Clipperton Island: Mexico's Forgotten Murder Colony

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean there is an uninhabited atoll. Known as Clipperton Island, it is an unattractive place; exactly the kind of anonymous expanse of sand you could fly over on your way to Hawaii and never give it a second thought. With a height of only 3 meters above the ocean and an area of ​​​​just 5 km2, it is a place of crabs, coconuts and little else. At least that's how it is today. However, a hundred years ago, Clipperton Island was home to something much stranger and more fascinating. It was here that a strange accident of war and revolution left 100 men, women and children stranded for three long years.

And it was from them that a realm of almost incomparable cruelty arose. However, while the short-lived Kingdom of Clipperton Island is both repulsive and fascinating, it is far from the only story to unfold on this lonely atoll. Over the centuries, Clipperton Island has been visited by pirates, powerful empires, and guys trying to make a fortune in bird poop. They say that every place on Earth, no matter how small, has a story to tell. Well, buckle up, because little Clipperton Island has enough stories to fill an entire library. (TITLE): The Secret Island If you got on a boat and sailed 2,090 km southwest of Mexico, you might come across a small, strangely shaped atoll.

It has a strange shape because, instead of looking like Lost Island, it looks more like a circle drawn across the ocean by a particularly clumsy child. You see, the interior of Clipperton is occupied by a large freshwater lagoon, leaving only a small strip of sand a few meters wide surrounding it. Sandwiched in this strip between the salt water and the fresh water is a sparse layer of scrub, a few wild tobacco plants, a handful of coconut palms and not much else. Well, apart from the millions of crabs and tens of thousands of seabirds that periodically rain poop on the

island

.

When it doesn't rain poop, it really rains. From May to October, Clipperton is battered relentlessly by storms. When it's dry, the whole place smells like ammonia. In short, Clipperton Island is less of a “tropical paradise” and more of “a place to exile Napoleon to when he really misbehaves.” But make no mistake. Despite looking like the kind of place that appears in Holidays from Hell, Clipperton Island is far from undesirable. Over the decades, a staggering number of people have attempted to make this inhospitable place their home. We don't know who was the first person to see Clipperton.

Some sources say that Ferdinand Magellan sailed here in 1521. Others say that it was actually Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón. But since most sources seem to be a bit guessing, we'll just go with the first guy who definitely steps foot there. John Clipperton was an early 18th century English pirate who operated along the west coast of Central America. In those days, real pirates were often indistinguishable from privateers who worked for their governments to harass foreign ships. And boy, did Clipperton have fun bothering the foreign ships. Since his main targets were Spanish ships in Mexico, he seems to have established his base on Clipperton Island around 1705.

Hence why they called it, you know, Clipperton Island. But Clipperton was only there for a brief period before disappearing to continue his piracy elsewhere, a decision that might have been helped by the fact that the

island

was knee-deep in guano. Still, Clipperton's brief stay on Birdpoop Island marked the beginning of human interest in the atoll. A couple of years after he left, two French ships passed by and decided to call it Passion Island, a name that didn't stick at all. But it wasn't thanks to some random Frenchmen that Clipperton Island was suddenly discovered by the rest of the world.

That would be up to a Prussian geographer who never even set foot there. In 1804, Alexander von Humboldt was in Peru when he noticed that the natives used bird droppings as fertilizer. Curious, he took a sample of the material to Europe for analysis. On the old continent, guano left people speechless. Imagine accidentally discovering perpetual motion one day; how that would revolutionize the world. Well, that was guano in the 19th century. The crop yields that the Humboldt guano dropped were so impressive that people were scared because they had somehow magicalized every crop the land was capable of producing at once.

Just like that, the Guano Era had arrived. And suddenly, small, literally horrible islands like Clipperton started to look very interesting. (TITLE): The Battle Over Bird Poop You can gauge the magnitude of the guano craze simply by looking at how it affected geopolitics. In 1856, the United States passed the Guano Islands Act, which allowed any American to claim any uninhabited island anywhere in the world, as long as he had guano. It was the beginning of what is possibly the largest gold rush in history. And it wasn't long before he reached Clipperton Island. In 1856, the Oceanic Phosphate Company sent a small team of miners to the atoll to begin shoveling that sweet, sweet gold.

