Volcano Islands uninhabited. The first recorded sighting by Europeans was in October 1543 by Spanish navigator Bernardo de la Torre on board of carrack "San Juan de Letrán" when trying to return from Sarangani to New Spain. Iwo Jima was charted as Sufre, the old Spanish term for sulphur. The islands were uninhabited until 1889, when the two northern islands were settled by Japanese settlers from the Izu Islands. They were annexed by Japan in 1891. The population was about 1,100 in 1939, distributed among five settlements: Higashi, Minami, Nishi, Kita and Motoyama (meaning "East", "South", "West", "North" and "Mountain of Origin",
Japanese settlement in the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau. The German authorities chased out most of the businessmen in 1900, leaving only a few Japanese in the Micronesian islands. A few Japanese began settling in the islands in 1907 after the German authorities allowed the Japanese traders to establish their enterprises in Pohnpei and Chuuk. Early Japanese settlers consisted of single men, and official statistics showed a gender imbalance with five Japanese males to one female. Many Japanese men took on Micronesian wives and raised mixed Japanese–Micronesian families. Japanese arrivals to Micronesia remained modest until the 1920s, following which the islands experienced a quick increase in the