IIL Conquest

The landing on Guam in 1668 of the first officially sponsored

Spanish mission among the Chamorros opened the next epoch in

the post-contact history of the Marianas. This period, which lasted

for thirty years, was distinguished by the conversion of the Cha-

morros to Christianity and by their complete political subjugation

to Spain. It was a time of continuous strife and unrest, interspersed

with brief phases of peace. By the close of the period, the Chamorros

had been decimated and subdued by years of violence.

Our knowledge of this thirty-year epoch derives almost entirely

from the Jesuit missionaries. As was characteristic of their mis-

sionary efforts elsewhere, the Jesuit padres carefully documented

their work in numerous letters and reports. These formed the source

materials for two important works, those of Garcia (1683) and Le

Gobien (1700), which provide us with most of what is known of this

period in the history of the Marianas. Important supplementaryinformation is contained in a number of seventeenth century Jesuit

letters translated and published by Repetti (1940a, b, c, 1941a, b,

1945-46, 1946 47), as well as in later secondary sources (Murillo

Velarde [1749], Freycinet [1829 37], and Corte [1876]). The Jesuit

missionaries recorded events in the Marianas from their own par-

ticular point of view, and in the absence of other first-hand accounts

it is often difficult to arrive at a balanced historical interpretation.

Certain of the principal events of the period are outlined below.

In 1662, Luis de Sanvitores, a Spanish Jesuit, stopped briefly at

Guam on his way to the Philippines. His glimpse of the Marianas

led him to resolve to form a mission among the Chamorros. After

overcoming numerous difficulties he was finally able to obtain the

necessary support, and he set out for the Marianas with a small

company of fellow Jesuits and secular companions. On June 15,

1668, their ship arrived off Guam, and the company landed on the

island.

At first the padres were hospitably received. They made Agafia

their headquarters and commenced the construction of a church

and a house for their company. But it was not long before resistance

41

42 SAIPAN

developed. To judge from the missionary accounts, Chamorro an-

tagonism toward the missionaries centered around baptism, particu-

larly of infants and children. Enough cases occurred where baptismwas followed by the death of the child for the Chamorros to infer

that baptism was the cause of death. Also, by this time, the infant

mortality rate may have been boosted by the introduction of newdiseases.

As far as the missionaries were concerned, the devil's advocate in

the Chamorro resistance to baptism was a Chinese named Choco,who had been shipwrecked in the Marianas in 1648. For twenty

years prior to the arrival of the Spanish missionaries he had lived

among the Chamorros and in 1668 was residing in a village in the

southern !)art of Guam. According to the missionaries, it was Choco

who spread the belief that baptism caused death, and who encour-

aged the Chamorros to resist. Sanvitores himself sought out Choco

and, having succeeded in getting him to agree to being baptized,

performed the ceremony on the spot, though the earnest padre was

embarrassed to have his two Filipino secular helpers run amok

during the service. Choco's baptism did not stick, however, and

soon he was again encouraging the Chamorros to oppose the Spanish.

Although baptism was a focal point around which resistance

crystallized, it may well be somewhat over-emphasized in the ac-

counts of Garcia and Le Gobien. It was attempts at baptism that

resulted in the killing of a number of Spanish priests and helpers,

including Sanvitores himself, who became a martyr to his cause

when he was killed on Guam on April 2, 1672. Baptism was the

occasion for open Chamorro hostility. However, it must not be

forgotten that the missionaries' opposition to the sorcerers; to pre-

vailing pre-marital sex practices and the apparently brittle marriage

tie; to methods of disposal of the dead, which involved the displayof ancestral skulls in the men's houses; to the men's houses them-

selves; to the custom of wearing little or no clothing; and probablyto other undescribed facets of Chamorro custom, affected a series

of institutions at the core of the local society and culture. The net

effect is described by Garcia, who noted the commencement of armed

opposition to the Spanish in the following words (Garcia, 1683,

Higgins' translation):

Certain villages of the island of Guam were uneasy, and there was unrest

because of the inconstancy of those natives, who change just for a change, and

because their shoulders, unaccustomed to the weight of law or reason, felt

the yoke of Christ too heavy, although it is light and easy for those who love

him.

WADERO KliTHATO DEEL PTEDJECO LVJS

Fig. 3. Sanvitore.s (from Garcia, 1683).

