Clipperton Island

Jan. 24, 1521: Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan) discovers the island, according to some (identifying Clipperton with Magellan's San Pablo); others say it was Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón on Nov. 15, 1527. Early maps regularly depict one or more islands at Clipperton's approximate location, notably an Isla de Médanos ("Island of Dunes").
1705: English pirate John Clipperton, who led a mutiny against William Dampier in September 1704, supposedly makes the island his lair; although this is historically as uncertain as the 16th-century claims, the island ultimately takes its dominant name from him.
April 3, 1711: The atoll is sighted on Good Friday by French navigators Martin de Chassiron and Michel Du Bocage (aboard the La Princesse and La Découverte), who name it Île de la Passion. Du Bocage notes: "A large tooth-shaped rock projects off the south point of the low-lying isle, which is battered by breakers. From the northeast the island seems paved with gravel and from a distance appears to have low brush. In the middle of the island is a great lake that appears marginally connected to the sea." They search in vain for safe entrance to the huge lagoon, abandoning the effort on April 6.
Aug. 17, 1825: The Wasp (Captain Benjamin Morrell) visits the island, and a party apparently goes ashore, perhaps the first persons to do so.
May 8, 1839: British captain Edward Belcher surveys Clipperton.
Nov. 17, 1858: The island is formally claimed by a French navy lieutenant, Victor le Coat de Kerveguen, aboard the Amiral. Although he fails to leave any symbol of French sovereignty on the island, he does report his action to the French consulate in Honolulu, which makes a like communication to the Hawaiian government.
July 30, 1892: Under the Guano Islands Act passed by the U.S. in 1856, Captain Frederick W. Permien claims possession of Clipperton for the Stoningham Phosphate Company. He claims to have sighted the island on May 21, 1881, gone ashore on June 30, 1892, to collect guano samples, and hoisted the U.S. flag on July 4. The U.S. authorities take no action on the application, however.
May 25, 1893: Melvin Chapman, representing the Oceanic Phosphate Company of San Francisco, writes to Pres. Grover Cleveland "claiming an interest... derived by assignment from Frederick W. Permien, the alleged discoverer..." and asking for confirmation, to which Acting Secretary of State Alvey A. Adee replies: "There is no assignment on file in this department from either the Stoningham Phosphate Company or Frederick W. Permien and his associates, and [therefore] nothing to show how the Oceanic Phosphate Company derives an interest in the island. Moreover, it appears from Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World that Clipperton Island is claimed by France. Will you kindly advise me whether you have any information as to such claim by the French government? If France has a prior claim to this island, of course no action can be taken by this department, in respect to the occupation and possession by citizens of the United States." Oceanic Phosphate thereafter nevertheless acts as though title had been conferred. (Years later Permien alleges that he was defrauded by Oceanic Phosphate.) However, the guano mining is only marginally profitable, due to inferior product and difficult logistics.
May 1, 1897: After damage caused by a violent storm, the English ship Kinkora, loaded with wood, runs aground on the island's coral reef. Captain William McMurtry and the entire crew take refuge on the island and build shelters from the wood in the cargo. Two live pigs from the wreckage are let loose on the island, where they live on crippled birds and crabs. With no vessel arriving by mid-May, both of the ship's boats are rigged with sails and launched on May 18, but one is immediately caught up in the surf and smashed on the reef. On May 19, the other boat leaves with 6 men, and arrives in Acapulco on June 3, cabling the ship's owners and the Admiralty for relief of the 16 left behind. Meanwhile, the schooner Twilight passed by the island and one of the Americans, tired of the unwanted guests, approached it in a dinghy to arrange for their transportation. The captain of the Twilight asked for $1,500 (subsequently lowered to $1,300) to take them on board. McMurtry refused and, to keep his men busy, invented the legend that John Clipperton hid a treasure on the island. On June 27 they are all rescued by the British cruiser HMS Comus.

The U.S. work crew (with Theodore Gussmann, right), the two pigs, and the crab-proof tree box, 1897.