They had barely started when Mexico said, “Hey! That's our bird poop! With guano suddenly big business, Mexico was very interested in claiming nearby islands covered in the product. And they wanted the United States to know that they considered Clipperton Mexican. But this dispute between neighbors was about to attract a much bigger player. More than 10,000 kilometers away, in Paris, Napoleon III was trying to find a way to take advantage of the guano craze. Napoleon III, Napoleon's nephew, had taken control of France in an 1851 coup, heralding the birth of the Second French Empire. While she was nowhere near the threat his uncle had been, Louis Napoleon was still a guy running a European power that you didn't want to mess with.

So when he pulled out a map and declared that Clipperton Island now belonged to France, there wasn't much Mexico or the United States could do about it. In 1858, the French navy annexed the island, eliminating the small contingent of American miners. Clipperton was incorporated into the overseas department of Tahiti, and that should have been that. But it was not like that. In 1870, the Second French Empire collapsed in flames, taking Napoleon III with it. Once the smoke cleared and it became obvious that the new French Third Republic was incapable of defending remote, excrement-covered islands, the Americans began to stealthily return to Clipperton.

But again, they wouldn't last long. There was already another dictator eager to get his hands on all that gunao. If Napoleon III was the pompous and mustachioed version of Napoleon, then Porfirio Díaz was the more pompous and mustachioed version of Napoleon III. Porfirio Díaz, former general of the Mexican army, had seized power in 1876, beginning a reign known as the Porfiriato. Like Napoleon III, he had overseen a long period of stability and economic progress. Like Napoleon III, he had combined that advantage with the disadvantage of trampling on everyone's freedoms. And, like his European counterpart, he was now desperate to add Clipperton Island to his Porfiriato portfolio.

In 1897, Díaz made the decision for him. A small Mexican force was sent to Clipperton, where they forcibly removed the American miners. Once this was done, they raised the Mexican flag, claiming the island. Foolishly, however, Díaz left no one at Clipperton while he attempted to notify France and the United States of his claim through political channels. Then, while everyone was busy fighting diplomatically, a fourth and final nation decided to get involved. In 1899, the British Navy simply annexed Clipperton, other claims be damned. Both the United States and France made a big fuss, but since Britain was the world's naval superpower at the time, there wasn't much they could do.

But Porfirio Díaz tried a different tactic. Knowing that he would never, ever take Clipperton back from the British by force, he decided to simply make a deal with them. The British could work at Clipperton however they wanted and make a profit. All they had to do in return was recognize Mexican sovereignty. What else were the British going to do? They said yes. (TITLE) Building the Colony During the first decade of the 20th century, Clipperton experienced a small boom. The British built rock gardens, began to grow vegetables, planted palm trees and built houses. From a wasteland surrounded by sea, Clipperton soon became... well, still a wasteland of sorts, but at least one where you wouldn't quickly succumb to scurvy.

The British even built a small lighthouse atop Clipperton's only high point: a jagged 70-foot promontory rising steeply from a small patch of coastline. It was this small lighthouse that would soon become the site of Clipperton's most gruesome event. But not yet. As the decade progressed, the British realized they were wasting their time. Although the guano they extracted was of good quality, transportation costs were too high to compete in the market. Add to that the fact that Clipperton Island could never be self-sufficient, and it started to seem like it wasn't worth the effort. In 1909, the British finally abandoned Clipperton, leaving behind a single man and his wife to act as caretakers.

But while the British were willing to wash their hands of the atoll, Porfirio Díaz certainly was not. The following year, Díaz ordered 13 soldiers to land at Clipperton. The idea was not simply to garrison the island, but to colonize it. Each man was allowed to bring his wife, any children they had, and a few servants each to keep things civilized. In total, 100 Mexicans finally landed at Clipperton in 1910, joining the British caretaker and his wife. Since these are the people we'll be spending the rest of the video with, it's time we got to know some of them.

