Micronesian

The Micronesian group gathers the Austronesian island peoples of the western Pacific. Micronesia proper has about two thousand small islands in four main archipelagos, the Carolines, Gilberts, Marianas and Marshalls, and the group also takes in the Fijians and the peoples of the Solomons, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

The Chamorro of the Marianas, the Chuukese, the Pohnpeians and the Gilbertese lived in small chiefdoms and clans. Magellan reached the Marianas in 1521, and Spain began settling Guam in 1668. Abel Tasman sighted Fiji in 1643, and most other islands met Europeans only in the eighteenth century.