GUAM: AT THE CROSSROADS OF SPANISH IMPERIAL MILITARIZATION, ECOLOGICAL CHANGE, AND IDENTITY IN WORLD HISTORY

Cynthia Ross Wiecko

This dissertation argues that globalization during the Spanish imperial period (1521-1898) largely produced the Guamanian identity. Militarization to safeguard Spain's global trade route across the Pacific led to ecological changes including introduced populations, plants, animals, diseases, and landscape changes associated with Catholicization that blended with the original Chamorro culture. This resulted in a hybrid identity that long outlasted the Spanish regime. A world history focus on connections and exchanges offers a unique lens with which to view this remaking of an identity as reflected in Guam's landscape change. Beginning with Guam's ecological history prior to European contact illustrates ancient settlement significantly altered Guam's ecology from its `natural' state long before Spanish arrival. Guam's importance as the way station along the Manila Galleon route dictated the inevitable militarization of the `built' environment through garrison construction and infrastructure expansion. Additionally, reducción policies to force Catholic conversion, including concentrating people in church-centered villages also dramatically altered the urban landscapes. Agaña became the colonial capital with Spanish-style buildings and wide avenues, reflecting European aesthetics of order and `civilization.' Anthropogenic introductions figure prominently in this dissertation. Agents of the empire fundamentally changed Guam's ecology by importing desired species to create imperialized environments for comfort, profit, and aesthetics. For example, the Spanish introduced tangantangan (Leucaena leucocephala) in the late seventeenth century as fodder for imported cattle brought in to feed the garrison. Within a few decades, the tropical American tree formed dense thickets across the island. Tangantangan naturalized by the nineteenth century and is now an invasive species. The introduction of tangantangan was only one part of a larger ecological imperialism project, with a host of global implications. Exploring the expansion of Spanish imperial militarization leads to a better understanding of its effects on indigenous identities and ecologies, a crucial part of developing world history. Indeed, the ecological, military, and identity experience of Guam is illustrative of similar processes across all European empires and American imperial ventures. These include biological exchanges, negotiated and contested local relationships with foreign military presences, and the legacies of hybrid identities that continued shaping local histories long after the imperialists left.

GUAM: AT THE CROSSROADS OF SPANISH IMPERIAL MILITARIZATION, ECOLOGICAL CHANGE, AND IDENTITY IN WORLD HISTORY

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