look, we
need to make some improvements on the island, specifically this
(33:36):
road that was just in piss poor shape. And six
though was like, wait, I control the money and do
shan't have a penny? Was he like the troll and
guarded the bridge a little less? Yeah? Yeah, um, yes,
this does. This sounds like a real a real ship show.
There we go. Hey, that's that's son of a Fish
(33:57):
and the ship show. We are building this vocabulary pretty
well and the mythology. Um, but so like you know,
things happen, it gets it's it's obviously any time you
occupy a territory, it's gonna be a little rough for
a little while. But ultimately after UM the war ended
with the Treaty of Paris that was signed UM. Guam
(34:19):
and the Philippines were purchased from Spain for a relatively
paltry twenty million dollars UM, and these lands were finalized
as US territories when the U. S. Senate ratified the
treaty in UM eighteen ninety nine February six to be precise.
(34:39):
So this goes, This goes pretty quickly, right. It seems
like from eighteen the Guam landing to the Treaty of Paris,
we're only looking at a few years. But this had
a massive effect on the US is Geoe political position
and a pretty nasty effect on Spain because Spain began
(35:03):
to focus inward and the US emerged from this war
as a maybe not a superpower, but a legitimate world
power with possessions half a world away and a new
steak in international politics, like kind of like an empire
or something, yes, exactly, kind of like an empire. But
(35:27):
luckily no one in Guam was injured in that takeover.
That is cool because there is actually a conspiracy theory.
Let's just drop this here at the end, that in fact,
the US did not get involved in the Spanish American
War for these humanitarian reasons we discussed earlier. Um, yeah,
it was reasons of pure greed and to extend their
(35:47):
world domination outward. And you know they ultimately succeeded in that,
at least in in a couple of small ways. Say
it ain't so you know it's a theory. Yes, that
is one of several ariies. But you know what's not
a theory, the idea that we hope you enjoyed this show.
That's a that's a clunky segue. No, no, man, you
(36:08):
got from A to B and then's all a segue
needs to accomplish. And here we are at B being
the end of the show. Yeah, but I feel like
we would circuitously through G for guam. You are that's fire,
my friend. So thank you, as always so much for
checking out today's episode. We want to think, of course,
(36:29):
super producer Casey Pegram, who is not to our knowledge,
ever invaded a Pacific nation. It's true now Casey is
is a is a peaceful man and uh he's got
a peaceful plan. Yes, uh. And we'd also like to think,
of course, Christopher Haciotis, Alex Williams, the Ridiculous History crew
(36:49):
and you everybody, friends, neighbors, all of you countrymen. Let
me you've already lent them to us, and we for
that we will be forever grateful. Yes, And if you
would like to continue adventuring with us throughout some of
the strangest silius and most ridiculous stories in human history,
then join us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. You can
(37:12):
also find our community page, Ridiculous Historians if you if
you're wondering why sometimes Nolan I have mentioned karaoke r
opru lands. The answers you seek can be found there.
And guess what, we finally made that Pinterest page we've
been talking about all these years. That's not true, kidding, Okay,
We're never never gonna do That's not gonna happen. I'm
(37:34):
not gonna never gonna do that ever. Um, But man,
you guys, thanks for joining us, and we hope you'll
join us for the next episode, wherein we talk about
how Vermont it was in fact a pretty radical place
back in the day. I don't mean radical like in
the skater parlance. I mean radicalism. They had some pretty
big ideas about liberty and uh, they in fact were
(37:57):
their own independent republic, knew and the story doesn't end there.
What the heck are we talking about? Tune in and
find out See him
Yeah, welcome to the show, friends and neighbors, thanks for
dropping by. Join us on a journey. We are based
(00:30):
in Atlanta, Georgia, here in the United States, but today
our adventures take us to the northwestern Pacific Ocean, to
a place that was formerly known as the territory of Guam. Hi.
I'm Ben, Hi, my name is not. So we're going
on a bit of a tropical vacae today. We are.
