 In the early 17th century Spain colonized Guam, the Northern Marianas and the Caroline Islands (what would later become the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau), creating the Spanish East Indies, which was governed from the Spanish Philippines.In 1819, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions – a Protestant group – brought their Puritan ways to Polynesia.Soon after, the Hawaiian Missionary Society was founded and sent missionaries into Micronesia.