Does a Group of Remote Islands in the Western Pacific Belong to Mexico?

Four small Pacific islands north of New Guinea were overlooked in several treaties throughout the centuries. Could they legally be part of Mexico?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Welcome to Mexico unexplained, where we will explore the magic,
the mysteries and the miracles of Mexico. This series presents
information based partly on theory and conjecture. The podcaster's purpose
is to suggest some possible explanation, but not necessarily the
only ones to the subjects we will examine. Here is
your host, Robert T. Bitto.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Welcome and we being beneath us to episode number three
hundred and six sixty four of Mexico and explained, where
we examine the magic, the mysteries and the miracles of Mexico.
I'm your host, Robert Biddo. In the year twenty fourteen,
Spanish travel YouTuber Paco Nadal landed on the remote western

(01:17):
Pacific island of Capinga Marangi. This place is the southernmost
island of Micronesia and is located three hundred and sixty
miles northeast of the island of New Ireland, which is
part of the country of Papua New Guinea. When Nadal
landed on the island, he remarked how remote this beautiful

(01:38):
place was and bragged that he was the first Spaniard
ever to arrive at Capinga Marangi. While the first part
of his statement is a matter of opinion, the proclamation
that he was the first Spaniard to visit the island
is untrue. In fact, the first Spaniard who arrived there
in the year fifteen thirty seven was a man named

(02:01):
Fernando de Grijalva, a conquistador who had accompanied ernand Cortes
on his march to Tenochtitlan. It seems that Paco Nadal
was four hundred and seventy seven years too late and
was preceded by someone who was more than just Internet famous.
In the early fifteen thirties, Cortes put Grijalba in charge

(02:24):
of two small expeditions to explore the Pacific coast of
what is now Mexico. Grihalva, who was born in Queyar,
Spain sometime in the late fourteen eighties, had known Cortes
in Cuba and was eager to continue exploring and making
conquests in the New World. Grijalba made it as far

(02:46):
north as the Baja Peninsula and the Sea of Cortes.
Cortes had grander designs for exploration, though, and wanted Grijalba
to had a possible fleet to sail across the Pacific
to the the vicinity of the Moluccas or the Spice Islands,
which were under Portuguese control at the time. The objective

(03:07):
was to find unknown islands nearby and claim them for
the Spanish crown in order to compete against the Portuguese
in the spice trade. In April of fifteen thirty six,
Grijalva returned to Acapulco from his last coastal expedition, and
at that time Cortes was arranging to send his trusted

(03:28):
friend and compatriot across the Pacific as planned. Something then
happened to upset their plans. Another famous Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro,
conqueror of the Inca, was under siege in Lima, fighting
the forces of a cunning Inca military leader named Quisu Upanki,

(03:49):
So Cortes decided to send Grijalva to Peru along with
a twenty six year old officer named Fernando de Albarrado,
who was from a prominent Spanish noble family. They took
two ships, the Santiago and the Trinidad, carrying provisions, sixty
Spanish and indigenous soldiers, horses, artillery, and weapons, along with

(04:12):
gifts for Pizarro and his wife. Grijalva commanded the ship
Santiago and was under secret orders from Cortes to continue
on to explore the Great South Sea after his relief
mission to Peru was over. Grijalva told the crew of
his secret orders while they were already well off the

(04:34):
coast of South America out to sea. It was a
great surprise to the crew of the Santiago that they
would not be returning to Mexico. Grijalva's men were eager
to point out that they were not well provisioned enough
to make it to the Moluccas. The captain assured them
that all would be well and they would be able

(04:54):
to acquire necessary supplies along the way. Thus began the
expedition that would discover new islands that some claim may
belong to Mexico to this day. After a few weeks,
sailing was rough and the Santiago had not found the
provisions along the way as they had anticipated. Grijalva skirted

