Aghurubw

Who is Aghurubw?

The 1815 Carolinian migration to Saipan is one of the founding events remembered in Northern Mariana Islands history, and Commonwealth cultural and historical materials commonly credit its leadership to a Carolinian chief remembered as Aghurubw, though, as with much of this period's oral history, spellings and details vary between accounts. Severe typhoons around 1815 devastated food supplies on low-lying atolls in the central Caroline Islands, including Satawal and its neighboring islands, driving survivors to seek permission from the Spanish colonial government then administering the Marianas to resettle on Saipan and Tinian, islands that had been left largely depopulated after most of the indigenous Chamorro population was relocated to Guam decades earlier under Spanish rule. Spanish Governor Don Jose de Medinilla y Pineda granted the newcomers land and permission to settle, and the Carolinian migrants, traveling in traditional outrigger sailing canoes across open ocean using non-instrument navigation, brought with them their language, canoe-building skill, and customs. Their arrival founded the community that grew into today's Refaluwasch population of the Commonwealth, and this leader's role in organizing the crossing is cited in Commonwealth historical and cultural materials as a founding moment of the modern Carolinian community in the Northern Marianas.

Sources: CNMI Division of Historic Preservation and Northern Marianas Humanities Council, historical accounts of the 1815 Carolinian migration to Saipan · William Alkire, "An Introduction to the Peoples and Cultures of Micronesia" (2nd ed., Addison-Wesley Module in Anthropology, 1977) · Scott Russell, "Tiempon I Manmofo'na: Ancient Chamorro Culture and History of the Northern Mariana Islands" (CNMI Division of Historic Preservation, 1998)