We are and I have wanted to travel to this
(00:53):
area of the Pacific Ocean for such a very very
long time. Our longtime friend of the show and co worker,
Scott Benjamin is actually a very well traveled man. He's
get this noal. He's been to Bora, Bora, I know, man,
I I didn't even think. I thought that was like
an imaginary land. And and and then then you can come
(01:14):
to find out. Scott Benjamin or is I like to
call him f Scott Benjamin has been there. Yes, yes,
Scott Benjamin. So today we're going a true tale that
still feels as surreal as a story by Kurt Vonnegut
or something he does. That's a really good connection, Ben,
because it's got all of the pathos and set up
(01:34):
for a grand you know, battle of epic proportions, a
naval battle, you know, at sea with cannons and all
that good stuff that goes along with it. But there's
a twist and and and then the twist is sort
of a very Vonneguchian Vonna Good esque. Yeah, and that
you know, not much happens. I don't think that's fair.
(01:56):
And I don't mean to pin like to say nothing
happens in Vonnegut books. I justan it subverts your expectations
a little bit. Let's say that. Yeah, it feels in
a very relieving way, somewhat anti climactic. And we're of
course not going on this journey alone, folks. We're bringing along,
in our opinion, one of the best parts of this show,
(02:17):
Super producer Casey Pegram. May he be our spirit guide
on this journey today, Yes, and hopefully our navigator as well,
because I don't remember if we packed the GPS, I
am garbage with directions. As you know, well, we we
already know where we're going and let's travel there through
the magic of podcasting. But first we have to get
(02:40):
to Guam by way of Cuba, because to paint the scene,
we need to talk about something called the Spanish American War.
The Spanish American War declared on April twenty five of eighteen.
You see, the US was doing a lot of business
with Cuba, and Cuba wanted to become independent from Spain,
(03:04):
which was controlling it at the time. It's very true,
and there were rebels, there was an uprising in Cuba
um and they wanted to separate themselves from Spanish rule.
And the US had some pretty significant interests in helping
them accomplish this because they were doing trade upwards of
(03:25):
a hundred million dollars a year with Cuba. One of
those goods, the primary good in this equation being sugar,
and that's in terms, so it's a huge amount of money.
Shall we inflation calculator and my friend, yes, this is
an appropriate enough amount of money that we may want
(03:45):
a drum roll casey one million dollars in eighteen nine
five is equivalent to two point seven five billion dollars
in as it's like an economy of scale, it's massive.
There's really no there's really no way someone in the
(04:08):
US could argue against protecting this valuable trade. And the
US public was behind this as well. They were supporting
American intervention because people were checking out the newspapers of
note at the time, the yellow papers, right of the
like the William Randolph Hurst era of the Yellow journalism,
(04:30):
where it was kind of this, uh alarmist or let
maybe not alarmist, but more um sensationalized coverage, right, yeah,
absolutely sensationalized by muck rakers, by people with a strategic
acts to grind. Spain was taking incredibly brutal measures to
repress the rebellion, and the U. S public learned about
(04:52):
this through graphic depictions in these newspapers, and this caused
American sympathy for the Cuban rebels to rise. As we know,
the best way to get a war going is not
to say it's in our economic interest. It's to say
we are doing a noble thing, humanitarian reasons. Have you
heard of this guy, General Wiler the butcher. Lay it
on me, this is nuts. I did not know this
(05:14):
was a thing. But this gentleman was sent to deal
with by by Spain, to deal with the Cuban rebels,
and he actually rounded them up and put them in
concentration camps. Um. They weren't, you know, gassed like the
Jews were during the Nazi regime, but they were left
in horribly unsanitary conditions to starve and just wither away.
(05:36):
And so you know that was happening, and this was
being reported, and so there was strong sentiment for the
humanitarian aid angle there. And tensions are rising, intentions are escalating.
At this point, let's say around the early part of
the year. Right, the American public is largely behind or
(05:57):
supportive of an intervention, but there are people still on
the fence, and that all changes in less than a
few days. Yeah. In fact, with the permission of the
Spanish government, UM President McKinley ordered a battleship, the U. S.
