Chief Quipuha

Who is Chief Quipuha?

Chief Quipuha (also rendered Kepuha) was the ranking Chamorro chief of the village of Hagåtña on Guam at the time of first sustained European missionary contact. In 1668 he welcomed the Spanish Jesuit missionary Padre Diego Luis de San Vitores and his party, permitting them to establish a mission in the Mariana Islands. Quipuha became one of the first high-ranking Chamorros to be baptized into the Catholic faith and donated land in Hagåtña for the construction of the first Catholic church in the islands, a site that later became the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica. His alliance with the Spanish opened the door to the sustained missionization and eventual colonization of the Mariana Islands, a legacy that later Chamorro historians and communities have viewed with a mix of respect for his diplomacy and reflection on its long-term costs to Chamorro sovereignty. He is remembered today as a pivotal, transitional figure at the start of Guam's recorded colonial history, and Hagåtña's Plaza de España area preserves memory of this founding-era history.

Sources: Robert F. Rogers, Destiny's Landfall: A History of Guam (University of Hawaii Press) · Guampedia (University of Guam), "Chief Quipuha" / "Kepuha" entry