Saipan - History

History

Saipan, along with neighboring Guam, Rota/Luta, Tinian, and to a lesser extent smaller islands northward, was first inhabited around 2000 BC. The Spanish were the first Europeans to encounter the Chamorros and Spain eventually annexed Saipan as part of its claim to the Mariana Islands. Around 1815, many Carolinians from Satawal settled Saipan during a period when the Chamorros were imprisoned on Guam, which resulted in a significant loss of land and rights for the Chamorro natives. Germany ruled Saipan from 1899 until World War I, when the Empire of Japan took over the island, governing it under a League of Nations mandate from 1922. The Japanese developed both fishing and sugar industries, and in the 1930s garrisoned Saipan heavily, resulting in nearly 30,000 troops on the island by 1941. By December 1941, Saipan had a population of more than 30,000 people, including 25,000 Japanese settlers, many of them from Okinawa.

On June 15, 1944 during World War II, the United States Marines and United States Army landed on the beaches of the southwestern side of the island, and spent more than three weeks fighting the Battle of Saipan to secure it from the Japanese. Seabees of the U.S. Navy also landed to participate in construction projects. Japan considered Saipan as part of the last line of defenses for the Japanese homeland, and thus had heavily committed to defending it. Nearly all of the 30,000 Japanese defenders were killed; thousands of Japanese civilians also died, many threw themselves off Banzai Cliff. This history is also interpreted on Saipan at American Memorial Park and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Museum of History and Culture. After the war, nearly all of the surviving Japanese settlers were repatriated to Japan.

The Federal law (the Covenant) making the CNMI a U.S. territory passed in 1975. The CNMI adopted its constitution in 1977, and its first constitutional government took office in 1978. During negotiations, the CNMI and the USA agreed that the CNMI would be exempted from certain federal laws, including some concerning labor and immigration. One result was an increase in hotels and tourism. However, dozens of garment factories also opened; clothing manufacture became the island's chief economic force, employing thousands of foreign contract laborers while labeling their goods "made in the U.S.A." and supplying the U.S. market with low cost garments exempt from U.S. tariffs. The working conditions and treatment experienced by employees in these factories were the subject of controversy and criticism. These factories have all closed down. The CNMI came under Federal minimum wage regulations in 2007 and immigration law in 2008. In June 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security took over the CNMI’s immigration and border controls.