S Main, to hang out in the Havana Harbor to
(06:18):
kind of safeguard American interest during this time of upheaval
in Cuba. And on February in the evening, an explosion
sank that ship, killing two sailors and two officers. And
this was a problem. This was bad what they call
bad optics, ben right, So the means destruction did not
(06:42):
immediately launch a war with Spain, but it uh pretty
much guaranteed that there would not be an easy, peaceful
resolution to this conflict. It's like a Pearl Harbor kind
of moment, you know. I mean, it's not it's not
quite as extreme, obviously because there was no direct proof,
but it is that powder keg moment where the public
(07:03):
really sees, oh, there's a threat here. They got our
guys right, and that those yellow journalists we talked about
really pushed that line, didn't They like saying, oh, they
blamed Spain, even though there wasn't any proof that was
actually what happened. But it seems likely that that's what happened.
It was one of the biggest political, if not the
biggest political issues of that year. Let's fast forward a
(07:24):
couple of months. Spain realizes that the water is slowly boiling,
the flames arising, and they attempt to quell things. They
announced an armistice on April nine of that year, and
they speed up a program to grant Cuba limited autonomy,
limited powers of government. So this would mean that Cuba
is still a part of the larger Spanish Empire, but
(07:46):
they have some latitude agency with local decisions. And I'd
read in a few places that there was a sentiment
that they weren't really that serious about doing those things
that they said. It was all sort of for show.
It's either dis genuine or it's too little, too late,
because very shortly afterwards, the US Congress issued resolutions declaring
(08:10):
Cuba's right to full independence, demanding the withdrawal of all
of Spain's armed forces, and authorizing then President William McKinley
to use force to secure the withdrawal of the Spanish
forces and at the same time to make sure that
everyone knows they're the good guys. I guess in this situation,
the US also says, we're not going to an x Cuba.
(08:34):
We want it to be its own thing. We're sticking
up for you. And you know they gave the British
two finger salute to Spain. This is Congress doing this right, Yeah,
and I think the President had requested sort of a
lighter version of that, and then Congress sort of doubled
down and said, nah, we're gonna really go you know,
ham on this. Yeah, they went hard on the paint
for sure, and Spain, in a game of geopolitical double dare,
(08:59):
said oh, you know what, you're gonna dare us to
get out? Well, double dare, We're declaring war on the
US on April and on the next day the US said,
oh yeah, well you too, buddy. You can't declare war
on us. We're declaring war on you. It's super confusing
because the way it's written, um, the way I've seen
the chronology of this is that they had to retroactively
(09:22):
backdated to April one, which I believe was when the
US established a military blockade of Cuba to protect their
interests more or less again, and that's not like the
official reason. Again, They're going with this humanitarian thing. Oh
the poor Cuban people, you know, the Spanish or just
mistreating them so badly, you know, because America, you know,
(09:44):
we're all about taking care of people, right, and that's
what we do. And maybe we, uh, maybe we, or
at least the the American leaders at the time, maybe
they really did believe that they were doing a noble,
altruistic thing. I know, I'm I'm being flipped, but it's
just it's hard to it's hard, man, it's hard to
have that kind of faith in the goodness of our leaders.
(10:05):
It would be somewhat anomalous and it was not going
to be a fair fight because Spain was not prepared
in naval or military terms to have a war in
a foreign part of the planet with the US who
is not you know, uh, nothing to sneeze at militarily,
even back then. And I mean we're talking Spain in general,
(10:28):
not to mention our little whipper snapper buddies they're in Guam. Yes,
So we've set this stage and the Spanish American War
quickly expands beyond the bounds of Cuba and the surrounding waters.
One of the huge theaters for the Spanish American War
was going to be the Pacific Ocean, specifically the Philippines.
(10:50):
The Philippines at the time were under Spanish control and
habit for hundreds of years. The US again was going
to clean up this this massive injustice for everyone who
can't see you can't see us in the studios. I
just did a heart arm shake kind of awe shucks,
you know, hey, like you might have done an opery
(11:12):
land when you were a boy. Oh man, you're never
gonna let me live that. But uh, speaking of delights,
when we consider the Pacific theater at the time, or
just when considered the geography of the Pacific, we have
to realize these folks did not have very fast means
(11:33):
of communication and a lot of these islands and archipelagos
were so isolated that they could learn about events in
the rest of the world months after, maybe even more
than a year. And so this is when, uh, we
this is when we come to a captain, captain named Glass,
(11:55):
Captain Glass, which is a cool name, very cool name.
