Chapter 5

I Maga’lahi ni’ mashanghai…

(The Governor who was Shanghai’ed)

 Although most Guam histories claim that the 28 Naval Governors of Guam from 1899-1941 are some of the most benevolent guys around. Irrelevant, indifferent and occasionally incessant are better ways to describe them. There was one governor in particular who made a strong impact on the Chamorros with his personification of why Naval and autocratic regimes are so grotesque. That was Governor William Gilmer who ruled the island of Guam from 1918-1920.

In the first “official” history of Guam, A Complete History of Guam, by Paul Carano and Pedro Sanchez, Governor Gilmer’s term doesn’t even merit a mention. In Sanchez’s later history of Guam Guahan/Guam a short paragraph is devoted to Gilmer, but mainly praises his innovations in education and agriculture. “In recognition of this the Talofofo Public school was named William W. Gilmer School in his honor.”11

But the reality is that Gilmer was in the moderate terms of Robert Roger’s history Destiny’s Landfall, “…a humorless autocrat. Worse, he was a racist, not just personally, but in his official capacity as chief executive of the island.” 12 In more extreme terms, Gilmer’s record as a tyrant was recorded in songs and stories, such as those recorded by the late storyteller Carmen I. Santos. One song refers to a ban on whistling instituted by the Governor, presumably because his wife was a very nervous and poorly adjusted woman. Its title is Gaily Kaminga, named for the man who was actually jailed in Hagatna for breaking the whistling law. 13

As Governor Gilmer racked up an incredible fifty general orders from truly the most racist micro-managerial regime ever to hit Guam, prior to the Japanese occupation two decades later. These orders ranged from prohibition of fandangos and parties at night, a ban on smoking, a preference system for commissary privileges (based on race), and oddly enough a fine of 25 cents a day for any male who did not bring in 5 dead rats a month to their district commissioner. 14

            His most infamous act however was EGO 326, which banned all interracial marriages on Guam, between white men and non-white women. It also banned co-habitation. The backlash for this was profound as dozens of military men and civilian personal had already married Chamorro and Filipino women, and many were already raising large families. Most of these men held prominent positions on Guam, especially in the periphery of the Naval Governments operations, such as Jim Underwood who was well known around the island as the Post Master for more than two decades before the war. Chamorros also protested the law as discriminatory. Rogers tells of a letter sent to the Governor signed by 42 Chamorros asking the law to be revoked. 15

            The law was eventually repealed through the efforts of Jim Underwood, who traveled to Washington D.C. in 1920 and met with the chief of Naval Operations who was a former Governor of Guam. The Navy was embarrassed by the order, and revoked it, reliving Gilmer a month after that.

It should be noted though that this order was not original, a previous order Naval Station Order 47 passed in 1907 had tried to make the same point, keeping the races separated. But the Naval authorities had given up on it as a lost cause. Therefore it was not necessarily the racism of the order which embarrassed the Navy, but the openness and blatancy of it.

In terms of Chamorro identity and its relationship to the United States, the Gilmer episode is a complex one. For the manakhilo’ or elite of the island which made up the majority of the politically active Gilmer was initially a threat to their machinations for political improvement. He was the anathema to everything the United States was supposed to stand for. His rule showed the potential for tyranny under the American system and his record must of shaken many. However his removal, for those politically oriented, restored faith in the pseudo-American system on Guam. The fact that for once, they had petitioned and requested, and their desires had been given validation was not something lost on the Chamorros. When the new Governor following Gilmer arrived, Ivan C. Wettengel, his presence was announced with an editorial in the local paper Guam News Letter, “Now is the time, friends, to restore to Guam the one-time “happy family.” 16

This incident and others like it were departure points for resistance prior to the war. For the most part resistance to American rule was marked by passivity. The Naval government operated in spheres and as long as you were not involved in or passing through those spheres, they had little impact on your life. For example, Chamorros who wished just to farm, not send their kids to school or seek traditional modes of health care could live their lives with little interaction with the United States Navy. The Navy was focused primarily in Hagatna and Sumay, and in those regions it was concentrated around institutions such as schools, the hospital, and the wage economy. By just existing as Chamorros had for hundreds of years, you could passively resist the demands of the Navy.