(05:17):
the equator in hopes that they could catch seasonal downpours
so the crew could have fresh water. At one point,
near where the International Date Line is today, Grijalva decided
to return to Mexico, but the winds were not in
his favor. This caused even more anger among the weakened
and sickly crew, but Grijalba insisted on sailing west. They

(05:42):
were about one thousand, seven hundred miles from the Spice
Islands and over seven thousand miles from Mexico when they
came upon an atoll they named Matador. This atoll and
outcroppings of reefs, is also called Asea. It's located one
hundred and sixty three degrees twelve minutes east longitude and

(06:05):
just a little over one degree north of the equator.
A crew member later would describe Matador as consisting of
fifteen small islets in many reefs. It had thick coconut forests,
and was inhabited by what was described as light copper
colored natives who had wavy red and black hair. The

(06:28):
next island Grijalva and his men came upon was the
same one Paco Nadal visited as mentioned in the beginning
of this episode. The atoll, comprising thirty three small islets
now called Copinga Marangi. Grijalva named this atoll east La
de los Pescadores or Island of the Fishermen, and christened

(06:52):
the main island East La Nueva or New Island. Full
of fresh coconuts and water. This place has served as
a refreshing stopping point since Grijalva's times. Continuing west towards
the Spice Islands, the Grijalba expedition discovered two more islands,
Corona and Los Cuedes. Corona was a small, round shaped

(07:17):
island with no other description. Los Guedes, a group of
five small, low lying islets, is located one hundred and
twenty miles north of New Guinea and is presently claimed
by Indonesia. The island is now called Mapia. In Grijalva's time,
the heavily forested atoll was inhabited by a Melanesian people

(07:41):
called the Onaka. On later Spanish maps, Los Cudes would
also be called Sang David, and later English maps would
call this atoll the Free Will Islands. All the previously
mentioned islands were claimed for Spain in the name of
the Spanish King and in the aim of his representative

(08:01):
in Mexico or nan Cortes. Although they were in the
far western Pacific. The crew of the Santiago had been
traveling for thousands of miles over many months and wanted
to go back to Mexico. Grijalva ordered the crew to
press on to the Spice Islands. The crew mutinied, A
sailor stabbed Grijalba and threw them overboard. The ship sailed

(08:25):
south to the island of New Guinea, where the ailing
crew was taken in by the locals who were friendly
to them. Word made it to the Moluccas about this
failed expedition, and the Portuguese governor there offered duzantush cruzadus
or two hundred silver cruisadoes to anyone willing to round

(08:46):
up these renegade Spaniards and turn them into the Portuguese
authorities in the Moluccas. An enterprising group of Portuguese men
went to New Guinea and brought the remaining crew members
of the Santiago before the god government authorities in the
Spice Islands. Without this, we may never have known what
had happened to the Grijalba expedition. The islands Grijalba discovered

(09:11):
would not be the only ones to constitute Spain's empire
in the Pacific. To compete with the Portuguese, the Spanish
soon acquired much more land in that part of the world.
In fifteen forty two, just five years after Grijalva, the
new viceroy in New Spain, the man who replaced Cortes,

(09:31):
named Antonio de Mendoza, sent an expedition to the Philippines
in fifteen sixty five. The Spanish established a permanent colony
there at a place called San Miguel. From this place
they established other settlements and trading posts, eventually conquering the Philippines.

(09:51):
This was all being done from Mexico City. All new
territories acquired in East Asia or the Western Pacific were
politically part of New Spain. The Spanish enlarged their presence
in the area and eventually acquired chunks of the Indonesian
islands of Borneo and Suluesse and what is now Taiwan,

(10:13):
and then claimed Guam, the Mariana Islands, Palau, and the
Caroline Islands, which they called Lasnevas Filippinas. It is important
to note that the four small island groups discovered by
Grijalva are not connected to any of these larger territories
and are somewhat isolated and off to the side. They

