Wednesday, April 9, 2014


Village leaders in the Marianas during the Spanish period were not elected in the way we are familiar with today.  In the late 1800s, only a small group of village elite cast consultative votes, which could be (and often were) ignored by the Spanish officials who made the final determination.

These elite men were prior and current holders of various municipal positions such as gobernadorcillo (village chief), cabezas de barangay (neighborhood leaders), alguacil (a kind of justice officer) and others.

The local priest also had his say.  Sometimes this was even ignored by the Spanish Governor.

Keep in mind that in the Hågat (Agat) political unit, Sumay was included, as it was a more recent village and considered an annex of Hågat.  So some of the individuals mentioned below were residents of Sumay.

In the "election" of 1893 for the village of Hågat (Agat), the following were involved in the consultations :

Joaquin de San Nicolas
Vicente de Leon Guerrero Blanco
Juan Pineda
Jose de Rivera
Antonio de Leon Guerrero
Martin Taeñao
Francisco Sablan
Nicolas Diaz
Ignacio de la Cruz
Luis Blanco Carbullido
Guillermo Lizama
Felix Charfauros

When all these men voted for the highest post, that of gobernadorcillo , the top vote-getters were :

Vicente de Leon Guerrero Blanco
Luis Blanco Carbullido
Juan de los Reyes

Padre Jose Palomo, the first Chamorro priest, was acting pastor of Hågat at the time and weighed in on the matter, saying that Vicente Blanco could hardly speak Spanish, but that Luis Carbullido knew how to read, write and speak Spanish.

Unfortunately, this record doesn't show who was actually appointed gobernadorcillo of Hågat by the Governor.


  1. Wow, very interesting and informative post. Si yu'us ma'ase

  2. I don' t know if Luis Carbullido won the 1893 "election," but he was the gobernadorcillo who signed off on the 1897 Spanish census for each of Agat's barangays. The cabezas in Agat were Diego de Salas, Juan Guzman, Luis Taitague, Vicente de Borja, and Ygnacio Palomo.

    Thank you for shining a light on Chamorro history!