Chamoru

The Chamoru are the Austronesian people of the Mariana Islands, whose ancestors came from island Southeast Asia around 1500 BC. They built on latte rows and sailed proas called flying canoes, in ranked matrilineal clans under an ancestor-spirit cult. Their tongue is Malayo-Polynesian, not Oceanic.

Magellan reached Guam in 1521, but permanent colonization waited until 1668, when the Jesuit San Vitores opened a mission among about 180 autonomous villages. Chief Hurao besieged Hagåtña in 1670, and in 1672 chief Matå'pang killed San Vitores at Tumon after his daughter's baptism, starting war.

Reprisals burned villages and another rebellion besieged Hagåtña, and Governor Salas forced the people into seven towns. Campaigns on Rota, Saipan and Tinian ended by 1699 with the last northern islanders moved to Guam. War, disease and resettlement broke the old order; by 1837 survivors were Catholic subjects of Spain, their speech full of Spanish loanwords.