Welcome to Kolonia, a coastal town in the north of Pohnpei Island and the capital of Pohnpei State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Until 1989 it was also the capital of the whole country, before nearby Palikir took over that role. Kolonia is small, just 1.5 square kilometres, yet it is the largest population centre and the commercial hub of the island. Its history has been shaped by several foreign rulers, and traces of each remain all around town. On this tour we will find Spanish, German and Japanese remnants, and visit an ancient city of stone in the lagoon.
Nan Madol
Photo: NOAA · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsWe begin with the most extraordinary site on Pohnpei: Nan Madol, off the island's eastern shore. This was the capital of the Saudeleur dynasty until about 1628. Built in a lagoon, it is made up of 92 artificial islets of stone and coral, separated by tidal canals. That is where the name comes from: Nan Madol means within the intervals, referring to the waterways between the ruins. No wonder people call it the Venice of the Pacific, or even the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Deke Sokehs
Photo: USGS · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsLook west of Kolonia to the mountainous Sokehs Peninsula. It was once an island, but is now joined to Pohnpei by a causeway and a field of mangroves. Here you will see Sokehs Rock, a towering cliff face that is one of Micronesia's best-known natural landmarks. The peninsula also has a painful history. In October 1910 islanders rose against German colonial rule. The uprising was suppressed in 1911, 15 rebels were executed, and several hundred people of Sokehs were exiled to Palau.
Spanish Wall
Photo: Uhooep · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsIn a local park in Kolonia you will find the Spanish Wall, all that remains of the Spanish Fort Alphonso the Thirteenth. It was built in 1887, after an uprising forced the Spanish authorities to take refuge on a ship in the harbour. When complete it ran for about half a mile and stood 8 feet tall. Later the German administration pulled most of it down. Today about 700 feet of wall and two arches survive, a quiet reminder of Spain's time on the island.
Catholic Belltower
Photo: Uhooep · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAt the Catholic Mission rises a lone tower, 20.7 metres tall. The belltower and the masonry apse beside it are all that is left of a church built in 1909 by German and Spanish Capuchin missionaries. The rest of the church was destroyed during the fighting of the Second World War. Look closely at how it was made: a foundation of basalt rock and lime mortar, with walls of concrete bricks, strong enough to outlast the war that took the church around it.
German Cemetery
Now we come to the German Cemetery, a reminder of the years when Pohnpei and the other Caroline Islands were a German protectorate, from 1899. Two German governors were buried here. In 1976 the cemetery was in a sorry state, reached only by hiking through a mangrove swamp, its wrought iron fence and gate in disrepair. That same year it was listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places.
Japanese Shrine
Our final stop is a small Shinto shrine, a concrete structure just a few feet across with a steeply pitched gable roof, set on a raised platform reached by a short flight of steps. It was built in the 1920s, when Pohnpei was part of the Japanese-administered South Seas Mandate, in the grounds of a school built for the children of Japanese families on the island. It remains one of the surviving reminders of Japanese rule here, and of its segregationist practices.
Lomakuume