43

44 SAIPAN

Once aiUagonism toward the Spanish had broken out into open

hostihty, the secular power of Spanish coloniahsm was set into force.

At first it was most inadequate, as only a small group of secular

hi'lpi'rs and soldiers accompanied the priests, a force that was

slightly replenished from time to time with the annual arrival of the

galleon from Mexico. In 1676, the first governor of the Marianas

was appointed, Don Francisco de Irisarry y Vivar, who took upresidence on Guam and supported a strong secular policy. We are

told (Gai'cia, 1683, Higgins' translation) that Irisarry

. . . made it obligatory for all baptized indios to attend church on Sun-

days and fiesta days, and to send their sons and daughters not only to learn the

things of our Faith, but also to perform certain offices and duties necessaryto the formation of a Christian and political republic.

The Spanish troops in the Marianas were never very numerousbut the Spaniards finally prevailed, through their uncompromisingzeal. The situation was such that it is doubtful that they could

have remained in the islands without constant recourse to armedforce. The man responsible for breaking the back of Chamorro re-

sistance was Jos^ de Quiroga, who arrived on Guam in 1679. There-

after he directed most of the armed expeditions against the Cha-morros. (Completely fearless, highly aggressive, thoroughly cogni-

zant of Chamorro methods of warfare, physically tough as nails,

and quite unscrupulous, Quiroga was in the tradition of the typical

Spanish conquistador. He spent nearly twenty years in pacifying

the islands, in which effort he finally succeeded. Thus, in the Mari-

anas as in the New World, the sacred and secular aspects of Spanishcolonialism were firmly bound together. The policy cannot be de-

scribed better than in the words of Garcia's account of the conversion

of the Chamorros:

It has been necessary in this spiritual conquest, as experience has shownus that it is always necessary among barbarians, that our Spanish zeal carryin its right hand ... a plow and the Kvangelical seed; and in its left hand . . .

the sword, with which to prevent embarrassment to the religious labor.

Certain other features of the thirty-year period of conversion

and conquest deserve brief mention. The Spanish were aided bythe lack of a high degree of political organization among the Cha-morros. The latter were accustomed to fighting each other before

the Spanish came, and inter-district warfare continued to be a feature

of Chamorro life, even though opposition to the Spanish no doubt

created a common bond. Thus, in 1669, Sanvitores was influential

in effecting a peace on Tinian between Marpo, an interior district.

CONQUEST 45

and Sunharon, a coastal one, which seem to have been traditional

enemies.

Also, during the period, the missionaries slowly succeeded in

gaining converts among the Chamorros, so that a group of Chris-

tianized Chamorros was created to assist the Spanish effort. It is

at this time that marriages of Spanish men and Chamorro womenwere first described. In one such instance, occurring in 1676, Garcia

records that the father of the bride made an attempt to kill the

bridegroom but was frustrated by the Spaniards, who hanged the

father publicly in Agafia.

The Spanish centered their efforts on Guam. Their headquarterswere at Agaiia, where they built a church, a parish house, a seminaryand a small presidio. From Agafia, they ventured to other parts of

Guam and to the northern islands. The latter, however, werevisited only periodically, though in the first few years the padres

explored the chain as far north as Maug, apparently landing on all

but two of the smallest islands—Farallon de Medinilla and Farallon

de Pajaros. To the remaining thirteen, Sanvitores also gave Span-ish names, though Asuncion is the only island name that has per-sisted. In the other twelve cases the original name has been retained.

The list of names is given below:

Chamorro name Spanish nameGuam San JuanRota Santa Ana (in the Jesuit accounts,

Rota is also referred to as Zarpana,which sounds very much like a

phonetic modification of SantaAna)

Aguijan San AngelTinian Buenavista Mariana

Saipan San Joseph (Saipan— spelled Saypanby Garcia—is today sometimessaid to be of nineteenth centuryCarolinian origin. This is incor-

rect, as the name is found as farback as the sixteenth century)

Anatahan San JoaquinSariguan San Carlos

Guguan San PhelipeAlamagan ConcepcionPagan San IgnacioAgrihan San Francisco XavierAsonson Asuncion

Maug San Lorenzo

Sanvitores also established the name "Marianas" for the islands

as a whole, in honor of Marie Ana of Austria, thereby superseding

46 SAIPAN

the names "Ladronos" and "Islas de Latinas Velas" which had been

in previous use, though "Ladrones" continued to be used as a syno-

nym. Also (hiring this period, the first reasonably accurate chart

of the Marianas was drawn by Padre Alonzo Lopez. Lopez arrived

on duani from Mexico in 167L He was sent by Sanvitores to

Aguijan, Tinian, and Saipan, and he spent some time on Tinian,

where he established a small seminary.