(10:36):
are not part of any island chain or archipelago. When
the Viceroyalty of New Spain collapsed with the independence of
Mexico in eighteen twenty two, Spain's lands in the east
were then ruled directly from Madrid and were reorganized into
the Spanish East Indies. It is important to note here

(10:57):
which territories were considered part of an independent Mexico and
which ones weren't. Those islands immediately off Mexico's west coast
were part of the new country of Mexico, and so
was anything else that was not considered to be part
of the Spanish East Indies. There has been a case
made that Alaska is really part of Mexico based on

(11:21):
this definition of Mexico's territorial boundaries. For more information on
Mexico's possible claims to Alaska, please see Mexico Unexplained, episode
number one hundred and thirty five. But back to Grijalva's islands,
we can get a sense of where they belonged when
Spain decided to liquidate its territories in the area many

(11:44):
centuries after the Santiago sailed the waters of the South
Seas under orders from Cortes. After the Spanish American War
of eighteen ninety eight, Spain ceded the Philippines and Guam
to the United States under the terms outlined in the
Treaty of Paris. Spain still had possessions in the Pacific,

(12:05):
though that were not very economically viable because they had
long been ignored by Madrid. With the Philippines and Guam
in American hands, the Carolina Islands, Palau, and the Marianas
were seen as ungovernable, indefensible, and non productive. In eighteen

(12:25):
ninety nine, Spain sold these island groups to Germany, which
placed them under the jurisdiction of Imperial Germany's colony of
German New Guinea. The treaty specified precise lines of latitude
and longitude of the remaining Spanish East Indies to be
transferred to Germany, and Grijalva's four islands fell outside of

(12:48):
the delineations outlined in the treaty, so if they were
not part of the treaty, we have Spain tacitly recognizing
that Grijalva's Islands were not part of the Spanish East
Indies at all. If they were Spanish possessions that were
not part of the Spanish East Indies, that must mean
some claim that they must have been part of the

(13:12):
old New Spain Vice Regency and thus are now part
of Mexico. The question of the sovereignty of the Four
Islands came up in nineteen forty nine when a Spanish
author named Emilio Pastori Santos wrote a book titled Territories
of Spanish Sovereignty in Oceania, which got the attention of

(13:33):
the Francisco Franco government in Madrid. The book claimed that
the islands were still Spanish. At the time of the
book's publication, the United States had recently acquired the former
Spanish Pacific Islands from Japan, which had taken over ruling
them when Germany lost World War One. It was unclear

(13:55):
post World War II if Grijalva's Four Islands were part
of the newly organized American Trust Territory of the Pacific.
The Spanish government looked into the question and considered taking
the issue to the United Nations. But didn't. In twenty fourteen,
the Spanish government closed the issue of Spain's ownership of

(14:18):
the islands, claiming that the spirit of the eighteen ninety
nine treaty with Germany was to cede all the Spanish
Pacific islands to the German Empire, and that even though
the territorial boundaries were off, Spain had no interest in
ruling an overseas possession in the twenty first century. But

(14:39):
what about Mexico. Could these islands technically have always been
part of Mexican territory. Currently, the island formerly known as
Los Cudes, belongs to Indonesia, and the other three of
Grijalvas Islands are part of the Federated States of Micronesia.
While it may be an interest idea to make these

(15:01):
islands part of Mexico, it would take some political will
in Mexico City and at least some desire from the
islanders themselves. For now, this is just an interesting footnote
of a forgotten and obscure history, and most likely nothing
will ever come of this. Thank you once again for

(15:23):
listening to another episode of Mexico and Explained. Remember to
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(15:46):
copies of the magic, the Mysteries and the Miracles of Mexico.
We appreciate your kind attention. Once again, until next time,
Thank you, ah gracias.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Thank you, but listening to another episode of Mexico Unexplained
with host Robert Bitto. For show summary, relevant links and commentary.
Please check out our website at mexicoanexplained dot com, Like
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Addie arsand haste la vista.