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 Marshall Islands Marshallese experience of nuclear warfare shaped critical views held by Japanese–Marshallese politicians. From the 1990s onwards, Japanese–Marshallese politicians including James Matayoshi and Hiroshi Yamamura often led lobbies against the United States for monetary compensation of victims of radioactive fallout. When Marshall Islands became independent in 1986, second and third-generation Japanese–Marshallese offsprings formed the Japanese–Marshallese association (also known as "Marshall Nikkeijin Kai" in Japanese), and rendered assistance to families of Japanese soldiers who died during the Pacific War. Although the association had limited patronage from the younger generation of Japanese–Marshallese, it played an important role in lobbying the government to forge