And uh and no, what is what is Captain Glass
doing on his way to the Philippines. Well, Captain Glass
actually received sealed orders, um and and they went a
little bit like this, in fact, exactly like this, dear sir.
Actually they didn't say dear. They wouldn't have been that
(12:16):
polite in the military, just says sir, changes the whole tone. Didn't.
Upon receipt of this order, which is forwarded by the
steamship City of Peking, which was the name of the ship,
to you at Honolulu a place, you will proceed with
the Charleston and the City of Peking in company to Manila,
Philippine Islands on your way. And here's the important part.
(12:37):
You are hereby directed to stop at the Spanish island
of Guam. You will use such force as may be
necessary to capture the port of Guam, making prisoners of
the governor and other officials and any armed force that
maybe there. You will destroy any fortification onset island and
any Spanish naval vessels that may be there or in
the immediate vicinity um And then it goes on to say,
(12:59):
this will probably only take you two days because they
definitely didn't know where we're coming. Yes, yeah, that's we
cannot emphasize that enough, but we will attempt to through repetition.
They were definitely not prepared on the island i Guam
the Spanish governing structure. So Guam had their first contact
with the Spanish Empire when a fellow named Ferdinand Magellan,
(13:20):
the famous Portuguese explorer, landed uh there on March sixth
fifty one. And in the intervening centuries, Spain also controlled
Guam as well as you know, as well as the Philippines.
But Guam was on the edge of the Empire. For
lack of a better phrase, it wasn't and it still
(13:42):
is not a very large place geographically speaking, and it
also wasn't at the heart of a lot of conflict
or a ton of trade exactly. In fact of the time,
the Guam infantry consisted of only fifty five soldiers and
two that's two lieutenants. So Glass has these orders to
(14:05):
capture Guam. He is assured that it is going to
be super easy because they're so unprepared. Oh yeah, I
mean they the way, the matter of fact nature of
that order, the way it's written, it's just like this
is gonna be cake. It's it's on the same level
totally as hey, will you pick up some milk on
your way? And so the Charleston enters a Gana Bay
(14:31):
on the twentie of June, and they were prepared for
a cannonade from Fort Santiago, the Spanish fourth there. And
so Captain Glass got further into the harbor and he
began bombarding Fort Santa Cruz, but received no response because
(14:52):
you see, folks, the fort had long been abandoned. No
one cared, no one, no one knew, no one was
looking except people were looking. And this is where I
kind of want to shift the perspective here too. I
think our mutual favorite character in this story a guy
by the name of Francisco Porta sash or you could,
(15:13):
you could call him Frank if you want to be
familiar exactly. He has uh we have an original source
from a letter that he writes, recounting his experience. He
was a naturalist citizen in the US and on the
morning of the twenty two of June in his brother
Don Jose woke him up and said, you gotta come
(15:36):
see this. You gotta come check this out. And just
a little backstory, I'm like, why was this guy on Guam?
What was he doing? It looks like he had had
a career as kind of like as a whaler. He
seemed like a real man about town, had done some
interesting stuff and like I just wanted to see the world.
But he was from Chicago. Yeah, he uh, he was
a US citizen. He did have whaling background and Guam
(16:00):
he was pretty influential because he ran a general store,
a general store, and he was apparently the only American
on the island, which probably earned him some some street cred.
I guess. He seems like he was beloved and had
support from the community. He wasn't like some kind of outcasts.
(16:24):
So in his letter, the way he recounts it, he
had maybe heard of something about a conflict between Spain
and the US. In fact is his brother is the
one who hipped him to it. But his brother was
a little wishy washy about it too. His brother also,
by the way, it was just visiting from Europe. He
(16:45):
had come there by way of the Philippines and was
just hanging out. So I think it's probably pretty accurate
when you see um, this guy Francisco being described as
the only American naturalized American citizen on the island who
lived there. So his brother says, come to the beach
and see the ships there and where they come from.
And Frank, as I'm gonna call him, started with him.
