280 years ago, on August 22, 1742, Lord George Anson visited Tinian and was fascinated by the “flying proas,” Chamorro canoes that “may run twenty miles an hour for they passed our ships like a bird flying.” Anson captured a CHamoru såkman and had a detailed design of it created prior to ordering the boat destroyed.

His crew made camp near the House of Tåga, the largest known latte site in the Marianas, as seen in this print.

Anson found Tinian to be “exquisitely furnished with the conveniences of life” but was “entirely destitute of inhabitants.”

After the Chamorros were subdued in 1695, the inhabitants of Saipan and Tinian were relocated to Guam, and these northern islands remained uninhabited for about 100 years.