On Thursday afternoon, the book was unveiled and a book signing was held at the atrium of the University of Guam’s Leon Guerrero School of Business in Mangilao.
“It’s an update on the history of the Marianas that was published in 1991,” he said of the book, which was published by the CNMI Public School System.
“Two years ago I spoke to the commissioner on education, Dr. Rita Sablan, about updating the book and she said she liked the idea and she took it to the CNMI Board of Education and they gave it their full approval,” he adds.
He explained the book originally had eight chapters but because of new information, two more chapters were added.
He also said the book is geared toward middle school students. There is another book in the works for high schools and it deals with the modern history of the Northern Mariana Islands to the present.
“So what we’ve done now is create a middle school textbook that teaches the indigenous history of the islands up to the Spanish administration because at that time there was only one Marianas so I couldn’t write the history of the Northern Marianas without writing about Guam,” he said.
When asked if there was any particular part of the book he considers important, he cited some chapters.
Repopulation
Farrell referred to Chapter 7, which talks about the repopulation of the Northern Mariana Islands and how the population was defined on Guam. The chapter also touches on the arrival of the Carolinians, who came from what is now Yap, Kosrae, and Chuuk. He then turned to Chapter 8 which was a period of isolation, disease, natural disasters and the arrival of whalers, convicts and an insurrection.
Farrell also cited the Mexican-Spanish war that ended with the Mexicans winning and kicking out the Spanish. It also ended the traveling of ships from the Americas through the Marianas.
“That means that now all communication with the Marianas are solely from Manila and very few ships came so I started leading this story about how years go by without a ship stopping,” he said.
Farrell isn’t ready to stop writing and is nearly done with not only the book for high schools but also a book about the bombs that were on Tinian.
He believes all students should get involved in history and choose it as a profession.
