Francisco Martinez Portusach: First Civilian Provisional Governor of Guam

Francisco Martinez Portusach (1864-1919)

Within Guam’s history, Don Francisco Martinez Portusach becomes the first recorded provisional civilian Governor under the U.S. flag. I will not go into the details of this historic period because I think mainstream history on this is fairly known. He was a provisional Governor met with the controversy of the Spanish civilian Treasurer Jose Sixto/Sisto who refused to accept Portusach’s verbal appointment; and therefore, Sixto appointed himself the Spanish Governor’s successor.

Some of the media caught wind of Portusach's verbal appointment. While later, several national news media captured the controversy with Sixto.

One other controversial issue was with Guam’s first Naval Governor Captain Richard P. Leary, who placed some unreasonable demands on the native people of Guam with certain Executive Orders. This bothered Portusach to the point where Leary had Portusach jailed for about a week for protesting the Governor's orders.

By August 1900, he was headed to the nation’s capital to file charges against Leary. This too made national media where some of the headlines read “Leary the Autocrat” or “Grotesque Tyranny.” But I am not certain at this point how far Portusach may have gotten with these charges because Leary was already replaced earlier around July 1900.

But recently, I came across Portusach’s “History of the Capture of Guam by the United States Man-of-War Charleston and Its Transport.” It was published in 1917 and I found it buried in the thousands of pages within the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Volume 43, Number 1. Whole Number 167.

I could not recall ever reading about this point in history from a local perspective. Most of the sources and perspectives come from those outside. So it was quite assuring for me to have a piece of history written from the first person.

Portusach’s perspective when he wrote this article included names of some of the Chamorro people. So as a genealogist this was a big win! Below is a list of 20 names he mentions (some were Chamorro or married Chamorro).