FORGOTTEN SHIBATA

 

TETSUO SHIBATA MEMORIAL

No; the above Japanese marker is not in Japan. It was in Pigo' Catholic Cemetery in Guam.

It belonged to a Japanese resident of Guam who is so forgotten that his name does not appear in a list of Japanese settlers on Guam compiled by third-generation Japanese descendants on Guam.

But there's an understandable reason for this.

The man, José (Tetsuo) Shibata, left no descendants on Guam after he died very, very early under American rule. He does not appear in the 1920 Guam Census or thereafter, and court documents mention him only up to 1912.

ONE OF THE FIRST JAPANESE

HIKI STORE IN HAGÅTÑA IN EARLY 1900s

Shibata is already on Guam by 1900. That's only two years after the United States took possession of Guam and only one year after the Americans sent an actual Governor for the island. He was on Guam ahead of many other Japanese who came a little later.

In 1900, he is employed as an agent of the HIKI TRADING COMPANY, a Japanese business that set up a store on Guam. Japanese and other goods were to be sold; and the Japanese were also interested in buying Guam-produced copra (dried coconut meat).

Court documents show that Shibata was a native of Shimabara, a small city close to Nagasaki. His father was Daichiro and his mother was Taki.

On Guam he married a Chamorro woman from a prestigious clan. The Herreros were the descendants of a former Spanish Governor of the Marianas, José Ganga Herrero. Vicenta Cruz Herrero was the governor's granddaughter. She had first married a man with the last name Rosendo, but he had died by the time Vicenta met Shibata.

Shibata was baptized a Roman Catholic in the Hagåtña Church in order to marry Vicenta. He took for his Christian name José María.

He was born around 1873, so he was in his late 20s when he came to Guam. Vicenta, however, was older, being born in the 1860s. She being in her 40s, perhaps she wasn't able to conceive and thus no children were born to them.

BUSY BUSINESSMAN

One thing is for sure and that was Shibata was a busy businessman. His constant movement in business brought him to court many times, and thus we have documented evidence of his activities.

Evidently he parted ways with the Hiki Company and went into business for himself.

In his short time on earth, dying sometime in the 1910s, Shibata ran a STORE, a SALOON or bar, and even an eatery which he called the SUNRISE CAFE.

He was frequently in court trying to recover his money from people who owed him.

Alas, he lived too short and left no children, leaving us only the memory of him in court documents and in one photograph of Pigo' Cemetery which just happens to include his grave marker.