Bonin Islands

At the end of the 20th century, prehistoric tools and carved stones were discovered on North Iwo Jima and Chichijima, establishing that the islands were previously home to at least some members of an unknown Micronesian people.[7]

The first recorded visit by Europeans to the islands happened on 2 October 1543, when the Spanish explorer Bernardo de la Torre on the San Juan sighted Haha-jima, which he charted as Forfana.[8] At that time, the islands were uninhabited. Japanese discovery of the islands occurred in Kanbun 10 (1670) and was followed by a shogunate expedition in Enpō 3 (1675).[9] The islands were then referred to as Bunin jima (無人島, Buninjima), literally "the uninhabited islands". Shimaya Ichizaemon, the explorer at the order of the shogunate, inventoried several species of trees and birds, but after his expedition, the shogunate abandoned any plans to develop the remote islands.[10]

In 1727, Ogasawara Sadatō (小笠原 貞任, Ogasawara Sadatō), a rōnin, claimed that the islands were discovered by his ancestor Ogasawara Sadayori (小笠原 貞頼, Ogasawara Sadayori), in 1593, (Tensho 20), and the territory was granted as a fief by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. However, investigation of the claim found that it was a fraud and the very existence of Sadayori was doubtful; as a punishment Sadato was exiled by the shogunate (1735).

The first published description of the islands in the West was brought to Europe by Isaac Titsingh in 1796. His small library of Japanese books included Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (三国通覧図説, An Illustrated Description of Three Countries) by Hayashi Shihei.[11] This book, which was published in Japan in 1785,[12] briefly described the Ogasawara Islands.[13][14]

These groups were collectively called the Archbishop Islands in Spanish sources of the 18th–19th century, most likely due to an expedition organized by Pedro Moya de Contreras, archbishop of Mexico and viceroy of New Spain, to explore the northern Pacific and the islands of Japan. Its main objective was to find the long sought but legendary islands of Rica de Oro ("Rich in Gold"), Rica de Plata ("Rich in Silver"), and the Islas del Armenio ("Islands of the Armenian"). After several years of planning and frustrated initial attempts, the expedition finally set sail on 12 July 1587 commanded by Pedro de Unamuno. Even if it did revisit the Daitō Islands, already charted by Bernardo de la Torre in 1543, the expedition could not find the wanted islands after searching the positions where they were charted in contemporary references.[6] Japanese maps at the time seem to have been rather inaccurate, to the point that some contemporaries considered them to have been deliberately misleading[15] to discourage colonization attempts by foreign nations. Frederick William Beechey used the Spanish name as late as 1831, believing that the Japanese "Boninsima" were entirely different islands.[16]

On 12 September 1824 American Captain James Coffin in the whaler Transit first visited the southern group of islands (Coffin Islands). He visited the archipelago again in 1825 but this time he arrived at the middle group of islands (Beechey Group).[17]

In September 1825, the British whaling ship Supply landed in the southern Bailey Group of islands. In 1826, another British whaler, William, arrived at Beechey Island.[17] Whaling ships called on a regular basis, for water and turtles, before continuing their voyages.[18]

In 1827 Captain F. W. Beechey of HMS Blossom reached the island chain and claimed them as a British possession.[19] A copper plate was removed from Blossom's hull and left on a beach as a marker of the claim:

"HBM Ship Blossom Capt F. W. Beechey took possession of this Group of Islands in the Name of and on the behalf of His Britannic Majesty George the IV on the 14th June 1827."[20]

He also named the island of Chichijima "Peel" after then British Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel.[2] Beechey was also surprised to find two men living on the islands. They remained on the islands after the William left the year before in 1826. The men were Wittrein and Petersen.[17]

