Pago Bay is the largest bay on the U.S. territory of Guam, located at the mouth of Pago River on the island's eastern coast. There is extensive evidence of CHamoru settlement before Spanish colonization during the late seventeenth century. During the Spanish-Chamorro Wars, the Spanish transferred the populations of Tinian and Aguigan to the village of Pago. However, a smallpox epidemic in 1856 killed much of the village's population and the Spanish moved survivors to other villages, leaving the bay shoreline largely uninhabited. The bay is popular with fishermen and recreationalists, and was the site of new housing development in the 2000s.
Waters of the Pago River flow through Pago Bay's shallow reef flat at low tide. Seen from the south, prior to recent shoreline construction.
Sunrise at Pago Bay, 2014
View of the Mangilao headland forming the northern boundary of Pago Bay
Land clearing on the south side of the Pago River in 2008
The Spanish–Chamorro Wars, also known as the Chamorro Wars and the Spanish–Chamorro War, refer to the late seventeenth century unrest among the Chamorros of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean against the colonial effort of Habsburg Spain. Anger at proselytizing by the first permanent mission to Guam, which was led by Diego Luis de San Vitores, and a series of cultural misunderstandings led to increasing unrest on Guam and a Chamorro siege of the Hagåtña presidio incited by maga'låhi (Chief) Hurao in 1670. Maga'låhi Matå'pang killed San Vitores in 1672, resulting in a campaign of Spanish reprisal burnings of villages through 1676. Local anger at the attacks against villages resulted in another open rebellion led by Agualin and a second siege of Hagåtña. Governor Juan Antonio de Salas conducted a counter-insurgency campaign that successfully created a system of collaboration in which Guamanians turned in rebels and murderers and transferred most of the people from about 180 villages to seven towns, a policy known as reducción. By the early 1680s, Guam was largely "reduced," or pacified.
A 1742 diagram of a 40-foot sakman, a fast sailing outrigger boat used by pre-Contact Chamorros for inter-island travel
A 1686 depiction of the murder of Diego Luis de San Vitores by Matå'pang (right) and Hurao (left)
The 2010 ruins of the walled Plaza de España in Hagåtña, the precursor of which was the presidio protecting San Vitores's chapel and mission buildings
Southwestern Saipan from Mount Tapochau. Tinian is faintly visible across the Saipan Channel.