(17:06):
Around daylight. They went to uh they went to the
shore close enough to look through a pair of glasses
which probably binoculars, and he recognized two of the steamships,
China and Australia, and he wasn't sure what the other
one was. But at this point his brother said, he said,
do not say anything, as I think war is declared
(17:28):
between the United States and Spain. If so, I will
go on board and take with me the Spanish officers
and one of your boats, and you can go on
your whale boat afterwards. That's another thing that's important about
the story. Frank. You see had like a like a
many fleet of ships, and they call them lighters, which
were these specialized boats that you would use to transport
goods um to bigger ships, right that couldn't get close
(17:50):
enough to shore, maybe didn't have a port they could
pull in. Yes, So how do you think the brother
knew the war? Thing? Though? It seems like they were
not hip to this on that was he just kind
of conjecturing because he had traveled from he didn't think
to mention this earlier. You know, it's a laid back,
laid back guy they're painting here. But as they arrive,
(18:10):
they see the Charleston begin to shell this fort, as
we had mentioned, and there's no response because as Frank
and everybody else on the island knows, that Ford has
been abandoned for years, and they believe the ship the
Man of War is saluting the fort of Santa Cruz,
(18:31):
and so on the island side they say, okay, well,
let's get somebody together, let's get the artillery together, and
we'll send a salute too. And this this sounds weird
for a lot of people. The idea of a salute,
What is that? Why are you are you just firing
a gun to say hello to people? I mean, there's
the whole twenty one gun so it always strikes me
as queer. I mean, anytime people shoot guns in a
(18:54):
celebratory manner, that always is a little strange to me. Right,
So we can give you a little bit of background
on what a salute actually is and why it exists.
This comes to us through the official blog of the U. S.
Navy named Navy Live, and Tim Comerford is writing about
(19:15):
the history of the salute in salutations with a Bang,
the military Salute. The idea here, according to him, is
that the the origins of this practice run clear, but
we have some good estimates about this, and they date
back to some ancient warfare. It's intended to show deference
on the part of the person saluting to the person
(19:38):
being saluted. And it's also supposed to indicate that the
person or the people who are saluting are unarmed or
somehow defenseless, because in the old days of raising your
hands to salute, you were showing that you didn't have
a sword, didn't have like a they're saluting with live ammunition,
(19:59):
they hand. Yeah, how does this? How does this work?
Great question? The cannons, once you fire them in a salute,
they take a while to reload, and so the idea
is in a salute, the idea is they're shooting not
to not to hit anyone, but to say like okay, boom,
there you go. Now you know we're not carrying loaded cannons.
But this was clearly a mistake on the Islanders side
(20:23):
because they were trying to shell the fort I mean
that would have interpreted it as a piss poor salute.
I'm like, come on, you're supposed to like aim away
from us or up in the air something, But no,
they were definitely trying to shell that fort Um. But
that misunderstanding did happen, and so uh, a sort of
onovoy was gathered to row out to the ship the
(20:48):
man O War yeah, this floating murder machine and say hello. Yeah,
I almost I kept picturing, you know, the scenes where
they send a landing party and star Trek or something.
So Frank arrives, he gets on the ship, and uh
they find out that he is an American citizen and
(21:12):
how's he ended up going along? Like he he's already
there watching and he has like because I know there
was some actual officials that went as well, because there
was the commander of the Guam Navy, who is a
guy named Don Pedro Duerte, and he is the one
who said, oh, they're saluting us, we should go to
dang it, we don't have we're all we're fresh out
(21:32):
of gunpowder, so we better go. You know, be polite. Everybody,
get your own guns if you have them, and we'll
try to organize this. Yeah, they were. They were trying
to be cool. They thought they were showing customary um
deference or the rules of engagement. And to paint the
picture here, imagine a really small town where not a
(21:54):
lot of big stuff happens. Everybody in town is who
has heard about this is coming out to check out
the scene. They want to see what happens. So this
is not like a situation where there would be a
group of battle hardened veterans preparing to die. This is
someone saying like, ah, hey, Tim, did you hear there's
(22:15):
a big ships out there, and the other guy going
oh no way, Like yeah, they said we gotta um
bring our guns to salute him, and he's like, oh yeah, alright.
