The Northern Mariana Islands are a territory of the United States in
the Pacific Ocean. The Mariana Islands, which at that time also included
the now independent island of Guam, were discovered by Ferdinand
Magellan in 1521 and subsequently claimed by Spain.
After the
defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Mariana Islands were
divided: while the island of Guam came into the possession of the United
States, Spain sold the other islands (the northern Mariana Islands) to
Germany; they became part of the colony of German New Guinea. After
World War I, Germany lost the colony and the islands were held in trust
by Japan until the islands finally had to be handed over to the United
States after World War II.
Economically, the islands are almost
entirely dependent on American development aid. In the past, the area
was able to benefit from its special status as a foreign territory of
the United States because numerous protective laws such as the minimum
wage or the ban on child labor did not apply here. The American entry
regulations also did not apply to these islands, which is why numerous
Chinese immigrants came to the island as cheap labor. Since 2009, all of
these regulations have been scrapped and the islands have failed to
develop a new source of income. There is very limited tourism mainly
from South Korea.
Entry requirements
Since the Northern Mariana Islands are a
foreign territory of the United States, their entry requirements also
apply here, i.e. you have to register in the ESTA system and apply for
an electronic visa there.
Citizens from 14 countries are
exceptionally allowed to enter the Northern Mariana Islands without US
immigration formalities for up to 45 days. According to the current
status (2017), this does not include a German-speaking country. Citizens
from German-speaking countries are therefore dependent on the ESTA
system until further notice.
By plane
The only international
airport is Saipan Airport (IATA: SPN). Direct connections exist mainly
to Korea (Seoul-Incheon), China (Beijing, Shanghai) and Hong Kong. There
are no connections from the USA to the Northern Mariana Islands.
By boat
There is currently no regular shipping service to the
Northern Mariana Islands.
There are flight connections between all three inhabited islands of the archipelago.
The official languages of the archipelago are English, Chamorro and Caroline. In general, you can get along with English without any problems.
Large hotel chains are mainly represented in the Northern Mariana Islands, so the price level is correspondingly high. Cheap accommodation is very rare.
There is no higher education institution on the islands.
The job market in the Northern Mariana Islands, if you can get a work permit at all, is considered very difficult because (especially since 2009) there is a large oversupply of workers.
The area consists of 16 islands stretching over 500 kilometers, of which Saipan, Tinian and Rota are the largest. In 2009, the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument was designated there.
86 percent of the population speak a language other than English in private, e.g. Micronesian and Polynesian languages. Population growth is 2.8 percent per year. The Northern Mariana Islands used to be the country with the largest proportion of women in the world at 1:0.77 due to mostly female guest workers in the textile sector, but is no longer so after the collapse of the textile industry. The population has fallen in recent years, to an estimated 55,000 in 2017.
The Mariana Islands were discovered by Magellan's expedition on March
6, 1521. There, the Chamorro aborigines, who lived at the stage of the
primitive communal system, stole a boat from the Spaniards, and Magellan
named these islands Las Islas de los Ladrones - that is, the Islands of
Thieves, or the Robber Islands.
Although these islands were
declared the possession of Spain back in the 16th century, the Spaniards
began to establish practical control over them only in 1668. Spanish
Jesuit monks landed there, renamed the islands Marianas (Las Islas
Marianas or Las Marianas) in honor of Queen Marianna of Austria and
began converting the natives to the Christian faith. This caused fierce
resistance from the natives, and as a result, almost the entire male
population of the islands was destroyed by the Spanish soldiers
accompanying the monks. Subsequently, the population of the Mariana
Islands increased again due to the offspring of aboriginal women from
Spanish soldiers and monks.
The Spanish colonialists practically
did not develop the islands, and at the end of the 19th century Germany
became very interested in the Pacific territories. As a result, under an
agreement dated February 12, 1899, Germany bought the Mariana Islands
from Spain for an amount equivalent to $4.5 million (except for Guam,
annexed by the United States, the largest and southernmost island of the
Mariana archipelago).
The Germans began to create plantations on
the islands, but their rule was short-lived - during the First World
War, the Mariana Islands (like the neighboring Caroline and Marshall
Islands, also bought by Germany from Spain in 1899) were occupied by
Japan, which, under the Treaty of Versailles, received them in
accordance with the mandate League of Nations.