In 1830, with the help of British Consul to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) Richard Charlton, Richard Millichamp, and Matteo Mazzaro sailed to the islands.[17] The first permanent colony was made up of Nathaniel Savory of Bradford, Massachusetts, America, Richard Millichamp of Devon, England; Matteo Mazzaro of Ragusa/Dubrovnik, Austrian Empire (now in Croatia); Alden B. Chapin and Nathaniel Savory of Boston; Carl Johnsen of Copenhagen; as well as seven unnamed men and 13 women from the Kingdom of Hawaii.[21] They found the climate suitable for farming and the raising of livestock. Rum was made from cane sugar, and bordellos were opened, sometimes staffed by women kidnapped from other island chains. Whalers and other ships that could not find another friendly port in Japan often visited the Bonins for provision and recreation.[22]

Two years later the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland published a posthumous, abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation of Sankoku Tsūran Zusetsu.[23]

Further settlers arrived in 1846, aboard the whaling ship Howard. They established themselves initially in South Island. One of them, a woman from the Caroline Islands named Hypa, died in 1897 age about 112, after being baptized on her deathbed.[24]

Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy visited the islands in 1853 and bought property at Port Lloyd from Savory for $50. The US "Colony of Peel Island" (Chichijima) was created and Savory was appointed governor.

A village in the Bonins during the early Shōwa period

In January 1862 (Bunkyū 1), the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan claimed the islands in a short-lived colonial enterprise. The shogunal steamboat Kanrin Maru was dispatched to the islands with a crew of cartographers, physicians and prominent bureaucrats. The islands were officially renamed Ogasawara, referring to the legendary Japanese discoverer from the late 16th century. This tentative colonization, however, did not last for long. In summer 1863, under foreign pressure, the shogunate ordered the evacuation of the islands.[10]

In 1875 the Japanese Meiji government reclaimed the islands.[25] The Japanese names of each island were resolved and 38 settlers from Hachijojima were sent the following year. In 1876 the islands were put under the direct control of the Home Ministry. Further foreign settlement was banned, and the government assisted settlers who wished to relocate there from mainland Japan. The islands' forests were also cut down for sugar cane production. Colonists largely segregated themselves in two different villages, one for the Americans and the other for the Japanese.[2] Islanders of European and US ancestry were eventually granted Japanese nationality in 1882. Jack London visited the islands in 1893 and published an account of his sojourn.[2]

Lionel Cholmondeley compiled a history of the islands over the course of several years, publishing in 1915.[26]

In 1917, 60–70 island people claimed ancestry among the 19th-century English-speaking settlers; however, in 1941, no Bonin people would acknowledge descent from these early colonists.[27] The current residents include some who claim to be related to Nathaniel Savory.[28] In the winter of 1920–1921, Russian Futurist painter David Burliuk lived in the Bonin Islands and painted several landscapes of the islands.[29]

A man at a well, alongside buildings with the thatched roofs, weather-beaten unpainted sides and paper partitions and windows, characteristic of the islands before World War II

The islanders were relegated to an insignificant status up through the early Shōwa period. After Japan's attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, English was banned on the Bonins, and Americans had to take on Japanese names.[2] As fighting creeped closer to Japan during the later stage of the war, most inhabitants were forcibly evacuated to the mainland. There was a Japanese military base on Chichijima run by a Major Sueo Matoba (的場 末男, Matoba Sueo), who was known for engaging in cannibalism and other acts on prisoners of war.[30] The torpedo bomber of later American President George H. W. Bush crashed in the ocean near Chichijima. He ended up getting rescued by USS Finback and becoming the only one to ultimately survive.[31][32] Eight other airmen downed near the islands were later executed and cannibalized by the Japanese soldiers.[2] Matoba Sueo was eventually hanged for his crimes after the war.[30] The Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, one of the fiercest battles of World War II, was fought on a garrison island in this region of the Pacific.[33]

