Page "Northern Mariana Islands" Paragraph 14

Most of the islands ' native population ( 90 %- 95 %) died from Spanish diseases or married non-Chamorro settlers under Spanish rule.

New settlers, primarily from the Philippines and the Caroline Islands, were brought to repopulate the islands.

The Chamorro population did gradually recover, and Chamorro, Filipino and Carolinian languages and other ethnic differences remain in the Marianas.