Spanish colonial rule over the Mariana Islands, begun with the 1668 Catholic mission of Diego Luis de San Vitores and consolidated through the Spanish-Chamorro Wars (1670-1695), which reduced the Chamorro population from roughly 50,000 to under 5,000 and forcibly resettled survivors into a handful of mission towns on Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan. Administered from Hagåtña as part of the Spanish East Indies / Captaincy General of the Philippines, the islands functioned mainly as a Manila-galleon reprovisioning stop for over two centuries. Spanish rule ended in two separate 1898-1899 transactions: the US took Guam by the Treaty of Paris (signed 10 December 1898, ratified 11 April 1899), while Spain sold the remaining Northern Mariana Islands to Germany in the German-Spanish Treaty of 12 February 1899 (alongside the Carolines and Palau).
Split in 1898-1899: Guam ceded to the United States under the Treaty of Paris (signed 10 December 1898; ratifications exchanged 11 April 1899); the Northern Mariana Islands sold to the German Empire under the German-Spanish Treaty of 12 February 1899, which placed them under the jurisdiction of German New Guinea.
The standard scholarly history of Guam covering the full Spanish colonial period, the Spanish-Chamorro Wars, and the 1898 transition to US rule.
Regional context for Spanish-era Micronesia and the colonial administrative structures the Marianas were embedded in.
Single-volume regional history situating Spanish Guam/the Marianas within the broader colonial partition of the Pacific.