Sapwuahfik, formerly Ngatik, or the Raven Islands
/ref> is a

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical parts of the oceans and seas where corals can develop. Most ...

in Pohnpei state of the

Federated States of Micronesia The Federated States of Micronesia (, abbreviated FSM), or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a region of Oceania. The federation encompasses the majority of the Caroline Islands (excluding Palau) and consists of four Admin ...

. It is a village and

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of roughly 430 people on a land area of . It is mostly known in history as the site of the Ngatik massacre.

Geography

It is located southwest of the main island of

Pohnpei Pohnpei (formerly known as Ponape or Ascension, from Pohnpeian: "upon (''pohn'') a stone altar (''pei'')") is an island of the Senyavin Islands which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. It belongs to Pohnpei State, one of the fou ...

in the Eastern

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the cen ...

and consists of 10 individual islands on the reef. The largest and only inhabited island is Ngatik, at the western end. The atoll is long and up to wide. The

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

measures in area, and the total area is . The aggregate land area of the 10 islands is , of which the main island Ngatik is , or more than half. While Ngatik is the only inhabited island, the six larger of the remaining islands are used by the population for harvesting coconuts and growing

taro Taro (; ''Colocasia esculenta'') is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, stems and Petiole (botany), petioles. Taro corms are a ...

, and animal husbandry (pigs and chickens). There are 12 buildings for temporary shelter on those islands. The islands, clockwise, starting at Ngatik in the west:

Airfield

Sapwuahfik has an airstrip that lies just off the island of Ngatik, the Sapwuahfik Civil Airfield ().

Coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of Wind wave, waves, Ocean current, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts ...

has cut the airstrip off from the island by about 20 meters, making it necessary to ferry arriving and departing passengers between it and Ngatik by boat. There are on-call personnel who go to the airfield whenever a flight is expected.

Population

The population of Sapwuahfik was approximately 433 in 2010. The culture is closely related to that of

, its closest neighbor; however it retains its own distinctive character. The local creole, Ngatik Men's Creole, developed as a result of the 1837 Ngatik massacre, during which the island's male population was wiped out by the crew of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n captain C. H. Hart and Pohnpeian warriors. Some of the Europeans and

Pohnpeians The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan. Ethno ...

settled and repopulated the island, taking the local women as wives. The island formed a new culture and language, a mixture of English and Ngatikese (a Pohnpeic language). In addition to the creole, which is only spoken by men, all of the residents speak Ngatikese, a Pohnpeic language closely related to the

Pohnpeian language Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with ano ...

History

The atoll was first discovered by Westerners on 6 April 1773 by the Spanish naval officer Felipe Tompson when sailing from

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

to San Blas in

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

on board of the vessel ''Nuestra Señora de la Consolación'' also called in short ''Buen Fin''. Tompson charted the island as ''Los Valientes'' (the island of the bold in Spanish). At some point between 1793 and 1796,

William Raven William Raven (1756–1814) was an English master mariner, naval officer and merchant. He commanded the whaler and sealing vessel ''Britannia'' and the naval store ship in Australian and New Zealand waters from 1792 until 1799. While in command ...

, captain of ''Britannia'' gave a firm sighting to the island. Solomon Sumner, Seventh-day Adventist Missionary, was buried on the island in 1990.

Education

Pohnpei State Department of Education Pohnpei State Department of Education (PDOE) is an agency of Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia that operates public schools. Churchill B. Edward is the department's director. Schools it had 31 elementary schools with 556 preschool ...

operates public schools: * Sapwuafik Elementary SchoolPohnpei Schools
." Pohnpei State Department of Education. Retrieved on February 23, 2018.

Transportation

Just east of the Sapwuahfik is an Sapwuahfik Airfield with a paved runway.

Notes

References

External links

*
Deutsches Koloniallexikon
(German)

retrieved December 8, 2010
POHNPEI (Islas Carolinas orientales). 3º parte.
(Spanish) {{authority control Atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia Municipalities of Pohnpei Islands of Pohnpei