Aug. 2, 1897: A new three-man work crew and four guests representing the Pacific Islands Company of London arrive in the Navarro. Governor George D. Freeth of the Oceanic Phosphate Company supervises the planting of coconut trees, improvising with planking from the Kinkora to build a "tree box" to shield them from the crabs and pigs. The guests leave with the ship on August 5, and it is soon reported that the Pacific Islands Company intends to acquire the island, one reporter being told that "once the English company secures the guano deposits, there will be no difficulty as to the island. It will be ready to pass into British control as a matter of course." In October the Pacific Islands Company indeed acquires the interests of Oceanic Phosphate.
Nov. 24, 1897: The French cruiser Duguay-Touin confirms reports that the U.S. flag is flying over the island. France subsequently instructs its ambassador in Washington to assert title to the atoll and the U.S. replies (Jan. 6, 1898) that it is making no claim of sovereignty. Even though the events coincide with an apex of U.S. imperialism, and despite the French claim running counter to the U.S. Monroe Doctrine, the island is evidently considered insignificant.
Dec. 12, 1897: The Mexican gunboat Demócrata arrives at the island. The following day a group of marines go ashore, take off the Americans, and raise the Mexican flag. One of the Americans, Theodore Gussmann, stays behind, however, practically marooning himself. When later a ship sails by and offers rescue, he declines, instead dispatching two letters, one to a friend in San Francisco and one to the Oceanic Phosphate Company begging relief; press reports appear in February 1898. It is obscure when he finally departed, perhaps only in May with the arrival of a new party of miners employed by the Pacific Islands Company, which in February received a concession from Mexico for an undisclosed cash consideration aside from royalties of 75 cents per ton of product exported.
May 1898: Mexican president Porfirio Díaz appoints Freeth as "interim government inspector" on Clipperton. Freeth resigns on October 30, and upon his recommendation Díaz appoints Benjamin Edward Holman as replacement.
June 16, 1898: The French chargé d'affaires in Mexico City conveys to Mexican foreign minister Ignacio Mariscal his government's deep concern over the Mexican seizure of the island. In a response dated September 30, Mariscal dismisses the French claim as ludicrous, saying that the atoll has been an integral part of Mexico since colonial times, noting its proximity to the Mexican coast and citing maritime maps dating back more than a century that place it under Mexican authority. Furthermore, "It does not appear that any attempt was made [by the French] to notify any other state [than Hawaii], such as the government of Mexico, whose coast is close to the island, or the United States, which at that time had already undertaken the occupation of various islands for guano exploitation." He also notes the abandonment of the island by the French for close to 40 years, saying this is tantamount to France surrendering any claim to the place; of course, by that logic Mexico itself would have had surrendered its claim long before. Two French follow-up notes remain unanswered.
1901: The Pacific Phosphate Company is registered to take over from the Pacific Islands Company.
September 1906: Col. Abelardo Avalos arrives as prefect. His troops later place a maritime beacon atop the Rock.
1908: Mexico garrisons the island. Capt. Ramón Arnaud is appointed governor.
