The History of Samoa under Imperial Influence

Samoa’s experience of European imperialism was, in one sense, the inverse of New Zealand’s: the British withdrew in 1899, the Germans took over, and after the First World War the territory was given as a League of Nations mandate to New Zealand. The result was that Samoa — the first Pacific island state to achieve independence, in 1962 — was, in the long run, less an artefact of British imperialism than of German, New Zealand, and American imperialisms successively. The British role was, in the main, to be the imperial power that stepped out of the way.

The Tripartite Convention of 1899

The Tripartite Convention of 2 December 1899 settled the competing claims of Germany, Britain, and the United States to Samoa. The convention, signed in Washington, granted the islands east of 171° west longitude to the United States and the islands west of that line to Germany; Britain withdrew its claims in exchange for compensation in other Pacific territories, including recognition of British claims in Tonga, the Cook Islands, and elsewhere. The Samoan civil wars of the late nineteenth century, in which rival Samoan chiefs competed for the kingship with the support of German, British, and American interests, had provided the immediate context for the convention.

The British withdrawal was, in the judgment of the historian Patricia O’Brien, “a quiet end to a position the British had never quite wanted.” The Samoan consuls in London and Sydney had been lobbying for annexation since the 1830s; the Foreign Office, for its part, was happy to see the islands taken off its hands. The compensation — the German renunciation of claims in Tonga and elsewhere — was a small price for ending a colonial distraction.

The German Administration

The German administration of Western Samoa, established in 1900, was headed by a governor appointed by the German government. The German administration was initially concerned with the development of copra and cocoa plantations and with the exploitation of the Samoan labour force. The German administration also suppressed the Mau a Pule resistance movement, a nationalist Samoan organisation that opposed German rule, in a series of campaigns that included the forced exile of Samoan leaders.

The 1918 influenza pandemic, which arrived in Western Samoa on a New Zealand ship, killed approximately 8,500 Samoans — about a fifth of the population — and the German administration was widely blamed for the slow response to the epidemic. The pandemic, in the judgment of the historian D. C. H. R. Petersen, was “the most consequential single event in the modern history of Samoa.” The German administration was replaced by the New Zealand administration within weeks.

The New Zealand Administration

After the First World War, New Zealand was given a League of Nations mandate over Western Samoa in 1920. The New Zealand administration, headed by a civilian administrator, was initially concerned with the development of the economy and the recovery of the population from the 1918 influenza. The administration also attempted to suppress the Mau movement, a broad Samoan nationalist movement that had emerged in the early 1920s, in a campaign that included the arrest and exile of the Samoan leader O.F. Nelson, the banning of Mau organisations, and the use of force. The Mau movement gained international attention through the writings of the New Zealand journalist Robert W. Tate, and the New Zealand administration was the subject of a critical report by the League of Nations in 1930.

The 1930 Mau petition, written by O.F. Nelson and his supporters and sent to the League of Nations, was a remarkable document. It set out the Samoan case against New Zealand rule in measured English prose, and the petition was, in the judgment of the historian Michael Field, “the founding text of Samoan national identity.”

The Mau Movement

The Mau movement, led by O.F. Nelson and the fa’amatai (chiefly) Samoans, was the most consequential anti-colonial movement in Western Samoa. The movement drew on a long Samoan tradition of resistance to foreign rule and on the new sense of Samoan national identity that had been forged in the German period. The movement was suppressed by the New Zealand administration in the late 1920s, with Nelson exiled and the High Commissioner Albert Henry appointed as Chief Magistrate in 1933. The Mau movement was revived in the postwar period, and the success of the Mau in securing political rights was a key factor in the granting of self-government in the late 1950s.

The United Nations Trusteeship

After the Second World War, Western Samoa was placed under a United Nations trusteeship, with New Zealand as the administering authority. The 1947 Trusteeship Agreement, approved by the UN Security Council, set out the terms of the trusteeship; the agreement was unusual in that it included a specific reference to the right of self-determination. The 1954 UN Visiting Mission to Western Samoa produced a critical report on the New Zealand administration, and a series of constitutional conferences in the 1950s and 1960s set out the path to independence. The 1960 constitutional convention produced a constitution that established a system of representative government, with a head of state and a legislative assembly.

The Independence of Western Samoa

Western Samoa became independent on 1 January 1962, the first Pacific island territory to achieve independence. The constitution, drafted at a 1960 constitutional convention, provided for a parliamentary system with a head of state (a largely ceremonial position, initially held jointly by two of the mata’afa or paramount chiefs) and a legislative assembly. Malietoa Tanumafili II, one of the mata’afa chiefs, became the first head of state; the position was to be held for life, and on his death in 2007 it became an elected office. The new state joined the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970, and the country has remained a member of the Commonwealth.

The Post-Independence History

The post-independence history of Samoa has been marked by political stability, economic development, and the challenges of being a small island state. The Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), in office from 1982 to 2021, dominated Samoan politics for almost four decades. The 2021 general election, however, produced a major shift: the FAST Party, led by Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, won a narrow majority, and she became the first woman prime minister of Samoa. The country’s economy has remained heavily dependent on remittances from Samoans living in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, on tourism, and on development assistance.

Historiographical Note

The historiography of Samoa was, for a long time, dominated by the older New Zealand and Australian accounts — R. P. Gilson’s Samoa 1830 to 1900 (1970) and the work of the New Zealand official historians. The revisionist work of the last forty years, led by Michael Field, Mau: Samoa’s Struggle for Freedom (1984), and the more recent writing of the contributors to The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders, has produced a more critical picture, in which the colonial period is read as a contested terrain. The current debate, exemplified in the recent work of Damon Salesa, Samoan ‘Oro’ava (2020), is over how far the 1962 independence was a moment of genuine decolonisation and how far it should be read as a continuation of the New Zealand trusteeship by other means.

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