It is interesting to note that the exploration carried out by the

padres was done entirely by outrigger canoes, manned by Chamorros.

These were the accepted method of transportation and required a

high degree of hardiness. In October, 1668 in the typhoon season

Padres Sanvitores and Morales set out from Guam for the north-

ern islands. Sanvitores went as far as Saipan, and Morales con-

tinued on to Anatahan, Sariguan, Guguan, Alamagan, Pagan, and

Agrihan, returning to Guam six months later. In July, 1669, San-

vitores went even farther north to Asuncion and Maug, returningto Guam in four and a half months. Trips to Rota, Tinian, and

Saipan seem to have been relatively routine. A Spanish commenton these outrigger trips gives an indication of what they were like

(Garcia, 1683, Higgins' translation):

[On a cancel . . . the greatest happiness that one may dare to hope for, not

being a fish ... is to escape with his life, for death is always before him, the

imminence of it not permitting him to eat or sleep, and when dire necessitymakes him take some sustenance, the fare is nothing more than a few roots,

which together with sea.sickness, serve more to alter the condition of the

stomach than to succor his needs.

Guam was the center of Spanish colonization in the Marianas,and the islands to the north were decidedly peripheral. By the endof the seventeenth century the northern islands had been conqueredand all the Chamorros forced to move to Guam, with the exceptionof a few who managed to stay on Rota. The following chronology,

covering the period of conquest and conversion to Christianity,

outlines the principal events affecting Saipan and the other islands

north of Guam. The chronology makes only brief mention of the

course of local history on Guam, which, though it was the base of

Spanish operations, is subsidiary to Saipan as the principal subjectof this account.

Chronology of Events Affecting Saipan

1668: On June 15, Luis de Sanvitores arrived in the Marianas.

He landed on Guam with four other Jesuit priests, Fathers Medina,

^l/ytvuvntj oiljf

I*agon it

Santfiin I

^4/tatnfan C^

TtlXttVt

^IgmifttLiii Q

on Kota ^\f

Guahnn

GUAHAN

ISLAS Marianas. rorr.AiojizoLopea.

Fig. 4. Chart of the Marianas, by Alonzo Lopez (1700; from Burney. 1803-17,

vol. III).

47

48 SAIPAN

Cassanova, Cardenosa and Morales; one novitiate, Lorenzo Bustillos;

and a small group of secular helpers and soldiers Spanish, Filipino,

and Mexican commanded by Captain Juan de Santa Cruz. Con-

tact was made with a survivor of the Concepcion, named Pedro,

who assisted the Spanish. [In the Garcia account, three other Con-

cepcion survivors are mentioned: Lorenzo, from the Malabar Coast;

Francisco Maunahun, a Filipino; and one Macazar, a "Christian

ludio," probably from either the Philippines or Mexico. Lorenzo

and Maunahun became secular assistants to the padres. Lorenzo was

killed on Anatahan in 1669; Maunahun, who was found living on

Alamagan, was killed on Rota in 1672. Macazar sided with the

Chamorros and was later captured by the Spanish.]

Sanvitores was at first confined to Agafia by the wishes of the

chiefs, but Medina was sent to visit all the villages of Guam. Cas-

sanova was sent to Rota, and Cardenosa and Morales were ordered

to proceed to Tinian. Morales went on to Saipan, but in August,he returned to Guam with a severe wound in the leg received from

hostile Chamorros while he was administering baptism. SergeantLorenzo Castellanos and Gabriel de la Cruz, his Tagalog servant,

were attacked and "died in the sea near Tinian."

On October 20, Sanvitores and Morales, his wound healed, left

Guam for Tinian and Saipan. Morales continued on to the northern

islands, while Sanvitores remained on Saipan, where he "travelled

over the entire island . . .,and there was not a single village, either

on the beach or in the hills that he did not visit." He also went to

Aguijan and Tinian, where he established a residence with one padre

(presumably Cardenosa) and returned to Guam on January 5, 1669.

In the meantime Morales was making his way north by canoe.