Oct. 20, 1908: As Clipperton Island attains new importance with the prospective opening of the Panama Canal (which occurs in 1914), the French government proposes to that of Mexico that King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy be named as arbitrator of the rival claims of these two countries to the ownership of the island. An accord to that effect is signed on March 2, 1909. On August 22 the king announces his willingness to act as arbitrator. Mexico submits its brief to the king late in the year, France following in 1912.
Aug. 23, 1909: Associated Press reports that, following a serious earthquake and tidal wave affecting Acapulco, "the people of that port believed that the Clipperton islands [sic] were swallowed up by the sea during the late earthquakes. No word of any kind has come from the islands and as the neighbouring bed of the ocean is known to have been greatly disturbed, the port officials at Acapulco are urging the War Department to send out the gunboat General Guerrero to search for the islands. The claims of the Acapulcoans have not as yet duly impressed the War Department and no gunboat has so far been ordered in the quest." In fact, the island was unaffected.
1910: Pacific Phosphate, its operations long unprofitable, withdraws its work force, save for a lone caretaker, Gustav Schulz.
Feb. 28, 1914: The U.S. schooner Nokomis crashes into the reef. Due to the Mexican revolution (the gunboat Tampico, which called regularly at the island, having been taken over on February 24 by revolutionaries fighting to overthrow Pres. Victoriano Huerta), the Mexican garrison is no longer supplied. Ultimately Jens Jensen, captain of the Nokomis, with three volunteers sets out on the ship's small boat and precariously reaches Acapulco, where they arrange the dispatch of the cruiser Cleveland which arrives at Clipperton on June 26 and takes off the Nokomis castaways as well as Schulz and his family. The captain of the Cleveland reports: "The relations between [Schulz] and the comandante of the island had reached such a state of antagonism which led the comandante to report to me that Mr. Schulz was, in his opinion, insane. Mr. Schulz's statements in regard to the comandante were of bitter character. Under the circumstances I deemed it advisable to take Mr. Schulz, together with one woman and child who constituted his family, to Acapulco." Some 26 persons remain on the island, with no apprehensions of disaster, still expecting a relief vessel in due course. In November supplies near exhaustion. Beginning in early 1915, many die of scurvy, living only on fish and the flesh and eggs of birds, with the palms producing only an insufficient amount of coconuts.
End of May 1915: Captain Arnaud spots a ship off the coast - perhaps only imagining it - and, with Lt. Secundino Cardona, decides to launch a boat and compel all the men to row him out to the ship to ask for help. Arnaud's wife later recounts how she watched through her glass and saw the men begin to fight before the boat overturned and they disappeared into the ocean. This leaves only Victoriano Álvarez, the lighthouse keeper who was living apart from the community, and 15 women and children. The only man on the island, Álvarez proclaims himself "King of Clipperton," and for more than two years of tyrannical rule he sexually abuses his subjects and kills two of them.
July 18, 1917: Two women, Alicia Rovira de Arnaud and Tirza Randon, strike Álvarez dead. The same day the U.S. ship Yorktown comes to check that Clipperton is not harbouring a German submarine base. It discovers three women, an adolescent girl, and seven surviving children, emaciated and haggard. They are taken on the ship (which arrives at Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, on July 22) and the island is left uninhabited. Initial reports are sanitized and Álvarez's reign of terror is only disclosed by the Yorktown's captain, Harlan Page Perrill, 17 years later.

