History of Kwajalein

describes the past century of colonialism and serves to explain why Kwajalein is still so precious to foreign interests. This story was also the origin of the name Kuwajleen, which apparently derives from Ri-ruk-jan-leen, "the people who harvest the flowers".

League of Nations mandate

The islands of the atoll, particularly the main island, served as a rural copra-trading outpost administered by Japanese civilians under the Japanese Mandated "South Seas" Islands of Micronesia (the Nanyō Guntō) for twenty-two years. The earliest-known Japanese record of Kwajalein and the Marshall Islands appears in the writings of Suzuki Keikun, who was dispatched to the Marshall Islands in 1885 to investigate a Japanese shipwreck. This visit was followed by two decades of German colonial rule in the Marshalls. Japan, joining the Triple Entente peacefully captured control of the islands from Germany in 1914 and established administrative control in 1922 under a League of Nations Mandate.

Early Japanese influence

There was some Japanese settlement in Kwajalein Atoll comprising mostly traders and their families who worked at local branches of shops headquartered at nearby Jaluit Atoll where Japanese civilians numbered in the several hundred to nearly 1,000 at the height of the Japanese administration. There were also local administrative staff at Kwajalein, and with the establishment