The original inhabitants of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are believed to be descendants of Austronesian people originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2000 BCE.

These people have evolved into the Chamorro people.

Chamorro society has four classes: chamorri (chiefs), matua (upper class), achaot (middle class), and mana'chang (lower class).

The matua are located in the coastal villages, which means they have the best access to fishing grounds, whereas the mana'chang are located in the interior of the island.

Matua and mana'chang rarely communicate with each other, and matua often use achaot as intermediaries.

There are also "makåhna" (similar to shamans), skilled in healing and medicine.

Belief in spirits of ancient Chamorros called "Taotao mo'na" still persists as a remnant of pre-European culture.

Society is organized along matrilineal clans.

Latte stones are stone pillars that are found only in the Mariana Islands and are a recent development in Pre-Contact Chamorro society.

The latte stone is used as a foundation on which thatched huts are built.

Latte consist of a base shaped from limestone called the haligi and with a capstone, or tåsa, made either from a large brain coral or limestone, placed on top.

A possible source for these stones, the Rota Latte Stone Quarry, will be discovered on Rota in 1925.

The indigenous Chamorro inhabit only only seven of the islands, including Rota, …

…Tinian, …

…Saipan, the second largest, and …

…Guam, the largest, most populous, and southernmost of the islands.

Magellan and his fleet, continuing northwest with his three Spanish ships, had reached the equator on February 13, 1521.

Crossing the vast Pacific Ocean, he runs low on supplies, then runs out.

His crews, reduced to chewing leather, have begun to die of scurvy: about nineteen men have died since departing Cape Horn.

On March 6, 1521, three months after they left the Strait of Magellan, they become the first Europeans to discover the fourteen-member archipelago later known as the Mariana Islands, located in the western Pacific Ocean, about fourteen hundred miles (two thousand two hundred and fifty kilometers) south of Japan.

They find a suitable harbor at the southern end of Guam.

The Europeans are greeted by the Chamorro in hundreds of small outrigger canoes, called Proas, that appear to be flying over the water, due to their considerable speed.

Pigafetta describes the "lateen sail" used by the inhabitants of Guam, hence the name "Islas de las Velas Latinas", but he also writes the inhabitants "entered the ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on", including "the small boat that was fastened to the poop of the flagship."

"Those people are poor, but ingenious and very thievish, on account of which we called those three islands the islands of Ladroni.” Conflicts with the nearby island of Rota initially prevent Magellan and Elcano from resupplying their ships with food and water.

The Spaniards cross to shore after a couple of days and forcibly requisition rice and fresh fruit, then sail east on March 9.

Micronesians had settled the the two parallel low-lying coral island groups, called the Ratak (Sunrise) and Ralik (Sunset) chains and later called the Marshall Islands, in the second millennium BCE, but there are no historical or oral records of that period.

Over time, the Marshall Island people had learned to navigate over long ocean distances by canoe using traditional stick charts.

Loaísa on July 30, 1526, had died of scurvy and Elcano a few days later.

Alonso de Salazar, commanding the ship Santa Maria de la Victoria, the only surviving vessel of the Loaísa Expedition, is the first European to see the islands.

He sights an island (probably Taongi) on August 21, 1526,  at 14°N, that he names "San Bartolome".

The Marshall Islands are located about two thousand one hundred and seventy-five miles (thirty-five hundred kilometers) southwest of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

Alonso de Salazar, after just one month of holding the command of the Loaisa expedition, dies of scurvy shortly after having left Guam on September 5, 1526.