COMMENDED BY SPAIN

 

CIVIL ORDER OF CHARITY OF SPAIN

Orden Civil de Beneficiencia

From 1872 to 1876, Spanish society was rocked by a civil war. The Carlistas were a political faction in Spain that supported a different line of kings than the one then in power. The Carlist uprisings were eventually squashed by the ruling Spanish government.

Those captured in the war faced deportation to several places around the world under Spanish jurisdiction, including the Marianas. When the Spanish deportados, or deportees, landed in the Marianas, there was no prison big enough to house them all. Feeding them, too, was an issue.

OLD HAGÅTÑA

In order to handle this situation, many deportados were allowed to live with Guam families, both Spanish and Chamorro. Some families accommodated these deportados in such a way that the Spanish Government wanted to commend them in some way when the war was done.

In 1878, the Overseas Ministry of the Spanish Government was given permission to award half a dozen Chamorros and some Spaniards with membership in the Órden Civil de Beneficiencia, or the Civil Order of Charity. This distinction recognized acts of extraordinary service by individuals to the community in times of calamity, natural or otherwise.

The Chamorros so awarded were :

FATHER JOSÉ TORRES PALOMO. He was the first Chamorro priest, ordained in Cebu in 1859. Since he was not a member of a religious Order, who have the vow of poverty, Palomo was free to own his own houses and properties, so he was able to house deportados in his own private residence. Father Palomo lived to see the Americans take over Guam and he did nothing to stand in the way; in fact, he was considered by the Americans a great help in showing cooperation with the new regime. He died in 1919.

FATHER JOSÉ TORRES PALOMO

ANDRÉS CRUZ CASTRO. He was an officer in the Chamorro militia, known as the Compañía de Dotación. Castro was married to Ramona Alejandro.

FRANCISCO DÍAZ TORRES. Descendant of the famous official Luís de Torres. He was married to Joaquina Crisóstomo Martínez. 

FÉLIX DÍAZ TORRES. Brother of Francisco and also a descendant of the celebrated Luís de Torres. He was married to Martínez then Rosa Salar Pérez.

ANTONIO PANGELINAN MARTÍNEZ. His daughter Josefa married a Spaniard named Julián Sáiz. Antonio was married to Eduviges Díaz Wilson, the daughter of the Irishman James Wilson and the Chamorro Rufina Díaz.

JOSÉ RIVERA PÉREZ. He was a Sergeant in the local military force.

VICENTE OLIVARES CALVO. Although technically not a Chamorro, he was a Spanish-Filipino mestizo whose whole family had firm Marianas roots, dividing their lives equally between Manila and Guam. Some in his family married Chamorros, so I consider Vicente to be "local," if not Chamorro by blood. Among the various things he did, he was for a time the captain of the port at Apra, in charge of the arrival and departure of various ships. His children mainly lived in the Philippines so he has no descendants on Guam, but he is an uncle to the other Calvos who did remain on Guam.

FIRST AMERICAN SHIP ON GUAM?

It is claimed that the American whaling ship the Resource was the first American ship to visit Guam. That was in the year 1799, when the United States flag had sixteen stars, as seen above, for the sixteen states that made up the country at the time.

If this claim is accurate, then perhaps the sixteen-starred flag is the first American flag seen by Chamorros, assuming any were down in Apra Harbor at the time the Resource sailed in.

The Resource was not the first American ship to visit the Marianas. That distinction goes to the Betsey which reached Tinian on July 14, 1798. But the only people living on Tinian at the time were a shipwrecked crew, who were rescued and taken away. This was followed the very same year in November by another commercial American ship, the Ann and Hope.. But that ship did not meet any Chamorros nor Spaniards on Tinian either. The island was deserted, except for one shipwreck survivor who was from India or thereabouts.

The Resource did not make much of a splash while it was here on Guam. All that is said is that the ship took on supplies and allowed the crew some shore time for relaxation. Much more valuable for history's sake was the visit of the next American ship, the Lydia, in 1802. A member of that crew wrote many pages of what he observed on Guam when he was here and we still have that account.

I have found, so far, only one American ship called the Resource during the same period it supposedly came to Guam. It was not described as a whaling ship but it was a commercial ship, transporting goods. It is also on record for having made foreign journeys on business. So, conceivably, this is the same Resource that visited Guam. It was owned by a J. Sanford Barker in Charleston, South Carolina. But, for all we know, this could have been another ship by the same name, though that is rare.

FAMILIA : CHARSAGUA

 

CHARSAGUA is an indigenous Chamorro name.

It appears in the censuses during Spanish times.

The name could mean several things, all of them more or less similar. CHAT is a prefix which means "badly, imperfectly, defectively." And SÅGUA means "port or canal." So perhaps chatsagua was used to described a way in and out of land and sea that wasn't recommended due to some geographical defect.

Although there were nine people named Charsagua in the 1897 Guam Census, it was a family destined to slowly fade away on Guam, and today it is in the US mainland that the Charsagua name continues.

JOSÉ CHARSAGUA was an old man, around 70 years old in 1897, so born around 1827, and a widower.

