More than fifty Spanish officers served as governors during the 230 years that Spain administered the Mariana Islands, from 1668 to 1898. A dozen or so received six-year royal appointments, made in Madrid by the king, though the vast majority served three-year interim appointments, made in Manila by the Governor General or the Audiencia. In the nineteenth century, as the newly designated Province of the Mariana Islands, appointments to the governorship were often made by the Captaincy General of the Philippines. The source materials for this work are found primarily among the holdings of the Micronesian Area Research Center, Spanish Documents Collection, a secondary repository with copies of documentary materials concerning Micronesia from institutional collections in various parts of the world, though primarily Spain, Mexico, and the Philippines.

We Fought the Navy and Won is a carefully documented yet impassioned recollection of Guam’s struggle to liberate itself from the absolutist rule of the U.S. Navy. Doloris Cogan concentrates on five crucial years, 1945–1950, when, fresh out of journalism school, she had the good fortune to join the distinguished team of idealists at the newly formed Institute of Ethnic Affairs in Washington, D.C. Working as a writer/editor on the monthly Guam Echo under the leadership of the Institute’s director, John Collier, Cogan witnessed and recorded the battle fought at the very top between Collier and Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal as the people of Guam petitioned the U.S. Congress for civilian government under a constitution. Taken up by newspapers throughout the country, this war of words illustrated how much freedom of the press plays in achieving and sustaining true democracy. Part of the story centers around a young Chamorro named Carlos Taitano, who returned home to Guam in 1948 after serving in the U.S. Army in the Pacific. Taitano joined his colleagues in the lower house and walked out of the Guam Congress in 1949 to protest the naval governor, who had refused their right to subpoena an American businessman suspected of illegal activity. The walkout was the catalyst that brought approval of the Organic Act of Guam, which was signed into law by President Truman in 1950. We Fought the Navy and Won is the first detailed look at the events surrounding Guam’s elevation from military to civilian government.

In the past decades historians have interpreted early modern Christian missions not simply as an adjunct to Western imperialism, but a privileged field for cross-cultural encounters. Placing the Jesuit missions into a global phenomenon that emphasizes economic and cultural relations between Europe and the East, this book analyzes the possibilities and limitations of the religious conversion in the Micronesian islands of Guåhan (or Guam) and the Northern Marianas. Frontiers are not rigid spatial lines separating culturally different groups of people, but rather active agents in the transformation of cultures. By bringing this local dimension to the fore, the book adheres to a process of missionary “glocalization” which allowed Chamorros to enter the international community as members of Spain’s regional empire and the global communion of the Roman Catholic Church.

"Goetzfridt’s work demonstrates the dynamics of history, each generation considering past events in light of current realities and contemporary understandings of the world. This volume, therefore, is important not simply because it provides us with an invaluable and substantial fount of references that will be supremely useful to teachers, scholars, and all enthusiasts of Mariana Islands history. Its importance lies also in its packaging as a resource for current and future generations to understand the changing face and contested space of Guam history." —from the Foreword by Anne Perez Hattori Blending bibliographic integrity with absorbing essays on a wide range of historical interpretations, Nicholas Goetzfridt offers a new approach to the history of Guam. Here is a treasure trove of ideas, historiographies, and opportunities that allows readers to reassess previously held notions and conclusions about Guam’s past and the heritage of the indigenous Chamorro people. Particular attention is given to Chamorro perspectives and the impact of more than four hundred years of colonial presences on Micronesia’s largest island. Extensive cross-references and generous but targeted samples of historical narratives compliment the bibliographic essays. Detailed Name and Subject Indexes to the book’s 326 entries cover accounts and interpretations of the island from Ferdinand Magellan’s "discovery" of Guahan ("Guam" in the Chamorro language) in 1521 to recent events, including the Japanese occupation and the American liberation of Guam in 1944. The indexes enable easy and extensive access to a bounty of information. The Place Index contains both large and localized geographic realms that are placed vividly in the context of these histories. An insightful Foreword by Chamorro scholar Anne Perez Hattori is included.

This revised edition of the standard history of Guam is intended for general readers and students of the history, politics, and government of the Pacific region. Its narrative spans more than 450 years, beginning with the initial written records of Guam by members of Magellan 1521 expedition and concluding with the impact of the recent global recession on Guam’s fragile economy.

​​Archaeologies of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism illustrates how archaeology contributes to the knowledge of early modern Spanish colonialism and the "first globalization" of the 16th and 17th centuries. Through a range of specific case studies, this book offers a global comparative perspective on colonial processes and colonial situations, and the ways in which they were experienced by the different peoples. But we also focus on marginal “unsuccessful” colonial episodes. Thus, some of the papers deal with very brief colonial events, even “marginal” in some cases, considered “failures” by the Spanish crown or even undertook without their consent. These short events are usually overlooked by traditional historiography, which is why archaeological research is particularly important in these cases, since archaeological remains may be the only type of evidence that stands as proof of these colonial events. At the same time, it critically examines the construction of categories and discourses of colonialism, and questions the ideological underpinnings of the source material required to address such a vast issue. Accordingly, the book strikes a balance between theoretical, methodological and empirical issues, integrated to a lesser or greater extent in most of the chapters.​

This essay deals with the missionary work of the Society of Jesus in today’s Micronesia from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Although the Jesuit missionaries wanted to reach Japan and other Pacific islands, such as the Palau and Caroline archipelagos, the crown encouraged them to stay in the Marianas until 1769 (when the Society of Jesus was expelled from the Philippines) to evangelize the native Chamorros as well as to reinforce the Spanish presence on the fringes of the Pacific empire. In 1859, a group of Jesuit missionaries returned to the Philippines, but they never officially set foot on the Marianas during the nineteenth century. It was not until the twentieth century that they went back to Micronesia, taking charge of the mission on the Northern Marianas along with the Caroline and Marshall Islands, thus returning to one of the cradles of Jesuit martyrdom in Oceania.