The Japanese
actively developed sugar cane plantations on the islands, as well as
coconut palms, tobacco and citrus fruits, pursued a deliberate policy of
settling the islands with Japanese and forcibly assimilated the
aborigines (including through the method of forced physical mixing of
aborigines with Japanese settlers).
During World War II, American
troops captured the Marianas and other Pacific islands, and at the end
of the war, Japanese settlers were deported to Japan; at the same time,
the Caroline, Marshall and Mariana Islands, by decision of the UN, were
transferred to the trusteeship of the United States in 1947.
The
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands was created in 1976 during
the division of the UN Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Unlike
the Marshall and Caroline Islands, the Marianas decided to renounce
state sovereignty, preferring internal self-government within the United
States.
On January 9, 1978, the constitution of the Commonwealth
of the Northern Mariana Islands came into force.
On November 4,
1986, the final agreement on the political status of the Northern
Mariana Islands within the United States came into force.
For a
long time, the islands remained a tax-free zone, from where goods
produced there under the “Made in the USA” label were freely imported
into the United States. Since US labor laws (including minimum wage
laws) did not apply to the Northern Mariana Islands, this made it
possible to use cheap immigrant labor. At the request of the Democrats,
a commission was created in the US Congress that was supposed to
investigate the activities of companies operating on the islands.
However, the administration of the islands turned for help to the famous
lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who achieved the dissolution of the commission.
For these services, the island administration alone paid Abramoff at
least $6.7 million. However, Abramoff was arrested in 2005 and convicted
in 2006. The Abramoff case led to the victimization of several
high-ranking officials, and Congressman Randy Cunningham received 8
years in prison in 2006 for bribes totaling $2.4 million. In addition,
lobbying legislation was tightened.
As a result, after the
Abramoff case in 2007-2008, changes were made to the agreement on the
political status of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
within the United States, bringing the laws of the Commonwealth closer
to the requirements of the United States, including a gradual increase
in the minimum wage to the levels established in the United States,
about elections of a delegate to the US House of Representatives and
changes in immigration laws (the last changes came into force on
November 28, 2009).
The Northern Mariana Islands are a "unincorporated, organized
territory" of the USA with internal autonomy since 1986 and its own
constitution since 1978. The political system consists of a bicameral
parliament - a Senate with nine and a House of Representatives with 18
members - and an elected governor. The head of state is the President of
the United States, the current head of government is Governor Ralph
Torres after his predecessor Eloy Inos passed away on December 28, 2015.
Citizens of the Mariana Islands are US citizens but do not have the
right to vote in US presidential elections. You don't have to pay
federal taxes.
In 2018, the Northern Mariana Islands became the
first US territory to legalize the possession of small quantities and
the licensed manufacture of recreational and medicinal cannabis
products.
The official languages are English, Chamorro and
Caroline, while Korean and Japanese are also spoken on the island.
The basis of the economy of the Northern Mariana Islands is foreign
tourism (up to 0.5 million tourists per year, mainly from Japan). Until
October 2019, Russian citizens had the right to visa-free entry for up
to 45 days for tourism purposes. In the tourism service sector there are
many visiting workers (Filipinos, Chinese, etc.)
Agriculture does
not meet domestic needs. Coconuts, fruits and vegetables are grown. On a
small scale - livestock farming and fishing.
There is practically
no export; food, industrial goods, fuel, etc. are imported.
Financial subsidies from the United States are essential.
The
monetary unit is the US dollar.
On the Mariana Islands, the former aboriginal culture has long since
become a thing of the past; only isolated, faintly visible traces remain
of it. Its place was taken by one of the variants of the so-called
Spanish colonial culture. Decades of German, then Japanese and finally
American rule also had an impact.
Chamorros have been wearing
European-style clothing for a long time; traditional elements are poorly
preserved in food, utensils, and housing. Only the relatively high
position of women (traces of matriarchal traditions) reminds us of the
former social order of the aborigines. Previous religious beliefs have
not been preserved. Today's Chamorros are overwhelmingly Catholic.
However, despite significant changes in culture, the modern mestizo
population of the Mariana Islands has retained the language of their
Oceanian ancestors in relative purity.