He was living in Hagåtña with two sons, his children from his deceased wife Apolonia García. You would think that having two sons would give his line a chance to survive. But here's what happened.

JOSÉ GARCÍA CHARSAGUA

José, the older of the two sons, married María Lizama Santos, the daughter of Ignacio and Josefa.

Court documents show that José had a nickname - Chetla.

Jose'n Chetla was involved in a road dispute in the early 1900s. He claimed that a certain trail, heavily used by the farmers traveling through the area, was on his private property. So he cut down some trees and blocked the road. The neighbors took Chetla to court, and Chetla was forced to reopen the road.

Jose'n Chetla and his wife María had half a dozen or so children, but half of them died young. Only two children lived long enough to have children, and they were both women who married. One of them was Rosa, pictured below. The other was her sister Magdalena. Having no sons, José wasn't able to pass on the Charsagua name to descendants.

MANUEL GARCÍA CHARSAGUA

But there was a second son of José and Apolonia and his name was Manuel.

His wife was Mariana Aguon. They had children, but only one lived long enough to have children. Her name was María.

María Aguon Charsagua never married but she had children. One was a boy, named José, who carried the name Charsagua from his mother. José joined the US Army and served in Korea and Vietnam. He married Dominga Rodríguez from Panama and had children; two daughters and two sons. José and his family remained in the US mainland and it is there that José sons and grandsons carry on the Charsagua name.

It is in the continental US, across several states, and no longer on Guam, where you will find people with the last name Charsagua.

JOSÉ AGUON CHARSAGUA'S GRAVE IN TEXAS

Son of María Aguon Charsagua, grandson of Manuel García Charsagua

JOSÉ CHARSAGUA'S GRANDSONS

the future of the Charsagua family name

KÅNTA : PÅTGON NENE

 

In 1980, a Saipan band called Tropicsette released their album Palasyon Rico. One of the biggest hits from that album was a song that even made Guam go crazy, even my own classmates aged 18 years old who could hardly speak, or even understand, Chamorro.

That song was Påtgon Neni. 

Everyone on Guam was singing it, even if they pronounced the words badly and didn't understand what they were singing. The song was important on Guam in the way it introduced many Guam people to the "Micronesian" sound in music. Chamorro music on Guam didn't have that sound, but the music scene in Saipan did, since the Carolinians of Saipan had their influence on that island. Since my classmates and I barely understood the words, we loved the song Påtgon Neni because of the sound.

That sound came from Pohnpei.

In a 2008 newspaper article written by one-time Tropicsette member Herbert Del Rosario, to honor Frank Bokonggo Pangelinan, another Tropicsette member who had just died, Del Rosario says the following, 

"I must admit the song Patgon Neni was our most popular song, which brought the whole island (Saipan) to Oleai Room (a bar) every weekend to listen to this song which originated from the island of Pohnpei."

With the help of Pohnpeian friends, I was able to find the original Pohnpeian song on which Patgon Neni is based. The song is titled Pwurodo Kameiehla. I believe it was composed by Daniel Isaac.

According to a Pohnpeian friend, the first line more or less says "Come and take my life, because I have none, anyway, without you..."

Somehow, someone in Tropicsette got to know this song. Candy Taman often borrowed songs from Chuuk and other islands and added Chamorro lyrics to them, but I'm not sure who penned the Chamorro version of this Pohnpeian song.

The Chamorro version is also about a broken relationship, seen from the man's perspective. He tells the woman that if she remarries, then bring their child to him, since it would be bad for the child to be raised by another man who is not his father.

CHAMORRO LYRICS

Pues adios ya bai hu hånao.

(So goodbye and I will go.)

Ya an siakåso na umassagua hao

(And if you should marry)

Pot fabot konne' mågi i patgon nene.

(Please bring the child here.)

Na'ma'ase' i patgon yanggen otro tåta para u atiende gue'.

(Pity the child if another father will care for him/her.)

Hånao mågi ya un nangga yo'

(Come here and wait for me)

ya un sångan ha' ya bai hu hånao.

(and just say so and I will go.)

The Tropicsette recording then goes on to sing a verse in Carolinian and finally a verse from the Pohnpeian original.

Here is a recording of the original Pohnpeian song :

"ATAN I BOLA" : CHAMORRO CODE

 

A former seminarian from the 1960s, who, for reasons you will understand at the end of this story, did not proceed to the priesthood, told me a story which reveals how older Chamorros spoke in code.

The parents of one seminarian owned some beach property and so they would invite the seminarians from Father Dueñas to picnic and barbeque there once in a while.

These parents had a daughter who was lively and friendly. She loved to play the guitar, and this seminarian loved to sing.

Well, dad was not dumb, so when he had the seminarians play softball at his beach, he would walk up to this seminarian and whisper in his ear, "Atan i bola, no? Atan i bola." "Look at the ball, ok? Watch the ball."

In other words, though unspoken words, "Båsta ma atan i hagå-ho." "Stop looking at my daughter."

So, rather than embarrass the seminarian and his daughter, he spoke in code. Which the seminarian understood.

He eventually graduated from Father Dueñas but did not pursue the priesthood and is now a happily married man. But not with the girl on the beach.