The most important man on the island was Ramón Arnaud, the governor. While “governor” may seem prestigious, he was largely said in sarcastic quotes. Arnaud was actually an army deserter who had been tracked down, captured, and was now being thrown onto this remote, smelly island as part of his punishment. Next to Arnaud was his wife, Alicia Rovira Arnaud, perhaps the closest thing Clipperton had to a socialite. There was also teenager Tirza Randon, who we'll hear more about later. Finally, there was Victoriano Álvarez, the one chosen to take care of the lighthouse. Extremely tall, strong and naturally resilient, Álvarez was, in some ways, perfectly adapted for island life.

But he was also moody, unsociable and prone to isolation, often locking himself in his room for weeks at a time. So this was the nucleus of the

colony

established by Díaz in 1910. One that lived in solid houses built by the British and was supplied by bimonthly ships from Acapulco. Unfortunately for the new

colony

, 1910 would also be the year that Díaz followed the path of Napoleon III. None of the colonists knew it, but the Mexican Revolution was already bearing down on them like a tropical cyclone. When it finally arrived, everyone would be impressed. (TITLE): “Long live the Revolution!” The outbreak of the revolution in Mexico is one of those complicated things that we've tried to cover in depth before, most notably in our Emiliano Zapata video on our sister channel Biographics.

But if you don't have time to watch it now, here's the super-condensed version: In 1908, Porfirio Díaz gave an interview in which he announced that Mexico would hold free and fair elections in 1910 to elect his successor. Díaz's plan was to have ordinary citizens of Mexico beg him not to withdraw, which would allow him to enter the race at the last minute and win comfortably. What Díaz didn't realize was that after 34 years everyone in Mexico hated him and would literally vote for Snidely Whiplash over one more minute of the Porfiriato. When it became clear that Díaz was about to lose the 1910 election, he had his opponent, Francisco Madero, arrested.

Mexico responded by detonating like an angry bomb. Not that the outbreak of the revolution initially affected Clipperton. Even when Porfirio Díaz was removed from power, the basic structure of Mexico's government remained and supply ships from Acapulco continued to arrive. While it must have been strange for the Clipperton settlers to receive news of the revolutionary storm every two months, their small outpost survived Díaz's replacement by Francisco Madero. They even survived Madero's assassination and his replacement by Wanabee dictator Victoriano Huerta. It was what came next that would really doom them. In 1914, the revolution in Mexico finally got out of control.

That April, the United States invaded Veracruz. Just three months later, Huerta fled into exile just before Pancho Villa's army. With all of Mexico now in free fall, Clipperton was suddenly

forgotten

. That same spring, the last supply ship left the island. When twoMonths later he did not return, Governor Ramón Arnaud realized that they were isolated. Unfortunately, finding out doesn't seem to have scared him as much as it should have. We know this because, in the late summer of 1914, an American ship arrived at Clipperton with the mission of evacuating the British caretaker and his wife. When Arnaud spoke to the captain, he was told that not only was Mexico on fire, but World War I had just broken out in Europe.

In the absence of supply ships, the American captain offered to evacuate the Mexican settlers from Clipperton along with the two British. But Arnaud rejected it. It is impossible to say what the governor was thinking. If his sense of duty stopped him; or whether he assumed that the Mexican Revolution would soon end and supplies would resume. But if that was what Arnaud thought, he was wrong. As 1914 gave way to 1915, the horizon remained stubbornly clear of supply ships. On the narrow sands of Clipperton, all the orchards planted a decade earlier by the British died. With nothing to eat but coconuts and crabs, the colonists soon began to succumb to scurvy.

