One Archipelago, Many Stories:

Navigating 500 Years of Cross-Cultural Contact

Half a millennia ago, the people of the Mariana Islands had the first known encounter with people from the other side of the world. It was through the Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, which reached our archipelago in 1521. Those firsts, complex interactions plagued by mutual distrust and misunderstandings triggered a number of consequences for our islands: being placed in world maps, the visits in succeeding years by other explorers, and eventually triggering an intense and difficult process of colonization that in some respects continues to this day in Guam and in other parts of the Pacific, that still are among the last colonized peoples on earth.

The Marianas History Conference is co-organized by the Northern Marianas Humanities Council, the University of Guam, Humanities Guahan, Guampedia, and the Guam Preservation Trust. The conference encourages a broad collaboration on the part of archeologists, historians, social anthropologists and those with less academic but more general interest in the Marianas. It calls on the combined efforts of those in Guam and the Northern Marianas to tell the many stories and engage the people of this archipelago.

About the Marianas History Conference

In 2011 a group of like-minded people from the Mariana Islands decided it was high time to have a Marianas History Conference, one that focused specifically on the history and experiences of the people of all the Mariana Islands. The initial group of organizers, led by Scott Russell of the Northern Marianas and Rosanna Barcinas of Guam, came up with the theme, “One Archipelago, Many Stories,” which highlighted the deep and rich history of the Mariana Islands as well as bridged the political division of the archipelago -- a division that exists today.

Since 1899, Guam has been an unincorporated territory of the United States; the Northern Marianas are former possessions of Germany and Japan. More than 100 years and two world wars later the islands are all part of the United States now but still two separate political entities.