He reached Agrihan in December, 1668, and then returned to Guam,the entire trip taking six months.

1669: The church at Agaiia was dedicated, and construction of

the college of San Juan de Lateran on Guam was commenced. In

July, Sanvitores, with two secular companions, started from Guamonce more for the northern islands, as he believed Morales had not

discovered them all. He went to Rota, Tinian, and Saipan and

then made his way northward beyond Agrihan to Asuncion and

Maug, arriving at the latter in August. Morales had not reached

either of these two islands, both of which were inhabited. Accordingto the Spanish sources, apparently all the islands which Sanvitores

re-named had Chamorros living on them. Sanvitores then turned

back to Guam. On his way back, he stopped at Anatahan and it

CONQUEST 49

was here that Lorenzo, the Concepcion survivor, was killed while

attempting to administer baptism to a child. Sanvitores continued

on to Tinian. Here he found Medina and Cassanova trying to

settle a local civil war. Unable to calm the unrest, Sanvitores de-

cided on a show of force. Returning to Guam on November 15, he

set out for Tinian ten days later with an expedition consisting of

ten soldiers (eight of whom were Filipinos), under the command of

Captain Juan de Santa Cruz, and accompanied by the "general de

artilleria," Antonio de Alexalde, who had one field piece, the size of

which can be inferred from the fact that the gun, along with the

entire personnel of the expedition, was carried by three or four canoes.

The party arrived on Tinian and a peace was negotiated. Duringthe negotiations Medina visited Saipan briefly and returned to

Tinian.

1670: With calm restored on Tinian, Medina crossed over to

Saipan once more. He landed on the south coast of the island, at

Obian (Objan) and with two secular companions walked northward

to the town of Laulau, on Magicienne Bay. The three then pro-

ceeded to an interior village called Cao. On January 21, while at-

tempting to enter a house to baptize a crying child, Medina and one

companion were both killed by lance thrusts. The bodies were

recovered by Captain Juan de Santa Cruz and his soldiers, whocame over from Tinian. On Santa Cruz's return to Tinian, the

Tinian Chamorros rose against the Spanish, but were routed by the

field piece and two muskets. The island was pacified, and in MaySanvitores went back to Guam.

1671: On June 9, the galleon Nuestra Senora del Buen Socorro

arrived at Guam from Mexico en route to the Philippines. Four

new padres arrived with her: Francisco Ezquerra, Francisco Solano,

Alonzo Lopez, and Diego de Norega. A few soldiers also disem-

barked. Sanvitores sent Cassanova, who had returned from the

northern islands. Morales, and Bustillos on to the Philippines, so

the mission gained only one padre.

Shortly after the departure of the galleon, the Guam Chamorros

staged an uprising, ascribed by the Spanish to the opposition of the

Chamorro sorcerers (makahnas) to the padres. At this time the

Spanish garrison consisted of thirty-one soldiers (twelve Spaniardsand nineteen Filipinos), armed with muskets and bows, and with, of

course, their small but impressive field piece. They had also taken

the precaution of stockading the Agana church and parish house.

The Chamorros attacked at Agana but were repulsed, and inter-

mittent fighting continued until October, when peace was made.

50 SAIPAN

After the uprising, the padres again set out for the other islands.

Ezquerra went to Rota, and Lopez to Aguijan, Tinian, and Saipan,

the hitter ishmd not having been visited since Medina's death there

the previous year. Lopez estabhshed himself on Tinian at Sunharon—located at the harbor area on the west coast—and built a small

seminary for the teaching of Chamorro children. Apparently no

attempt was made to establish a mission on Saipan; in these early

days, efforts were concentrated on Tinian.

1672: Norega died of illness on Guam in January, and, shortly

after, Ezquerra returned from Rota. In March, unrest broke out

on Guam, and Diego Bazan, a secular assistant from Mexico, was

killed. Sanvitores ordered all members of the Spanish group to

Agafia, though word could not be gotten to Lopez on Tinian. Be-

fore the company could be concentrated, four of the Spanish were

killed in various parts of Guam. Sanvitores allowed himself, as

superior of the mission, more freedom of movement. On April 2,

while attempting to baptize a child near Tumhon, Sanvitores and

his Filipino assistant, Pedro Calangson, were killed.

