Kabua the Great

Kabua the Great, also Kabua Laplap, was a Marshallese iroij whom the German Empire recognized as the king of the Marshall Islands. From 1863 until his death in 1910, he claimed to be the paramount chief, or iroijlaplap, of the Ralik Chain, though his cousin Loiak also claimed the title. Kabua worked with western missionaries and copra traders to expand his wealth and political power. He was also one of the several Marshallese iroij to sign treaties with the German Empire, first granting Germans exclusive trading rights in the Marshalls in 1878 and then legitimizing German annexation of the islands as a protectorate in 1885. The German treaties recognized Kabua as King of the Marshall Islands, though the German anthropologist Augustin Krämer noted that "Kabua is king only by the grace of the Germans."