I gotta say, though, this brother, this Don Jose, seems
like a real piece of work. I mean, he is,
you know, hasn't included anyone into the fact that there
maybe war going on. I think he's trying to play
(22:36):
it like he's trying to, you know, save his own butt,
because he is the one who assembles this group of officials,
military officials, which so the party that went out there
to meet the boat were Frank, his brother, Lieutenant commander
of the Navy and captain of the port, Don Francisco Guccierrez,
a naval surgeon, Don Jose Romero, Captain Pedro du To
(23:00):
day uh and Ukar who was part of the Marine Corps,
and also Don Jose six To, who was the civil paymaster. Um.
And they all are kind of roped into doing this
by the brother who still doesn't clue them into the
fact that this could be a problem. Well, he told
his brother. He was like, Frank, be cool, but I
(23:20):
think there's a war going on. So what does strike
me as he's looking out for him and his brother's
best interests and not the native people, true of the land,
true important point. Here's where it becomes, for a moment
as casual as a sitcom. So Frank and the rest
of the party are there and then they get on
board to Charleston and he's sell you know, across the
(23:41):
bow in his own boat, and then he hears someone
yell at him, Frank, come on board, hey buddy. Yeah,
And he looks up and it's a guy named Captain
Hellett who he knew a number of years before as
a whaling captain whaling days. And he's actually on whaling
ship that was the one that he was flying the
(24:01):
flag with. Yeah, and so he gets on board and
he recognizes somebody else. He sees a guy who used
to be a reporter for the Chronicle in San Francisco.
And the guy walks up and he shakes his hands
and he's like, man, I'm glad to see you here
in Guam. And then someone comes up and says, why
are you flying that American flag? Dude? Frank clearly got around. Man,
(24:24):
what are the chances? This is very strange? Yeah, this
is really weird. Yeah. So this this tough customer walks
up in his officer's dress, military dress and says, what
right have you to fly this American flag from thou ship?
Thy ship? So that's how they spoke. Any like grins
(24:45):
Frank grins and you know, shrugs a little and yeah,
and says, well, I guess I have the right to
have that flag up for if I did not have
the right, I would not have it there. Oh snack, whoa, Okay,
you be in smart with me boy, right, it's pretty
much he say, I do what I want. And the
guy says, can you prove your right? Yeah, he sounds
(25:06):
like a character from like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, right,
And he says, yes, sir, and he pulls out his
naturalization papers as a citizen of the US, and the
guy looks him over and his tone completely changes. Yeah.
At that point, they're they're just buzzom buddies. He says, Okay, Chicago,
you're from Chicago, Illinois. Um, United States, twenty two of October.
(25:30):
This is birthday, Cook County, State of Illinois, is what
he says. Um. And at that point he says, follow me, chum. Yeah,
let's go meet the captain. And so they go to
meet the captain, who is thrilled to meet Franks Captain
Glass and the officer hands Glass Frank's papers and then
Glass looks him over and says, I'm glad to meet you.
(25:51):
And then he says, look, your brother Joe told me
that you had some lighters and some boats and could
you let me have some of those just to get
some coal on the steamer. I'll pay you, and I'll
pay you. I'll pay you. And this guy Frank says,
you know what, you don't have to pay me. I'm
(26:13):
the only US citizen on the island and it's my
duty to give all aid i can, because apparently we're
at a war. It's true, it's true, and you know,
so that happens. He gives him. He says he can
use his boats. Frank goes back to his family. They
have a nice meal. Um and at that point the
(26:33):
letter is delivered to Frank's home from the governor, a
man by the name of Juan marina Um signed L
Gobnador this letter and it says, translation is, if you
offer any assistance to the American men of war, you
will be executed tomorrow morning at the beach. And you know,
Frank's like, yeah, right, big words. So he reads the
(26:59):
note and he's pretty much giggling at it. It's like,
but his wife, you know, she she she thinks it's
a serious business. But Frank knows something that she does
not know. Right, So he he said to his wife,
who is beside herself with fear and sorrow. He says,
don't worry, cheer up. If anything comes the worst, I'll
(27:21):
have ships to take care of you and the kids.
And he shows the note to his brother and he said, look,
I already promised Captain Glass the lighters. I'm gonna send
him anyway, and uh Jose said, hey, watch out man.
Uh So, then he went to the Charleston again after lunch,
he showed the letter to Captain Glass, and Captain Glass said,
(27:44):
I got you, I got you. Yeah, he said, look,
I'm going to have the island delivered before daylight. What
they mean when they say island delivered is it's going
to officially become something under the control of the United States.
