6. PALAU ARCHIPELAGO - Shipwreck History Shapes Maritime Strategy - ERIC JAY DOLIN (HOUR TWO) 092526

About this episode

930 PALAU Shipwreck History Shapes Maritime Strategy Eric Jay Dolin, author of The Wreck of the Mentor: Dolin recounts the 1832 shipwreck of an American whaling vessel off Palau. Survivors, including Horace Holden, suffered brutal enslavement and forced tattooing on Tobi Island before escaping via the British ship Britannia. The incident galvanized early American foreign policy, prompting President Andrew Jackson to deploy naval expeditions—such as the USS Vincennes—to project U.S. power, safeguard commercial whaling fleets, and assert national authority across the Pacific. Dolin traces Palau's subsequent history through Spanish, German, Japanese, and American rule to its modern…