• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

American Samoa - USA Relations

The United States had an interest in Samoa from early settlements in the 1830's. The U.S. government had a very strong interest in eastern Samoa, now American Samoa, primarily for its excellent harbor. US transport companies and land development interests were very active in Western Samoa, now an independent nation. The period between 1830 and 1900 was a difficult one for Samoa. Europeans and Americans never really fathomed the complex and sophisticated Samoan political process. Samoan civil wars were ignited or exacerbated by foreign influences in the political process and the introduction of modern weapons. These weapons were often exchanged for Samoan lands. In fact by 1890 Germany, England, America and France had claims to Samoan lands that were twice the entire land area of the Samoan Islands. At final adjudication they received about 20 percent of Samoa's total land area.

The U.S. entered into its first treaty with Samoa for the use of the excellent Pago Pago Harbor. This agreement was made in 1872, but the U.S. Senate never ratified it. In the 1870s the Samoans were under a duel state of siege from their own civil wars and the competitive disruptions of the Western powers.

In 1877, the Secretary of State of Samoa, Le Mamea, visited President Hayes in Washington D.C. for the express purpose of offering Samoa to the U.S. through annexation or as a protectorate. Hayes was sympathetic to the plight of the Samoan people. He asked the Congress in his first annual message to consider the proposal. While Congress was in no mood for annexation, Hayes was able to obtain Senate ratification of a treaty under which the U.S. would obtain Pago Pago Harbor in return for U.S. peace and friendship. This first treaty between Samoa and a major power increased the pressure on the part of England and Germany for treaties of their own.

Increasing conflict led to the partitioning of Samoa in 1899. Officials in Washington, eager for a slice of territory in the South Pacific to show the flag under the Mahanian-like notion of sea power, purchased the chain of islands known today as American Samoa in the 1899 Tripartite Convention with Germany. The eastern set of territories (Germany partitioned the western half of the island chain now the Independent State of Western Samoa) included five main islands and two coral atolls. Germany assumed control of Western Samoa. England renounced their claims in Samoa for German concessions in Tonga, the Solomon Islands and West Africa.

The United States Navy began to manage the affairs of American Samoa in 1900. Commander Benjamin F. Tilley arrived at Pago Pago harbor to establish the territory’s new naval administration. A new naval station was established at the harbor, known as Naval Station Tutuila. Under the direction of the U.S. Navy, Tilley took on the role of Governor of American Samoa. Other administrative posts within the “Island Government” were given to Navy officers and enlisted men. Governors were appointed directly by the President, and were directed to preside over all legislative, executive, and judicial matters on the islands. Military Governors like Tilley worked closely with the matai, Samoan tribal chiefs, to ensure the everyday niceties of the “Stars and Stripes” did not personally interfere with their own long-held rituals and traditions.

In the 1901 Insular Cases, the Supreme Court ruled that the US colonies, which it referred to as “possessions,” were territories “belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States,” as they were “inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation, and modes of thought.” Differing in “modes of thought” was the racist court’s polite way of saying “they are stupider than us because they are not white.”

The Imperial Japanese co-prosperity sphere directly threatened the island’s stability. The importance of American Samoa grew critical in the early 1940s. Navy leadership accelerated the rapid growth of industrialization felt in the 1920s and 1930s. Plans for expansion of Naval Station Tutuila began in late 1940. In the event of war, Pago Pago would become a forward facility for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. American Samoa and the Fitafita were ready.

The attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 put all islands in the area on full alert, including American Samoa. The sleepy naval station soon became a major base of operation. Tutuila was the only armed base in the South Pacific at the outset of hostilities. It was also deemed important for its strategic location near the important sea-lanes between Hawaii and New Zealand. Several ships were directly diverted to Pago Pago after the attack. Confrontation with the Japanese at Tutuila seemed eminent. One month after Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine surfaced off Fagasa and fired rounds onto the island. The submarine attempted to strike the valuable fuel tanks in the village of Utulei. Only a U.S. Navy radioman and Fitafita guardsman were injured in the attacks.

It would be the last hostile shots fired at the island.