After Sanvitores' death, the southern villages on Guam remained

friendly to the Spanish, but the northern ones were hostile. A puni-

tive expedition was carried out against the Tumhon area. Unrest

spread to Rota, where Francisco Maunahun, a Filipino survivor of

the Concepcion wreck and helper of the Spanish, was killed with

another Filipino on June 5. Solano, Sanvitores' successor as superior,

died on June 13. The unrest on Guam continued.

In the meantime, Lopez remained on Tinian, unaware of Sanvi-

tores' death. Tinian continued quiet, and Lopez went on with his

work. However, Ezquerra, who had succeeded Solano, sent a mes-

sage to Lopez to return to Agafia. Unrest was spreading and no

doubt would soon have reached Tinian. Lopez accordingly returned

to Guam, avoiding Rota, which was in open rebellion.

1673 81: During this period, the Spanish were so occupied on

Guam that they hardly concerned themselves with the other islands.

It was a time of intermittent outbreaks, of sporadic killing of padres,

secular assistants, and soldiers by the Chamorros; and of the burningof villages and the killing of Chamorros by the Spanish. The first

governor of the Marianas was appointed in 1676, and he proceededwith punitive expeditions "to restrain the pride of some villages and

castigate the insolence of others." One brief expedition of this typewas carried out against Rota in 1675. Jose de Quiroga arrived in

1679 and assumed command of the soldiers in 1680. Stringent

CONQUEST 51

measures were taken against the Guamanians and a plan was ini-

tiated to concentrate them in a few villages. In 1681, Quiroga

undertook a punitive expedition to Rota, which "served as a place

of retreat and asylum for the seditious, who came from time to time

to the island of Guahan [Guam] in order to pervert their compa-triots and to inspire in them a spirit of revolt."

Fig. 5. Excavations at Obian (Objan,\ View from above, showing a house

site in process of excavation. This house formed part of the village attacked

by Quiroga in 1684.

1682 9Jf.: By 1682, Guam was sufficiently quiet, at least out-

wardly, so that the Spanish could turn their attention once more to

the northern islands. In his annual relacion for the year June, 1861,

to June, 1862, Solorzano, the superior on Guam, reported that a

missionary had gone by canoe to Rota, Aguijan, Tinian, and Saipanand that "good results were obtained at every place." (Repetti,

1940a.) Presumably this was Padre Peter Coomans, a Belgian Jesuit

from Antwerp, who went to Rota in March, 1682 (Repetti, 1940b).

Le Gobien (1700, p. 800) notes that Coomans, after indicating the

site for a church which was to be built on Rota and leaving three

fervent workers there, proceeded "to visit the northern islands, with

LIBKAKYllMll/CI?«|-rw nr

52 SAIPAN

some officers who had received orders from the governor." After

returning, Coomans apparently remained on Rota, for in a letter

written from the island in May, 1683 (Repetti, 1940b), he reported

that a church and parish house had been constructed on the west

side of the island and that a second church and house had been

started in the northern part of Rota at the village of Agusan.

In 1684, the Spanish determined to make a major effort to sub-

jugate the islands north of Rota. On March 22, 1684, Quiroga left

Guam for the northern islands with twenty canoes and a small

frigate (Le Gobien, 1700, p. 302). He stopped at Rota and left on

April 12, with Padre Coomans, for Tinian (Repetti, 1940c). Theyarrived at Tinian two days later and found the Chamorros friendly.

The next day they set out for Saipan, taking some canoes and crews

from Tinian. The subsequent events are taken from Coomans'

letter (Repetti, 1940c).

The expedition landed, judging from the letter, on the west

coast of Saipan and immediately met armed resistance. For several

days it fought its way along the shore, and then marched south to

the village of Agingan, located on the shore at the point nearest

Tinian. The friendly Tinian Chamorros were sent to the nearby

village of Obian, also on the south coast, to offer peace, as the people

of Obian on previous occasions had been friendly to the Spanish.

On April 20, peace delegates arrived from Obian, though in the

meantime the Spanish were fighting another group, and "broughtback a Chamorro head as a trophy." By April 30 all was peaceful,

and the Chamorros were asking that their children be baptized. On

May 7, Coomans left Saipan, leaving "a sufficient garrison," which,

judging from Le Gobien's account, included Quiroga. Coomans

stopped at Tinian, and also at Aguijan, which, he noted, had a few

inhabitants. On May 11, he set out for Rota.