Following Japan's surrender, the islands were controlled by the United States Navy for the next 23 years, which the Westerners referred to as "Navy Time." All residents except those descended from the original settlers (the Ōbeikei Islanders) and/or related to them by marriage were expelled,[34] while pre-war inhabitants of White American or European, Micronesian or Polynesian ancestry were allowed to return.[35] Vacant properties of exiled Japanese were bulldozed as part of the Navy's management of nuclear weapons on Chichijima. In 1956, the residents petitioned for American annexation of the islands but received no response. In 1968, the United States government returned the Bonins to Japanese control. The Ōbeikei could choose to either become Japanese nationals or to receive American citizenship and repatriate to the United States. The majority remained in the islands as Japanese citizens. Initially some 600 Japanese relocated to the islands, growing to about 2,000 by the end of the 20th century.[2]

The Bonins were named a natural World Heritage Site on 24 June 2011.[36]

Kominato beach and Kopepe Beach, Chichi-jima

Flora has evolved differently on each of the islands. The Bonin Islands are sometimes referred to as the Galápagos of the Orient.[45][36] They form a distinct subtropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion, the Ogasawara subtropical moist forests. The ecoregion has a high degree of biodiversity and endemism. The islands are home to about 500 plant species, of which 43% are endemic. The forests are of three main types:[46]

• Type I: Elaeocarpus–Ardisia mesic forest is found in the moist lowland areas with deep soils. The forests have a closed canopy with a height of about 15 meters (49 ft), dominated by Ardisia sieboldii. Elaeocarpus photiniaefolius, Pisonia umbellifera, and Planchonella obovata are other important canopy species. These forests were almost completely destroyed by clearing for agriculture before 1945.
• Type II: Distylium–Raphiolepis–Schima dry forest is found in drier lowland and upland sites with shallower soils. It is also a closed-canopy forest, with a 4-to-8-meter (13 to 26 ft) canopy composed mostly of Distylium lepidotum, Rhaphiolepis integerrima, Schima mertensiana, Planchonella obovata, and Syzygium buxifolium. The Type II forests can be further subdivided into:
  • Type IIa: Distylium-Schima dry forest occurs in cloudy upland areas with fine-textured soils. These forests contain many rare and endemic species, with Pandanus boninensis and Syzygium buxifolium as the predominant trees.
  • Type IIb: Raphiolepis-Livistona dry forest is found in upland areas with few clouds and rocky soils. Rhaphiolepis integerrima is the dominant tree species, along with the fan palm Livistona boninensis, Pandanus boninensis and Ochrosia nakaiana.
• Type III: Distylium-Planchonella scrub forest is found on windy and dry mountain ridges and exposed sea cliffs. These forests have the highest species diversity on the islands. Distylium lepidotum and Planchonella obovata are the dominant species, growing from 0.5 to 1.5 meters (1.6 to 4.9 ft) tall. Other common shrubs are Myrsine okabeana, Symplocos kawakamii, and Pittosporum parvifolium.[46]

These islands are home to the northernmost outliers of the palm genus Clinostigma. C. savoryianum is endemic and has been planted in Mediterranean climates with success. Other unique species include Metrosideros boninensis, a plant related to similar species growing in Fiji and New Caledonia.

Due to its isolation and recent colonization, the Bonin Islands contain several endemic animal species, most of them recently extinct.

A Bonin petrel

The range of the Bonin petrel extends beyond the Bonins themselves to other islands in the North Pacific. There are two restricted-range species of birds on the islands, the Japanese wood pigeon (Columba janthina) and the near-threatened Bonin white-eye (Apalopteron familiare), formerly known as the Bonin honeyeater. The Japanese wood pigeon was extirpated from the Iwo Island groups in the 1980s. The formerly endemic Bonin pigeon (C. versicolor), Bonin thrush (Zoothera terrestris) and Bonin grosbeak (Carpodacus ferreorostris) are now extinct.[47]

A small extinct bat, Sturdee's pipistrelle, is only known in one record and has not been seen since 1915. The Bonin flying fox (Pteropus pselaphon), also called the Bonin fruit bat, is endemic to the islands. It is currently listed as endangered,[48] and a survey published by the Ogasawara Office of Education in 1999 estimated their number at around 100.[49] The Bonin sambar (R. u. boninensis), an extinct subspecies of the sambar deer, is known from subfossil remains.[50]