However, if you wanted to improve your life through their “progressive” means, such as new health care at the hospital, or public education through the school system, then you would constantly find yourself encroached on by the first discourse, and the colonial entrapments embedded in it. Partaking in the first discourse meant admitting to and accepting the generally unfair criticisms of the Navy leveled against the Chamorros, such as terminal laziness and terminal disregard for improving their own conditions. It required an active effort to assimilate the critiques, and participate in this new foreign process of emotionational integration with a foreign power.

Therefore patriotism was characterized with activity and with energy, because it meant created new local inroads in order to partake in the new colonial cultural system that was emerging. Chamorro identity for some became intertwined with American through this process. While for most the initial thinking which pushed them into the American system was improvement of their particular spot under the sun, the lure of American ideology and seduction of its discourse on development and progress became unavoidable. The rhetoric of it can scarcely be resisted, as who after tasting just a hint of the greatest country in the world, wouldn’t want more?

But active resistance existed as well, but always within an acceptable context. These forms of active resistance were formed through negative experiences with the Naval regime. The petition of 1901 can be viewed partly through this lens, as the quote with regards to there being less civil liberties on Guam under the US navy, than under the Spanish, was coined in response to the crackdown on religious civil liberties by the Navy in 1899 and 1900 in which many festivities and church activities were cancelled or prohibited.

            Active resistance required sustained interaction with the colonial power, in order to create a platform from which dissent could be discussed or disseminated. Prior to the war, these platforms primarily centered around dissatisfaction with the Naval regime, and petitioning the US Congress for civilian control of the island or Chamorro representation in the government. The creation of this dissent is best exemplified by the efforts of Francisco Baza Leon Guerrero and B.J. Bordallo who made a sojourn to Washington D.C. in 1936 in hopes of at last obtaining American citizenship for the loyal Chamorros.

            Despite the romanticized histories of pre-war Guam, not everyone appreciated the autocratic and insensitive nature of the US Navy in Guam. It conflicted with many Chamorros, amongst the manakhilo’ it was generally those who were educated, such as B.J. Bordallo who constantly conflicted with the Naval Government over issues of economic and political freedom. In his three part account of Guam’s fight for political rights “The Awakening” published in Pacific Profile, he describes his own run-in with the Navy, about mandatory service for the local militia. Bordallo felt it violated his rights and he shouldn’t be required to serve in the Guam Militia. He eventually went to court for his refusal and was fined. His distaste for the authortarian regime on Guam went so far, that he would often advise farmers and merchants on how to deal with the Navy, and its sometimes oppressive economic laws. 17

            Francisco Leon Guerrero was different than Bordallo. Bordallo’s knowledge of American principles and culture came from his attending college in San Francisco as a young man. For Leon Guerrero he had no such experience. He was a self-taught lawyer and a product of the local school system. His resistance to the Naval regime was brought about by an incident in which he was jailed by the Naval governor for not saluting him. Different versions of the story exist, some of which portray the Leon Guerrero has a staunch Chamorro patriot who refused to salute the governor, whereas more realistic versions create the incident as an accident in which Leon Guerrero didn’t salute fast enough after being distracted by something, and the Governor quickly called for his arrest.

            Regardless of the specific events, he was put in jail for not saluting, which is as benevolently tyrannical as things can get. The experiences of these two are not unique in and of themselves, nor within their class. The average Chamorro could also partake in this resistance when he or she would intentionally or accidentally brush up against the Naval Government. The most common form of this interaction was with the Chamorro tuberu siha, or bootleggers. They would make a local alcoholic concoction known as tuba or aguayente, which the sailors stationed on Guam generally clamored to get ahold of. But since the arrival of the Navy in 1899, they had worked hard to shut down the local bootleggers, particularly through the use of Marines who would act as sheriffs, health inspectors and watchmen that would be assigned to villages, and expected to keep tabs on the local population. These Chamorros who had actually been selling tuba to foreigners, making landfall in Guam for centuries, were merely trying to make a living, but instead found themselves constantly fined or detained by Naval authorities.

            Click here for Chapter 6...