And the way that all went down, um, let's give
you the quick and dirty. Um. He sent an envoy
up to meet with the governor, the man who very
(28:06):
sinisterly threatened the life of our of our buddy Frank.
So as promised, Glass decides that he's he's ready to
set this in motion. Um. So the next day, June one,
he sends an envoy a guy by the name of
Lieutenant William brown Strewn Brown Browner, Browner's writer. He also
says that he's not sure if he's spelling the name
in the letter. That's right, Yeah, very true, And I'm
(28:28):
not sure I'm I'm saying it right. But that's I'm gonna.
I'm gonna commit to that. And they send a letter
by way of the Governor's people to deliver to him saying,
come come on the ship, Come hang with us, let's
chat on our turf on the ship, to which the
governor very civilly, at least the language in his response
declines because he says it is against Spanish law to
board a foreign vessel. And at the at the same time, uh,
(28:53):
this is still the twenty three of June. At the
same time, Uh, Frank has probably my favorite conversation in
this store. He goes back on board the Charleston and
he's talking to Captain Glass, and Glass says, hey, Frank,
you're the only US citizen on the island. We gotta go,
so could you take care of the island. Yeah, because
(29:14):
we're gonna have this stitched up real quick like, because
after the governor refused, he said, come hang with me
on the shore. Right. That's that's that's that's the best
I'm gonna do. So, um, Brown's right there. No, it's Browner.
Browner's right there. I'm gonna say it like that. He
goes with it with a few buddies, and he meets
up with the governor and he lets him know that, hey,
(29:37):
we've got a pretty formidable gun ship, you know, trained
on your island, and we're gonna give you thirty minutes
to deliberate with your people, and if you, uh, you know,
do not surrender, we're going to shell you and take
all you prisoner anyway, to which the governor replies, all right,
give me a minute, Give me a minute. He goes
(29:59):
and confers, returns with a sealed envelope. And what's in
the sealed envelope. Well, the thing that's funny is he
hands it to Brown's right. Browner's right. I'm never gonna
get it right. It's fine, um, and it's addressed to glass.
But our boy Mr B opens it himself, to which
the Governor responds, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not for you, man,
(30:21):
that's not diplomacy. Slow your role, to which Mr B responds,
I represent him here. Back off. Yeah, And so long
story short, maybe a little too late, but this far
story short the Spanish officials are taken into custody and
(30:45):
they go aboard the boat and they're bound for the Philippines. Yeah,
it's all very civil too, because they're like, whoa man,
I don't have him a toothbrush. I all got out
of the clothes on my back. And the Americans are like, yo,
it's cool. We'll let you write to your family, will
let them bring you a knapsack, you know, an overnight bag,
and you'll you'll be comfortable, You'll be taken care of
(31:05):
and uh, and all we need you to do is
get all of your troops to line up and come
aboard our ship to be our prisoners. And you know what,
That's exactly how it went down. Yeah. Not a not
a violent death at all, nary a drop of blood
was spilt, right, just an awkward uh salute that left
(31:25):
both both sides of the conflict feeling as lame as
you know, someone who had a high five that wasn't returned,
if that's ever happened to you, and you just hold
your hand up. But the story isn't over. It does
get a little bit fuzzy here because the Charleston and
cost set off for the Philippines, and General Glass says, hey, Frank,
(31:47):
you're in charge because you're literally the only U. S.
Citizen here, to which Frank says, tight, yeah, I'll make
it happen. And the problem is that he has not
given any written appointment from Commander Glass, and they're just
meant to be temporary, right, Like it's just sort of
like in the interim, it's like hold the spot. So
(32:08):
this makes him the first American governor of the island.
But there's another character here, and it's not a it's
not in a cut and dried story. The man we
mentioned earlier, Jose six Though, the paymaster, the paymaster, it's
always I knew there was a twist. Yeah, the Paymaster
still has a lot of control, and he is with
(32:29):
the former Spanish government. And now these two men are
in kind of an informal fight for power, and I
missed this part entirely. Go on. Well, So after Glass
leaves and after Frank becomes the governor, six Though refuses
to surrender the island's treasury to Frank, and there are
(32:52):
no American sailors or marines. There's nothing supporting his claim
to power. Why wasn't he arrested along with all the
other officials. I guess he's just a just a nimble
guy easily. But he he just said, I'm going to
keep paying any Spanish bureaucrats, I'm gonna pay members of
the militia. And this consolidates his influence over the island.