The naval buildup in Pago Pago continued to increase during the war. According to one eyewitness account during the war, ships increased from “three in December, 1941 to fifty-six in December, 1942.” By October 1942, there were nearly 15,000 American servicemen on Tutuila and nearby Upolo. The Fitafita became an essential part of home defense and were instructed to “take the enemy forces under fire” in the event that another Japanese incursion. Other Samoans put to work for food production, a vital component in fueling the war effort against Japan. The continuous flow of sailors and Marines made the island’s rich natural resources a necessity. Many Samoans worked long and restless hours to fulfill the needs of the fleet.

Plans to invade Samoa by the Japanese tapered off by the end of 1942. The pivotal battle of Midway in June erased any hope for a concerted Japanese offensive in the region. The Fitafita continued to drill and perform their duties, always ready to defend their South Pacific hamlet. By 1944, the base at Pago Pago was downgraded back to a naval station. Activities remained quiet until the end of the war.

The importance of the islands as a base of military operations waned after 1945. The U.S. naval base in Samoa officially closed in 1951. The last naval transport, General R. L. Howe, left the island on 25 June carrying many of the disbanded Fitafita guard to Hawaii. The territory was transferred to the Department of the Interior that year, as it remains today.

The leading chiefs of Tutuila ceded their lands to the US in 1900. The Manu'a Islands ceded in 1904. These deeds of cession speak of the promotion of the peace and welfare of the Samoan people, the establishment of a good and sound government, and the preservation of Samoan rights, lands, and culture. The deeds of cession, however, make no direct reference to the economy for the good reason that at the time there was only what could be described as a subsistence economy. This has changed, and the people of Samoa quite understand that modern economic development has a very direct bearing on their ability to preserve their rights, lands and culture.

In accepting the deeds of cession in 1929 the U.S. Congress placed responsibility for civil administration of the territory with the Executive Office. The U.S. Navy had this responsibility from 1900 to 1951. Since 1951 the U.S. Department of the Interior has administered the territory. However, American Samoa is substantially self governing today. It has its own constitution, its own legislature, its own elected governor and a non-voting representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. American Samoa has made very rapid progress in political self-determination. However, all of this local authority is at the pleasure of the US Congress.

During the 1930s, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously on two separate occasions to recognize American Samoans as citizens while continuing to preserve American Samoa’s land and title systems, only to see the legislation fail in the House due to Navy opposition.

American Samoa retains many longstanding cultural traits relatively unchanged over time. Among them, Samoans retain their ways of communal ownership of land, an oral tradition of boundaries rather than written or surveyed, and a fierce protection of land and the status land provides a family. The deeds of cession that the United States signed when making American Samoa a United States territory in 1900 and the American Samoan constitution provides the Samoan people a guarantee of this cultural tradition.

Native-born inhabitants of U.S. territories are not constitutionally entitled to U.S. citizenship but Congress has given them the right of citizenship, except for American Samoa where residents are U.S. nationals, not U.S. citizens. Not all residents of this 55,000-person cluster of Pacific islands are behind the push for birthright citizenship, which has been hotly contested. Many American Samoans worry that it might unravel fa'asamoa, or the Samoan way. Fa'asamoa rests on an extended familial system called agai and communally held land controlled by a chief, called a matai.

On November 23, 2016, Congresswoman Aumua Amata, in a response to President-Elect Donald Trump’s announcement regarding his plan to withdraw the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), released the following statement in support of the President’s proposal. “The TPP was bad news for American Samoa from the start, and I could not be more pleased to see that the President-Elect intends on withdrawing from the agreement. Almost more than any other industry, the TPP negatively affected the fishing industry in the United States and American Samoa. That is why I have been addressing the negative impacts that TPP would have, as part of several thrusts I have underway in Washington to stabilize and strengthen the fishing industry in American Samoa. The TPP would have opened the floodgates for illegal and unregulated seafood from nations who pay their workers a fraction of what we pay ours. It would have also had negative environmental repercussions by allowing these nations who have been recently accused of using slave labor on their boats, and who fish without the environmental regulations followed by our fishermen, to fish unchecked while our fisherman, who are responsible stewards of our natural resources sat at the dock…that would have been unacceptable.'

Founded in 1985, the Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization representing the civilian and military Asian Pacific American (APA) employees in the Federal and District of Columbia governments. The primary purpose of FAPAC is to serve as an interagency association within the Federal and District of Columbia Governments, providing a focus for over thirty ethnically distinct groups originating from Asian and Pacific regions as recognized by the United States Bureau of the Census.