Governor Manuel de Elisa (Elisa Vergara) lands from the Manila with troops, convicts and six Capuchins, founding Spain’s first Carolines government.

What happened

The steamship Manila carried a handful of officials, about 50 Filipino troops, Filipino convicts and six Capuchins (three priests and three brothers). The government was set up on Tapelor, an islet later joined to the main island by a causeway, in a colony named Santa Cristina; Bartola Garrido, a Guam-raised Catholic widow of an American trader, welcomed the missionaries. One COM-FSM page names Mariano Torres de Navarro as the first governor instead.