Samoa and its Story/5
A SKETCH OF SAMOAN HISTORY
Jacob Roggewein, the Dutch navigator, is believed to have been the first European sailor to note the Samoa Islands; this was in 1722. In 1768 Louis de Bougainville, after whom one of the Solomon Islands is named, cruised about the group. Cook did not sight Samoa, but the famous and ill-fated La Pérouse visited the group in 1787 and on Tutuila he lost M. Lalange and eleven of his crew in a fight, a tragedy provoked, it is said by Dr. Turner, by the Frenchmen shooting a native for some real or supposed case of pilfering. In 1791 H.M.S. Pandora called at Samoa, but it was nearly forty vears later before missionaries first settled there and began their labours amongst the war-loving but hospitable and amiable people. The famous John Williams called there in his little schooner in 1830, and then the Samoans began to see a good deal of the papalangi, the “breakers-through-the-sky.” Whalers and traders began to come in numbers, and British and American fighting ships visited Apia and Pangopango, and the United States exploring ships under Commodore Wilkes in 1842, made a survey of the Group. Now and again the natives came into conflict with the whites, usually through some petty misunderstanding, and in 1876 there was a skirmish with the crew of H.M.S. Barracouta, in which several Samoans were killed. Thereafter on many occasions the warriors of Upolu met the bluejackets and marines of British, American, and German warships, more than once with disastrous results to the whites.
For an accurate appreciation of the German position in Samoa one must understand something of the history of the great commercial house which lorded it over the South Seas in the sixties and seventies of last century, the firm of Goddefroy and Co., of Hamburg. This house is now replaced by the great trading and planting corporation entitled the Deutchen Handels und Plantagen Gesselschaft der Sudsee Inseln, commonly and unpopularly known as the “Long Handle Co.,” and abbreviated to “the D.H. and P.G.,” a concern which does business on a very large scale throughout the Pacific, and whose influence helped in a very appreciable degree to oust the British from Samoa. The firm of Goddefroy and Co. was founded towards the end of the eighteenth century and during the first half of the nineteenth century it maintained a fleet of vessels trading to the Indian Seas and the Spanish Main. One of the Goddefroys’ principal agents was at Valparaiso, and from Valparaiso they extended their operations to Tahiti and the Paumotus, trading in coconut-oil and pearl shell. Somewhere about the beginning of the sixties they established themselves at Apia, Samoa, which became their headquarters. They bought several thousands of acres on Upolu, and began cotton cultivation, and at one time they employed about a thousand Polynesian and Melanesian labourers—not Samoans, who are too dignified and too sensible to work for any but themselves.
By the seventies the Goddefroy firm maintained trading stations in about a dozen groups in the South and North Pacific extending from Samoa as far away as the Carolines. But huge as the trading concern was the Goddefroys had even more ambitious schemes on hand. They had purchased many thousands of acres of fertile land in Samoa, and they submitted to the Government of the North German Confederation a proposal to establish large settlements of German emigrants on this land giving them small lots on lease with the option of purchase. The idea was, according to the late Mr. H. B Sterndale, that the settlers should cultivate corn, coffee, tobacco, cinchona, coconuts, sugar-cane, rice, and other
Josiah Martin, photo
Robert Louis Stevenson’s House, Vailima
Vaea Mountain in the background. This famous house is now the headquarters of the Military Governor from New Zealand.
products, by the labour of Chinese, who were to be brought over in families. The great Bismarck took the matter up. He was a friend of the senior partner of the house of Goddefroy, and his influence secured from the Prussian authorities hearty approval for the scheme. The Hertha (the first, it is said, of the continental ironclads of Europe to pass through the Suez Canal) received orders to go from China to Samoa to settle any disputes between the Germans and the chiefs of that Group, and by “a judicious display of power” to prepare the way for the “first detachment of military settlers” from Hamburg. But the big scheme was killed by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. Bismarck and the rest of the Goddefroy champions had other business on hand for awhile, and this cleverly-conceived South Sea “closer settlement” plan was of necessity abandoned. Nevertheless, after the war the Iron Chancellor revived the scheme, and as the Goddefroys had failed, a new firm, the D.H. and P.G., was formed, to-day a great commercial force in the Pacific.