1930s map of Clipperton Island.

Jan. 28, 1931: King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy arbitrates the conflicting claims in favour of France, finding that the island was terra nullius in 1858 and legitimately acquired by France.
July 17, 1934, and July 21, 1938: U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt visits Clipperton Island on fishing cruises aboard the USS Houston, the first time more randomly, the second time purposely (and taking with him a naturalist, Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, who collects specimens of plants and animals for the Smithsonian Institution, with a number of species named after Roosevelt, such as the worm Neanthes roosevelti).
Jan. 26, 1935: France takes possession by the training cruiser Jeanne d'Arc (after it failed to effect a landing in December 1934). A commemorative plaque is affixed to the Rock.
June 12, 1936: A decree attaches the island to the French Settlements in Oceania (from 1957 French Polynesia).
1940: France, just prior to the fall of the republic in World War II, awards "exclusive and exceptional rights" on the atoll to Charles Michelson (a stateless person of Romanian origin, who has been involved with projects to establish wireless stations throughout the French empire since 1936), lasting for "30 years after the conclusion of the present war." U.S. Navy secretary Frank Knox writes Michelson on March 4, 1942, thanking him for his generous action in putting the rights of the island to the disposal of the U.S. Navy.
Sept. 14-17, 1943: A secret expedition led by Adm. Richard E. Byrd surveys Clipperton as a potential air base site.
Sept. 9, 1944: With U.S. approval, the Catalina flying-boat Frigate Bird (flown by Australian aviator Patrick Gordon Taylor) lands in the lagoon on a British survey. Having left fuel on the island, on September 11 Taylor returns to Acapulco to refuel to capacity and on September 22 returns to Clipperton, now in a position to leave from there with enough fuel for the flight to Bora Bora. However, technical problems require a second Catalina to be called in. Both planes are anchored in the lagoon when a violent storm breaks out, and barely survive it. On October 14 both take off successfully. Already on October 16 British vice air marshal R.P. Willock advises the U.S. Navy that the prospects "for a small seaplane base and suitable land strips for two runways would appear reasonably good." For that purpose, an engineering group is prepared to visit the island for about a month. The U.S. authorities, however, suspicious of British intentions, maintain that neither the air route nor the island are important to the war effort, and prepare their own activities, Roosevelt being convinced that the island is vital to trans-Pacific aviation.
Dec. 11, 1944: The U.S. Navy occupies Clipperton Island. After many initial difficulties, a weather station is completed on Jan. 13, 1945.
January 1945: The U.S. disallows a French visit to the island and France protests about the U.S. occupation without previous notification. On January 22 in Paris, French foreign minister Georges Bidault personally hands U.S. ambassador Jefferson Caffery a note saying: "This is very humiliating to us. We are so anxious to cooperate with you, but sometimes you do not make it easy."
September 1945: With the end of the war, U.S. undersecretary of state Dean Acheson informs French ambassador Henri Bonnet "that, in view of the changed military situation in the Pacific, instructions are being issued by the Navy Department for the withdrawal of American naval personnel from Clipperton Island." On October 21 the island is evacuated.
June 5, 1946: The U.S. Joint Chiefs strike the atoll from their "required" list of 23 bases worldwide. It is no longer needed as an aviation stepping-stone to the southwest Pacific, technology having so advanced that the Marquesas Islands can be reached nonstop from the North American continent.
May 19, 1947: The U.S. fishing boat Thistle shipwrecks on the atoll. The crew is marooned for six weeks until the tuna clipper Normandie happens upon the scene on June 29 and picks them up.
1951-57: French naval ships make several calls on the island to cement the French claim, with bronze plaques fastened to the Rock's face and to palm trees: Le Commandant Charcot (April 23, 1951), Jeanne d'Arc (Feb. 11, 1952), La Moqueuse (Aug. 6, 1952), Le Dumont-d'Urville (Aug. 23, 1957).
Aug. 7-Sept. 25, 1958: The Scripps Institution undertakes a scientific expedition during the International Geophysical Year. Ornithologist Ken Stager from the Los Angeles County Museum, appalled by the decimation of Clipperton's birds, takes it upon himself to exterminate feral pigs from the island (numbering 58). The populations of brown and masked boobies rebound almost immediately, reaching at least 25,000 and 112,000 respectively in 2003 (from 500 and 150 in 1958).
1966-69: "Bougainville" expeditions of the French army visit the island. Their objectives are to monitor the island and the maritime zone, observe meteorological phenomena, and study the rehabilitation of the wartime airstrip.
1973: Clipperton's position enables France to join the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.
March-April 1978: The first major amateur radio expedition to be permitted to the island takes place. This is followed by several others over the years.
Feb. 2, 1979: A ministerial decree is gazetted by which the courts of the judicial order seated in Paris are assigned jurisdiction over the island.
1980: A marine expedition under Jacques Cousteau (who was at the island before) visits and a documentary is filmed ("Clipperton: The Island Time Forgot"). Debris is cleared away to allow an airplane to land on the coral rim. Among those aboard is 70-year-old Ramón Arnaud, Jr., who was born on the island.
1983: An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) with a radius of 200 nautical miles is created around the island. Sen. Daniel Millaud, representing French Polynesia in the French parliament, asks that the island be annexed to French Polynesia because its EEZ offers promising opportunities.
1987: France announces that a fishing base is to be established on the island. Work begins in 1988.

Map showing Clipperton Island (bottom left) in relation to Mexico.

2000: The tuna vessel Lily Mary is grounded on the northeast coast of the atoll.
2001: The presence of rats is confirmed by the members of the first "Passion" expedition. The rats cause a considerable decline in the population of land crabs, which multiplied following the elimination of pigs, their only predators. Estimated at 11 million in 1967, the number of crabs is put at 1 million in 2015.
December 2004-April 2005: A French scientific expedition to the island is led by Jean-Louis Étienne.
c. 2005: The Costa Rican trawler Oco runs aground southwest of the Rock.
Feb. 21, 2007: France assumes direct administration of the dependency, placing it under the authority of the minister of overseas France.
April 14-29, 2015: An international expedition visits Clipperton.
Nov. 15, 2016: A biotope protection order is issued, creating a Marine Protected Area within the 12-nautical-mile territorial sea around the island.
Feb. 22, 2022: A French law adopts the full name Île de la Passion-Clipperton.