Caused by a lack of vitamin C, scurvy is often associated with sailors starting to bleed from their gums and losing all their teeth. What is less frequently associated is something that can largely cause: death. It is estimated that between 1500 and 1800, two million sailors died of scurvy, a disease so painful that it is said that “death is mercy.” Now this disease ravaged the colonists, felling men, women and children. When 1916 dawned, three-quarters of the Clipperton settlers were dead. Unfortunately, they were the lucky ones (TITLE): The Rise of a King At the beginning of 1916, Ramón Arnaud was becoming desperate.

By now, the governor probably realized that he had doomed everyone by refusing the evacuation. It is likely that the death of the other colonists weighed heavily on him. All of which may explain what he did next. Just when things were at their lowest point, someone saw a ship. She was right on the horizon, too far away to see them, but that didn't stop the dying settlers from jumping on the shore, screaming and screaming. As the ship sailed away, Arnaud seems to have decided that this was his last chance to make things right. He dragged the small rowboat the settlers had left to shore and demanded that all the men help him pursue the disappearing ship.

But Arnaud's story was not destined to end with redemption, when the governor reached the distant ship. Instead, the surviving women and children watched in horror as the men cast off their mooring lines, rowed away from the shore... ...and then all went under as the boat capsized. Standing on the narrow strip of sand, Alicia Rovira Arnaud, the governor's wife, barely had time to process her grief when her second shoe fell. Almost out of nowhere, a titanic storm broke out and hit the island. Although the remaining women and children took refuge in the houses built by the British, they were not enough.

The cyclone that hit Clipperton that day was like a grenade thrown on a house of cards. The houses disintegrated. All the shelters were impressed. When the winds finally died down, the settlers had almost been wiped out. Somehow, Alicia had survived the night, as had 20-year-old Tirza Randon and another woman, along with a handful of children. But as they emerged blinking in the intense sunlight, the women saw that they were not the only ones who escaped the storm's clutches. There, standing among the ruins of the houses, was a very tall and very powerful looking man. Locked in his lighthouse, Victoriano Álvarez had survived the storm.

He survived the malnutrition that had devastated the colony. He escaped the fate of those in the rowboat. Now, he was the only man left for tens of thousands of kilometers. Faced with this small group of women stranded with him, Álvarez made a terrible decision. He methodically searched through the rubble of the houses and took out all the weapons. He locked them in his lighthouse, out of reach of Alicia Arnaud and Tirza Randon. He then returned and told the women how much their lives had changed. From now on, Álvarez told them, he was King Álvarez, owner of this island.

The three of them existed only to please him, to do what he ordered. If someone tried to defend themselves... Well. Álvarez would use the confiscated weapons to maim them so badly that they would never think of crossing him again. It was the beginning of the Clipperton Kingdom, one of the most sadistic regimes that has ever existed. During the following months, Alicia Arnaud was beaten almost daily. The other women were sexually assaulted over and over again. If the dictators in this video have become increasingly pathetic, from Napoleon III to Porfirio Díaz and Victoriano Huerta, then King Álvarez was undoubtedly the most pathetic of all.

Throughout 1916, he played the role of a television villain, kidnapping Tirza Randon for weeks at a time, keeping her locked in her lighthouse, where he sexually abused her. By mid-1917, the women and children of Clipperton must have been left traumatized and certain that rescue would never come. That left only one option. They would have to rescue themselves. Death of a Kingdom One of the curious things about the collapse of civilization in Clipperton is how long Alvarez allowed himself to be limited by the memory of it. Although he happily abused Randon and the other woman, he refrained from sexually assaulting Alicia Arnaud.

She may have been the rank he once held, that of governor's wife. Perhaps Álvarez simply thought that no one in Mexico would care what had happened to lower-class women. But for some reason, Álvarez did not abuse Arnaud for almost 18 months. That all finally changed in July 1917. After several weeks of attacking Randon, the self-proclaimed king appears to have grown tired of the headstrong young woman and dragged her away from her home. In the barely improvised shelter that the survivors had set up, he threw Randon to the ground and ordered Arnaud to report to the lighthouse the next morning.