Again and again attempts were made by the Samoans to become British subjects, and efforts were repeatedly made by New Zealanders to the same end. Seventy-one years ago there were fears among the Samoan natives that their country was about to be taken possession of by France; they had heard of the enterprise of the French frigates in the Society Islands, and their preference was for the English. They prepared a petition, or rather it was prepared for them by the English missionaries, and many chiefs signed it for presentation to Queen Victoria, praying for the protection of the British flag. The request was refused by the Imperial Government, which promised, however, through the British Consul at Samoa, that no other power should be permitted to usurp the Islands—a promise which was forgotten or treated as of no account by the Governments which came after. It was ten years later that Sir George Grey suggested to the Colonial Office a federation of all the South Pacific islands from Rarotonga and Samoa in the east to the New Hebrides in the west, with New Zealand as an administrative centre. But Grey’s prescient plan was ridiculed, and nothing more was heard of the South Sea confederation until Mr. Seddon took up the notion himself forty years afterwards.
On two occasions at least during the last half-century deputations of Samoan chiefs came to New Zealand entreating the Government to take over the Islands, for they feared the Germans. The first was in 1871, when high chiefs from Apia begged for the protection of the British flag, and asked that the New Zealand Government should move the Queen to grant their prayer. But this petition met with as frosty a reception as that of 1843, and Samoa remained a troubled No Man’s Land. In 1885, two leading Samoan chiefs, Tui Letufunga of Upolu and Seumanu-tafa, the chief of Apia district, came to New Zealand as delegates from their people seeking annexation, but without success. The New Zealand legislature had already (1883) passed a “Confederation and Annexation Bill,” empowering the Government to deal with the acquisition of islands in the Pacific not belonging to, or under the protection of, any foreign Power or Powers. This was the direct result of agitation in Samoa for annexation to New Zealand, and not only Samoa but Fiji afterwards petitioned to be permitted to come under New Zealand’s administration. New Zealand statesmen at various times from 1883 onwards offered to undertake the responsibility of governing Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and the Cook Group, but not until 1900 were the Cook Islands placed under the Colony’s flag; and the Imperial Government of the eighties, Gladstone’s and Salisbury’s alike, declined to advise the Queen to assent to the Samoan annexation proposals. In the eighties Sir Robert Stout was the warmest champion of the people of Samoa, and he made strenuous efforts to save the islands for the Empire. Sir Robert, who was Premier 1884-1887, made repeated appeals in the cause of Island federation, and on many occasions since he has advocated the claims of New Zealand as a natural centre of administration of the groups in the Central Pacific. The New Zealand Government on one occasion in these anxious years had the Government steamer Hinemoa waiting with steam up ready for despatches to Samoa to hoist the British flag. This was in about the first days of the new year of 1885. Sir Robert Stout, then head of the Stout-Vogel ministry, made several attempts to get the Colonial Office to consent to the annexation, in response to the urgent petitions of the king and chiefs of Samoa, who were fearful of Germany, but Bismarck was the lion in the path those days. Britain would not take action for fear of offending Germany, so the Hinemoa’s mission was abandoned, and it remained for the unexpected tragedy of war nearly thirty vears afterwards to bring the Islands under “Peretania’s” colours.
