From a
European perspective, the Maug Islands were discovered in 1522 by , who named it
Las Monjas ("The Nuns" in
Spanish). Gómez de Espinosa was a member of
Ferdinand Magellan's attempted circumnavigation of the globe (1519–1522), and after Magellan’s death unsuccessfully attempted to navigate the ship
Trinidad across the Pacific Ocean to the
Viceroyalty of New Spain (now
Mexico). Gomez de Espinosa found the largest island of the Maug Islands settled by
Chamorros, who called the island
Mao or
Pamo. Gómez de Espinosa freed Chamorros whom he had kidnapped on
Agrihan and three of his crewmen deserted the
Trinidad on the island. The Chamorros killed two of the deserters, but the third,
castaway Gonzalo Alvarez de Vigo, later came to
Guam. Spain governed the Maug Islands as part of the
Spanish East Indies beginning in the
16th century. In 1669, the Spanish missionary
Diego Luis de San Vitores visited the Maug Islands and named them
San Lorenzo (St. Lawrence). In 1695, the Spaniards forcibly deported all of the inhabitants of the islands to
Saipan, and since that time the islands have been uninhabited. (In 1698, the Spaniards moved the former Maug Island inhabitants from Saipan to Guam.) In 1899, Spain sold the Maug Islands along with the rest of the
Mariana Islands (except Guam, which the
United States had seized from Spain in 1898) to the
German Empire under the terms of the
German–Spanish Treaty. The formalities of cession took place on November 17, 1899, on
Saipan. Germany administered the islands as part of
German New Guinea. In 1903, the Germans leased the Maug Islands to a Japanese company which hunted birds for feathers for export to
Japan and from there to
Paris. During
World War I (1914–1918), the
Empire of Japan seized the Maug Islands in 1914 and subsequently administered them as part of the
South Seas Mandate. The Japanese established a
weather station and a fish processing plant on the islands. During
World War II, the German
auxiliary cruiser rendezvoused with supply ships in the waters over the caldera of the Maug Islands in January–February 1941 . During the
Pacific campaign (1941–1945) of
World War II, the United States captured the Maug Islands, which became part of the vast
US Naval Base Marianas. After the war ended in 1945, the islands came under the control of the
United Nations and was administered on its behalf by the United States as part of the
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. In 1978, the islands became part of the
Northern Islands Municipality of the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which in turn became an
unincorporated territory and
commonwealth of the United States in 1986. In 1985, per the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the islands were designated as a wilderness area for the protection and conservation of natural resources. Since 2009, the submerged lands and waters around the Maug Islands have been part of the
Marianas Trench Marine National Monument of the United States. ==Gallery==