Chuukese

The Chuukese are a Micronesian people of the Chuuk Lagoon and its outer atolls, in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific, and speak a Chuukic language of the Austronesian family. Their ancestors were Lapita-related Austronesian settlers: excavations show people on lagoon islands by the second and first centuries BC, and a distinct Chuukese culture took shape from the fourteenth century.

The lagoon splits into the western Faichuuk and eastern Namoneas island groups, whose clans combined fishing with taro and banana gardening in thatch-built villages and fought intermittent wars under their own chiefs.

Álvaro de Saavedra made the first recorded European sighting in 1528 and Alonso de Arellano followed in 1565. Spain later counted the lagoon among the Caroline Islands, but no foreign power established control, so in 1837 the Chuukese still governed themselves with only occasional ships passing through.