CAROLINIAN GODCHILD, CHAMORRO GODPARENT

SAIPAN

Chamorro man on right with Carolinian men, early 1900s

NMC Archives

As the island had been depopulated of its native Chamorros by the 1740s, when the Spanish authorities moved the Saipan Chamorros down to Guam, where they mixed and became indistinguishable from the Guam Chamorros, the Spanish government allowed Carolinians to settle in Saipan in the early 1800s. The generally accepted date is around 1815.

That was only the beginning. People from islands such as Satawal, Woleai, Eauripik and many others continued to move to Saipan for the rest of the century into the early 1900s.

By the 1850s, the Spanish officials in Guam wanted to bring the Carolinians more and more into the cultural and religious environment the Spaniards had established on Guam and Rota. So the Spaniards sent a Chamorro teacher from Guam to Saipan; they organized the Carolinians into a community with their own leaders holding Spanish colonial titles; they sent a priest to establish a church on Saipan.

There were no forced conversions at the point of a spear or gun barrel. But the resident priest, and the handful of Chamorro settlers, did encourage the Carolinians to consider baptism, especially for their children if there was danger of death. In time, the children were regularly brought to the priest for baptism, even when the parents remained unbaptized!

Who, then, were to be the godparents of these Carolinian children (and adults, too!). In the 1850s and 60s, it was the Chamorros from Guam and Luta who moved to Saipan who acted as godparents for the Carolinians. This shows that the two groups did interact with each other and formed some bonds. For most of the 1800s, the Carolinians were the majority group in Saipan, until the late 1800s and early 1900s when both a higher Chamorro birthrate and increased movement of Guam Chamorros to Saipan between 1890 and 1914 pushed the Chamorro population higher than the Carolinian.

Here are some early Carolinian baptisms, with the names of their Chamorro godparents :

YEAR	CAROLINIAN TO BE BAPTIZED	CHAMORRO GODPARENT
1857	Mónica Mangud	Mónica Pangelinan
1857	Mariano Metao	Mariano Arriola
1860	Pedro Failimas, 14 years old	Mariano Paulino, alcalde (mayor) of Saipan*
1865	Gregorio Rangamar, infant Father from Satawal Mother from Elato	Gregorio Perez, of Agaña
1865	Carmen Parong, infant Father from Olou Mother from Satawal	Carmen de los Santos, of Agaña
1872	Antonio Kileleman Parents from Satawal	Antonio de Torres, of Agaña
1874	Benigno Kaipat, infant	Rodrigo de Castro, of Agaña
1875	Ana Pialur, infant	Ana de los Reyes, of Agaña
1876	Dolores Olopai, 8 months old	Dolores Lizama
1876	Ana Selepeo, 4 years old	Maria Mangloña, of Rota
1876	Jose Laniyo, 3 years old	Eugenio Cepeda
1877	Basilio Rapugao, adult, in danger of death	Basilio Gogue, of Agaña

SOME NOTES

• Many of the Carolinians took on the Christian name of the godparent. Most, if not all, Carolinians maintain the tradition of carrying their Carolinian given names to this day, even if those names are not seen on birth certificates and are used only inside the family, clan or close associates.
• The majority of the godparents came from Agaña, a few (not shown here) from other villages of Guam (Agat and Sumay, for example) and a tiny number from Rota
• I have modernized the Carolinian names so they can be identifiable to modern generations; the Spaniards spelled some of these names in very unique ways!
• Not all the Chamorros in Saipan at the time stayed there. Gregorio Perez (whom I suspect was the founder of the Goyo clan, but I have no proof for this) did not remain in Saipan for the rest of his life. There is no trace of him in the Saipan documents later on.

* Mariano Paulino was not Chamorro. The founder of the Paulino clan of Guam, he was a Filipino who married a Chamorro, Maria Borja Aguon.