The bloodied Randon waited until the Clipperton dictator was gone, before whispering "now is the time!" The next morning, following instructions, Arnaud went to the lighthouse. Beside her, Randon walked with his head bowed, in silence. When they arrived, they found an unusual sight. Álvarez was outside, cooking a bird that he had managed to capture. The giant man had taken off his shirt and was smiling. Who knows? Perhaps he intended for freshly caught seabirds to be his romantic meal for Arnaud. But when he saw Randon, Alvarez's smile faded. The king began yelling at Arnaud, demanding to know why he had brought the younger woman with her.

As he bellowed and raged, Randon slipped away and disappeared into the open lighthouse. She came back out moments later, her hands hidden behind her back. She then slowly approached Alvarez, trying not to make a sound. Just as she appeared behind him, Alvarez seems to have realized something was wrong. She turned her back on Arnaud... ...but any chance she had of surviving this encounter was already gone. Using both hands, Randon swung the hammer as hard as he could. He bounced off Alvarez's skull with a thud, causing the king to roar like an animal. Some sources say that Álvarez tried to fight back.

That even she could have pushed Randon away and run for an axe. But everything was useless. Randon managed to land three good blows on the king's skull, breaking it. It is possible that Arnaud also got a knife and stabbed him, but the sources are unclear. What is clear is that, just moments after Randon initially slipped away, the king of Clipperton was dead and his kingdom in ruins. After Alvarez's

murder

, Arnaud and Randon went and sat in a remote corner of the island, looking out to sea. It was from here that they first saw the American gunboat Yorktown, patrolling the Pacific in search of German submarines.

This time, when the stranded settlers screamed, jumped and screamed, they were seen. The Clipperton survivors were arrested that same day. When the captain of the Yorktown heard the story of his king and his tawdry reign, he went to investigate the lighthouse. There he found the bloody corpse of Álvarez, clearly a

murder

victim. But, knowing what this dead man had done to these women, the captain refused to put anything in his report except that Álvarez had died of scurvy. The Yorktown arrived in mainland Mexico on July 22, 1917, officially ending the Clipperton colony. Some seven years earlier, 100 men, women and children had set out determined to establish a Porfiriato outpost in the Pacific.

Now only three women and a handful of children were left alive. The Porfiriato was in ruins, Mexico was in revolution and the Clipperton colony was completely abandoned. It was a turn that no one in 1910 could have imagined. A mockery of all the great dreams they had had. And there was still one last twist to come. After the end of World War I, Mexico and France asked the Vatican to rule on who had the legitimate claim to Clipperton Island. The Holy See hummed and hummed for almost a decade, before finally handing the decision over to King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.

In 1930 or 1931, the Italian king ruled in favor of his neighbor, France. After all those arguments and threats... after the loss of almost 100 lives... after the horror the colonists had gone through... Mexico had to simply stand by and watch as France triumphantly claimed Clipperton Island. . But in 1930, what good was this meaningless atoll to anyone? The guano boom had ended decades ago, leaving Clipperton nothing more than a blank, unattractive space; exactly the kind of anonymous expanse of sand you could fly over on your way to Tahiti and not think twice. Today, this oddly shaped atoll is still uninhabited and is nothing more than a name in a database of some French government department.

A slight stain on a map. However, it is also much more. Clipperton Island's place in history is strange. Its past was deeply intertwined with the Guano Era, the Second French Empire, the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution. And yet it played no role in any of them, existing simply as a footnote within a footnote within an essay that no one would ever read. Even the short-lived "Kingdom of Clipperton" was nothing more than one man's perverted fantasy, destroyed the moment Randon's hammer split his skull open. But Clipperton Island is also a place where three women experienced tremendous suffering.

A place as desolate and evil as many better-known torture centers. While few know about it today, it is appropriate to think that this anonymous island still exists; perhaps as a monument to what these women endured, perhaps as a monument to the fear they all overcame and the courage they found to face their tormentor. They say that every place on Earth has a story to tell. In the case of Clipperton Island, we're pleased to report that that story (and the story of its monstrous king) is finally over.