peopled by the same waves of migrations from Indonesia that settled other parts of Micronesia, the Marianas, the Marshalls, and the Gilberts. After this original occupation, the various Micronesian people appear to have undergone a normal process of cultural evolution and differentiation, producing the slight regional differences which we observe today. Impressive archaeological remains on Palau, roads, graves, and terraces at Yap, which have led to the speculation of a former period of higher civilization, are now believed to have been produced by the recent ancestors of the present population.
The islands were "discovered" by a Portuguese mariner, Diego da Rocha, in 1526. Yap was reputedly discovered in the same year by da Rocha. Thus Ulithi was touched some five years before Magellan made his discoveries in the Marianas. Villalobos sighted Ulithi in 1543. But during the next two centuries, only Spanish missionaries found their way to the atoll.
In 1731, an attempt to Christianize and colonize Ulithi was made by Spaniards, but this resulted in the missionaries being driven completely off the islands. Two Jesuit fathers had established a small mission on Falalop alongside a lay colony; when one of the priests left Falalop to journey to the Marianas for provisions, he returned to discover his colleague slain, the lay colony massacred.
Other, later visitors, who perhaps met a more cordial reception, were Duperrey, the French explorer; a Spaniard, Don Luis de Torres, and the scientist, Lutke.
In 1868, the Spaniards gave the Caroline islands their present name, in honor of their king, Charles II, the Latin
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