(33:13):
Sounds sticky, and he was bad with money. Because he
bankrupts the treasury, law and order starts to break down.
The native residents of Guam and Filipinos that are living
on the island begin fighting their riots. And for his part,
Frank is doing his best because he says, look, we
need to make some improvements on the island, specifically this
(33:36):
road that was just in piss poor shape. And six
though was like, wait, I control the money and do
shan't have a penny? Was he like the troll and
guarded the bridge a little less? Yeah? Yeah, um, yes,
this does. This sounds like a real a real ship show.
There we go. Hey, that's that's son of a Fish
(33:57):
and the ship show. We are building this vocabulary pretty
well and the mythology. Um, but so like you know,
things happen, it gets it's it's obviously any time you
occupy a territory, it's gonna be a little rough for
a little while. But ultimately after UM the war ended
with the Treaty of Paris that was signed UM. Guam
(34:19):
and the Philippines were purchased from Spain for a relatively
paltry twenty million dollars UM, and these lands were finalized
as US territories when the U. S. Senate ratified the
treaty in UM eighteen ninety nine February six to be precise.
(34:39):
So this goes, This goes pretty quickly, right. It seems
like from eighteen the Guam landing to the Treaty of Paris,
we're only looking at a few years. But this had
a massive effect on the US is Geoe political position
and a pretty nasty effect on Spain because Spain began
(35:03):
to focus inward and the US emerged from this war
as a maybe not a superpower, but a legitimate world
power with possessions half a world away and a new
steak in international politics, like kind of like an empire
or something, yes, exactly, kind of like an empire. But
(35:27):
luckily no one in Guam was injured in that takeover.
That is cool because there is actually a conspiracy theory.
Let's just drop this here at the end, that in fact,
the US did not get involved in the Spanish American
War for these humanitarian reasons we discussed earlier. Um, yeah,
it was reasons of pure greed and to extend their
(35:47):
world domination outward. And you know they ultimately succeeded in that,
at least in in a couple of small ways. Say
it ain't so you know it's a theory. Yes, that
is one of several ariies. But you know what's not
a theory, the idea that we hope you enjoyed this show.
That's a that's a clunky segue. No, no, man, you
(36:08):
got from A to B and then's all a segue
needs to accomplish. And here we are at B being
the end of the show. Yeah, but I feel like
we would circuitously through G for guam. You are that's fire,
my friend. So thank you, as always so much for
checking out today's episode. We want to think, of course,
(36:29):
super producer Casey Pegram, who is not to our knowledge,
ever invaded a Pacific nation. It's true now Casey is
is a is a peaceful man and uh he's got
a peaceful plan. Yes, uh. And we'd also like to think,
of course, Christopher Haciotis, Alex Williams, the Ridiculous History crew
(36:49):
and you everybody, friends, neighbors, all of you countrymen. Let
me you've already lent them to us, and we for
that we will be forever grateful. Yes, And if you
would like to continue adventuring with us throughout some of
the strangest silius and most ridiculous stories in human history,
then join us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. You can
(37:12):
also find our community page, Ridiculous Historians if you if
you're wondering why sometimes Nolan I have mentioned karaoke r
opru lands. The answers you seek can be found there.
And guess what, we finally made that Pinterest page we've
been talking about all these years. That's not true, kidding, Okay,
We're never never gonna do That's not gonna happen. I'm
(37:34):
not gonna never gonna do that ever. Um, But man,
you guys, thanks for joining us, and we hope you'll
join us for the next episode, wherein we talk about
how Vermont it was in fact a pretty radical place
back in the day. I don't mean radical like in
the skater parlance. I mean radicalism. They had some pretty
big ideas about liberty and uh, they in fact were
(37:57):
their own independent republic, knew and the story doesn't end there.
What the heck are we talking about? Tune in and
find out See him
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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