CHINA'S LADRONE ISLANDS
Near Macau and Hong Kong
We were not the only Ladrones, at one time.
Less known were the Ladrone Islands in China.
Our islands were the first to be called Ladrones, so named after Magellan's fight with our ancestors over a skiff taken off of Magellan's ship in 1521.
But not long after that, in 1557, the Portuguese set up shop in China, specifically in Macau, which Portugal controlled all the way up to the year 1999.
The Portuguese were in Macau for one reason : trade. Over the many years, think of silk, jade, fire crackers, incense, opium....all commodities popular at different times.
This trade attracted pirates and sea bandits who hid in their vessels in the small islands outside Macau. The Portuguese called these the Islands of Thieves. The Spanish word for "robbers" or "thieves, " ladrones was what the English used, so in English books and newspapers, these Chinese islands were also known as the Ladrones or Ladrone Islands, just like the Marianas. Sometimes they were called the Great Ladrone islands.
Just as our islands were renamed the Marianas, and Ladrones was dropped in time, no one today calls these islands near Macau the Ladrones anymore. Instead, they are known by the Chinese name Wanshan Archipelago.
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