Coomans' general description of Saipan is unfortunately very

brief, and merely consists of a statement that "all the land is fertile

and gives abundant crops of grain and roots throughout the wide

plains that surround a single mountain."

For the remainder of the story we must depend on Le Gobien.

He notes that, after arriving on Saipan, Quiroga sent on to the is-

lands to the north an expedition consisting of some twenty-five

soldiers. It is stated that Padre Coomans accompanied the party.

Coomans must have gone back again to Saipan.

With Quiroga, the strong man of the Marianas, absent on Sai-

pan, the latent unfriendly elements among the Guam Chamorros

CONQUEST 53

staged a major revolt, in July, 1684. They killed forty or fifty

soldiers, a priest, and a lay brother, and wounded the governor and

two priests. The Spanish retired to their fort. The governor sent

a letter to Quiroga, but the messenger would go no farther than

Rota. Padre Strobach on Rota then set off with the letter but was

killed on Tinian, where the Chamorros revolted and also killed

seventeen other Spaniards—presumably from Quiroga's group—on

the island. Next, the Chamorros attacked Quiroga on Saipan. His

force consisted of only thirty-six men, but, characteristically, he

took the offensive and made a number of forays, burning several

villages and attacking the two main camps of besiegers. He sacked

Obian village and then demanded canoes to take him to Guam.This the Obian villagers were glad to do, as they "ardently desired

to be delivered of so terrible and dangerous a neighbor." On the

night of November 21, 1684, Quiroga and his men left Saipan in

eight canoes. Three of these, containing fifteen Spaniards, were

wrecked on Tinian, for it was the typhoon season, and the sea was

very rough. In two days' sailing, Quiroga made Guam. Perhapsbecause the Chamorros on Tinian were afraid of reprisals for their

killing of Strobach and the other Spaniards, they received the fifteen

shipwrecked men from Quiroga's party hospitably and sent them

on their way to Guam.The expedition that Quiroga had sent to the northern islands

was less fortunate. It met no resistance, but on the return trip the

Chamorro pilots overturned the canoes in order to drown the party.

Padre Coomans, however, seized his pilot before the canoe could be

capsized and put in at Alamagan, where a Chamorro noble gavehim protection; Coomans later proceeded to Saipan, where he was

killed in July, 1685 (Le Gobien, 1700, p. 367).

On his return to Guam, Quiroga immediately took the offensive

again and before long had the situation under control; but until

1694 no further attempts seem to have been made to conquer the

Chamorros of the northern islands.

169Jf.~98: Quiroga had been handicapped by having as a superior

a governor of weaker character than he, but in 1694, D'Esplana,the governor, died and Quiroga became governor. In October, 1694,

he went to Rota. No resistance was encountered and the island was

peaceful. Through the following winter and spring Quiroga pre-

pared for a campaign to conquer the northern islands finally and

completely.In July, 1695, Quiroga's expedition set out in a small frigate

and twenty canoes. A sudden storm arose and the canoes put in at

54 SAIPAN

Rota, but Qulroga in the frigate continued on to Saipan. Here he

met armed resistance, but the fire of the Spanish was so heavy that

the Chamorros dispersed. We are told (Le Gobien, 1700, p. 388) :

Some who were brought before Quiroga were punished, and he explainedto them that ... he came to live peacefully with them. "I ask but one thing,"

he said to them, "... that you listen to the preachers of the gospel and show

yourselves docile to their teachings." The people of Saipan liked the.se propo-sitions and promised him everything he wished.

Quiroga then returned to Tinian, but he found that the peopleof Tinian had retired to the nearby island of Aguijan to make a

stand. There is not a harbor or even a satisfactory landing place

at Aguijan, and its inaccessibility, with steep cliffs rising from the

sea, is most impressive. Despite this, Quiroga stormed the island

and managed to climb the cliffs. The Chamorros surrendered and

asked quarter. Quiroga granted it, on condition that the peoplemove to Guam. Le Gobien further notes that the move "was done

the next day," a highly improbable statement.

The report of Quiroga's victories on Saipan, Tinian, and Aguijan

spread to the northern islands, and Le Gobien states that their

inhabitants were ordered to go to Saipan. In 1698, the Saipan

Chamorros, too, were forced to move to Guam. As the seventeenth

century closed, Saipan's green slopes were deserted. The Marianas

had been conquered.