Mandarina suenoae on Anijima

The islands are also renowned for the many species of snails that are found across the islands, especially the Mandarina snails.[51] Most of the native snails are now endangered or extinct because of introduced species and habitat loss.[52] The giant squid (Architeuthis dux) was photographed off the Bonins for the first time in the wild on 30 September 2004 and was filmed alive there in December 2006.[53]

The Ogasawara Maru at Tokyo's Takeshiba pier. The liner travels between Tokyo and the Bonins.

Futami Port, Chichi-jima, Ogasawara Village.

The main port is Futami on Chichijima. Since 2016, the main line connecting the islands to the mainland is the Ogasawara Shipping Company (小笠原海運株式会社). It operates the Ogasawara Maru (おがさわら丸), an 11,035-ton 150-meter (490 ft) long vessel with 170 private rooms and a total capacity of 894 passengers.[54] With a top speed of 24.7 knots (45.7 km/h; 28.4 mph), it makes the trip from Takeshiba Pier in Tokyo in about 24 hours in good weather.[54] The number of monthly voyages varies, having fallen during the coronavirus epidemic.

Previously, there had been plans for a 14,500-ton "techno superliner" able to reach a maximum speed of 38 knots (70 km/h; 44 mph) and make the same journey in only 17 hours with a capacity of around 740 passengers.[55] The project was canceled in July 2005, however, due to rising fuel prices and cost overruns of ¥2 billion.[56]

To get to Hahajima, one first travels to Chichijima and then crosses on the ferry Hahajima Maru.

Ogasawara Village operates a bus service on Chichijima and elderly passengers may use a "silver pass". There is also a sightseeing taxi service, a rental car company, motorized scooter rental services, a bike rental service, and other amenities. Bringing one's own automobile onto the island is extremely difficult and costly.

The Bonins have no airport. During severe accidents, illnesses, and other emergencies, a helicopter is dispatched from the Self-Defense Force post on Iwo Jima. The ShinMaywa US-1 seaplane from the SDF post at Iwakuni is used during visits by the Tokyo governor and other dignitaries and for any emergency requiring rapid transport back to Honshu.

For several decades, there has been talk of building a full airport.[57][58][59][60] Sites on Chichijima and Anijima have both been rejected. Travel time to the mainland would be cut to around 2 hours, improving tourism and the provision of emergency services,[61] and the national, regional, and local government have all supported the idea in theory. Projects have lagged, however, due to concerns about its economic feasibility and concerns that the proposed sites are homes to numerous valuable, rare, or endangered plant species. Some locals have greatly desired an airport, while a desire to keep the natural beauty of the islands untouched has prompted othes to work to block one.[62][63] The issue is quite controversial on the islands.[64]

On 26 June 2016, the Japanese minister of environment Tamayo Marukawa talked about airport construction on the Bonins after the meeting in Tokyo commemorating the 5th anniversary of their registration as World Natural Heritage.[65] At a 27 July 2017 meeting with Ogasawara Village, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced that it was considering opening a regular air route between Tokyo and the Bonins using a proposed 1,200 m (3,900 ft) runway that would be built on Chichijima. This would allow it to land propeller aircraft with up to 50 passengers. The Tokyo government said that construction would depend on future assessment of the impact on the natural environment and economic feasibility. Ogasawara Village supported the runway in preference to expanding either the current helicopter or seaplane access.[66] In fiscal 2019, 490 million yen was included in the Japanese budget for a feasibility study and a survey on Chichijima to determine the best location to construct the runway.[67] In August 2020, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government held a council during which it affirmed its desire to open an airport but claimed that it would not occur until 2030 at the earliest.[61] To address environmental concerns, they further proposed shortening the runway to about 500 meters (1,600 ft) and using tiltrotor aircraft to compensate.[61]

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