On May 20, 1686, English explorer William Dampier visited Guam. Dampier was a skilled navigator who had been a pirate and later became an English privateer who achieved notoriety for raiding Spanish settlements along the Pacific coast of Western Latin America. He made history as the first European to explore and map parts of New Guinea and Australia. In all he circumnavigated the world three times.

While in Guam, Dampier described the CHamoru people as “strong-bodied, large-limbed, and well-shaped. They are copper-coloured, like other Indians; their hair is black and long, their eyes meanly proportioned; they have pretty high noses; their lips are pretty full, and their teeth indifferent white. They are long-visaged, and stem of countenance; yet we found them to be affable and courteous.”

Impressed with the canoes of the CHamorus he wrote, “The Natives are very ingenious beyond any People, in making Boats, or Proes, as they are called… I do believe, they sail the best of any Boats in the World.”

A copy of Dampier’s book “A New Voyage Round the World” is in the collection of the Guam Museum.