Foreword
No general handbook about the island of Guam exists. I discovered this fact when I was living there and wanted to know something of the aboriginal peoples, the known history, and some pertinent information about the American possession of the territory from 1898 to the present time.
In tracking down sources of information the task proved so endless, so absorbing, that I suddenly found it developing into a manuscript. This handbook is the result.
Guam: Past and Present turns up nothing new; it isn't intended to be an academic study. There are undoubtedly revolting errors, and certain historical phases of the island's life are developed to an affectionate length while others are glossed over. This method has been employed deliberately in order to heighten the reader's interest and understanding of a compact subject; and if the result is a fairly dimensional portrait of Guam, then my aim in preparing this handbook will have been more than achieved.
THE AUTHOR
PART ONE
THE ISLAND IN PROFILE
1
Geographical Introduction
to Guam
SURFACE AND CONTOUR
Seen from a distance at sea, looking much as Magellan must have found it in 1521, the island of Guam appears fairly even and elevated, a verdant, sprawling land mass some thirty miles long and from four and a half to nine miles wide. On closer marine view, the foaming lines of reefs appear to encircle it, and approaching from the southern leeward shore, the northern reaches ascend to a level plateau several hundred feet high, marked by low hills and woodlands and scrubby savannahs rolling softly along the tilted profile of its tableland.
Toward the south-central area of the island (the narrow "waist") and its approximate middle, there rises a low rounded hill which long ago received the vernacular name of Tiyan, or belly, given it by the aboriginal Chamorros, Guam's indigenous people. From this point south the island widens, deepens into dense, jungled valleys of streams and ferns and savage thickets. These valleys hold the virgin pattern of Guam's flora almost intact. Bats infest the cave-honeycombed walls of these mountain pockets and the southern massif climbs to its highest point at Mount Lamlam in the extreme south, some 1334 feet above sea level, close to the southern coast.
Guam's shape is loose and might resemble different forms to different people as seen from the sea; but from the air it most closely resembles a giant human right footprint pressed down hurriedly on the blue wash of the Pacific, the green heel lying north-northeast and the toe south-southwest.
The northern plateau is not horizontal; it dips down from its vertical coastal cliffs in the north in steppes to the central waist—or arch of the foot. The eastern coast of the southern half is penetrated by a few small and graceful bays—Talofofo, Ylig, Pago, Pauliluc, and Agfayan. These glittering, semi-reef-bound inlets are studded with submerged coral barriers and incapable of receiving safely all but the smallest craft.
On the west coast of Guam's southern half, below the spur of Facpi Point, lie a string of handsome sandy beaches ringed with coconut groves and separated from one another by rocky fingers of coast, thus creating idyllic elbows of placid strand ideal for private picnics and swimming parties. The shallow lagoons are well protected by strong reefs from the open sea, and it is here that Guam's coast is least accessible, yet most calm and attractive.
In contrast, the rugged eastern shores are constantly beaten by a heavy sea, less strenuous during the annual lull of the trade winds and the advent of the humid monsoons, but still prevalent during the greater part of the year. The ocean's floor here is sharp and deep, dropping off outside the immediate area of the extreme southern Marianas from a moderate shelf to a depth of approximately six miles. Vessels have never found safe anchorage along the coast here. In fact, except for San Luis de Apra Harbor, anchorage has often been suicidal, particularly in hurricane season, due to an enormous swell surging around the mass of the island. And even since the American occupation of Guam, ships have been swept out to sea from their moorings and occasionally have been lost during violent storms.
On the southern shore near the extreme lower tip of Guam lies the tiny village of Umatac on Umatac Bay, at the foot of Mount Lamlam. From Magellan's day, this was a favorite anchorage on the run between the Orient and the Americas. A good supply of fresh water was easily obtained in the vicinity, and for mariners the "roadstead of Umatac" in tranquil weather was a pleasant one while awaiting the lightering of supplies from shore. Natural foods were abundant, and hillside springs furnished all the fresh water voyagers could carry.
Later, as Guam became a way point on the frequently harrowing voyage from Acapulco northwest to Manila, the natural basin of San Luis de Apra Harbor was used as the transit port, since it was much closer to the capital of Agaña than remote Umatac and a far safer berth in uncertain weather. However, its full use as a modern port did not come until its extensive dredging and reshaping after World War II. Then it was fully protected by the sturdy and impressive bulk of Glass Breakwater on the northern side of its channel entrance and naturally defended on the southern side by the precipitous Orote Peninsula. With these protections, San Luis de Apra has become a thriving, bulkheaded inner port and outer anchorage, an installation which rivals Pearl Harbor in size and complexity and classes Guam with Samoa as an important Pacific outpost.
The only other harbor of any consequence at Guam is the Agaña Boat Basin—in reality
