SAIPAN STATISTICS IN 1901

The German Flag is raised on Saipan in 1899

Germany took control of the Northern Marianas in November of 1899. As colonial administrators, the Germans were noted for record-keeping. One example of this was an annual handbook printed by the German Colonial Office, giving information, details and statistics about all the German colonies. In German, it was called the Deutsches Kolonial-Handbuch.

According the 1901 handbook, which would include data for the prior year of 1900, the ethnic breakdown of Saipan's population at that time was as follows :

CHAMORROS	709
CAROLINIANS	494
MALAYANS	13
JAPANESE	12
FILIPINOS	4
GERMANS	3
SPANIARDS	2
TOTAL	1237

There were only two villages on Saipan at the time, Garapan, the capital, and Tanapag. Their respective populations were :

GARAPAN	1032
TANAPAG	205

SOME OBSERVATIONS....

1. Now we see that the Chamorro population outnumbered the Carolinian. For most of the 1800s, the Carolinians outnumbered the Chamorros. But by the 1880s, the number of Chamorros moving from Guam to Saipan increased, and this number swelled in the early 1900s. Free land in Saipan was part of the attraction, as the Germans tried to entice Guam Chamorros to move to Saipan, which needed a larger population.

2. The "Malayans" were Indonesians recruited by the Dutch and hired out to the Germans to work as policemen. When the Germans first took over the Northern Marianas, they weren't too sure how law-abiding the islanders would be. They used these Indonesians, therefore, as their police force. Very quickly, however, the Germans understood that the Chamorros and Carolinians were peaceable and the Indonesians were sent elsewhere and the local police force was then made up by Chamorros and Carolinians.

3. The dozen Japanese residents were involved in trade and commerce, or worked for those businesses. Some of them already married Chamorro women by then.

4. Just as in Guam, there were always a few Filipinos who had come over during Spanish times when both the Philippines and the Marianas were under Spain. The Marianas, in fact, were a province of the Philippines for a time. Most had married Chamorro women.

5. The resident Germans were the colonial officers and the two Spaniards were Augustinian Recollect priests left-over from the Spanish administration. German Capuchin missionaries would not replace them for a few more years still.

The German Colonial Handbook of 1901