In 1887 and 1888 the dispute over the succession between Malietoa and Tamasese ended in the German Commodore deporting Malietoa Laupepa to the Marshall Islands, and supporting the authority of his antagonist, proclaiming Tamasese King, in opposition to the great majority of the Samoans. British and American sympathy was transferred to the high chief Mataafa, who quickly showed the Germans his fighting metal, and defeated a naval force in the Vailele bush with heavy loss to the Germans. Mataafa, who assumed the kingly title of Malietoa as an affix to his name, had a mandate from the exiled Malietoa Laupepa to act in his absence, and he soon mustered about five thousand fighting men; the German protégé, Tamasese, had less than half that number. There were many skirmishes, and in one battle of 1888 forty or fifty of Mataafa’s men were killed and above thirty of Tamasese’s. At that time Tamasese was furnished with ammunition, dynamite, and provisions by the German traders, who sent the supplies of war along the coast in a cutter to his stronghold at Lotu-aanu,
Then came the great hurricane of March, 1889, interrupting hostilities. The storm god intervened at an extremely critical moment. Mr. Louis Becke, in one of the last newspaper articles he wrote, told the story of how the three German and three American warships in Apia bay were ready to open fire upon each other the moment
Josiah Martin, photo
Stevenson’s Tomb, on Vaea Mountain
that a landing party from either side hoisted the flag of its country. “One evening,” Mr. Becke said, “as Mataafa sat, surrounded by his chiefs, in a native house in the village of Lelepa, back from Matautu Point, the northern horn of Apia Harbour, there came to him a messenger, who told him of certain things that had been said by the American Admiral to his officers at a council of war on board the flagship Trenton. The old chief smiled grimly, but said nothing to those about him. What he was told was this:—The admiral had told his officers frankly that they would have no chance with the Germans. ‘Our chance is to run our ships alongside theirs before they sink us, and carry them by boarding in the good old-fashioned style of a hundred years ago.’ Mataafa knew that if he communicated this to his adherents there would be no holding them back. Five hundred men would have boarded the American ships in the hope of being allowed to join the boarding parties. This would have been the signal for war, and for a time, he was strongly tempted. But he knew the old, innate savagery of the Samoan in time of victory would again reassert itself, and the defeat of the German naval forces would mean that every German resident throughout the group would, in all probability be slaughtered. And so he held his hand, and when the elements intervened the problem was solved.”
In June of 1889, a treaty between Britain, the United States, and Germany was executed at Berlin, guaranteeing the independence and antonomy of the islands, restoring Malietoa as King, and constituting a tripartite protectorate over Samoa. A Chief Justice and a president of the municipality of Apia were appointed. This three-power arrangement was carried on until the end of 1898, but the administration was unsatisfactory, and there were continual intrigues and open quarrels.
It was at the end of 1891 that Robert Louis Stevenson arrived in Apia bay in the schooner Equator. He built his house and cleared his plantation at a spot on the upper water of the Vai-singano, called Vailima (Maori Wai-rima) meaning “Five Rivers” from the several streams which met thereabouts, and he was not long in making friends with the Samoans, and plunging into hot discussion on the island politics, in interludes between his heavy tasks of writing. He lived at Vailima until his death on December 3rd, 1894, in his 45th vear, and all the world knows the story of the grave on the bush-girt ledge of Vaea Mountain and the bearing of “Tusitala” to his last home on the shoulders of his Samoan friends and worshippers. The house was built on the western edge of a tongue of land situated between two streams, from the westernmost of which Vaea Mountain rises to a height of more than a thousand feet above the sea. On the east, beyond Stevenson’s boundary, the land dips steeply into the deep valley of the Vai-singano. “On the other hand,” Mr. Graham Balfour wrote, “the western stream, formed by the junction of several smaller water-courses above, ran within Stevenson’s own ground, and, not far below the house, plunged over a barrier of rock with a fall of about twelve feet into a delightful pool, just deep enough for bathing and arched over with orange-trees,” The Germans purchased Vailima, and when the New Zealand force occupied Samoa lately it was the home of Dr. Schultz, the Governor. It is now the headquarters of Colonel Logan, the New Zealand acting Military Governor.
It was during Stevenson’s life in Samoa that the Malietoa-Mataafa war of 1893-4 was waged. Mataafa and his old friend were at the head of rival camps, and Malietoa’s force being much the stronger Mataafa had to take refuge on Manono Island, which he fortified, having about seven hundred men and six old ships’ guns in a strong position. In July, 1893, H.M.S. Katoomba and the German warships Sperber and Bussard took action to end the rebellion. They steamed over to Manono, and the British captain sent an ultimatum threatening to shell Mataafa unless he surrendered. The sturdy old warrior submitted, and he and his leading chiefs were deported to the Tokelau or Union Group, 250 miles to the north. In the following year there were further troubles, and H.M.S. Royalist and the German Bussard shelled the native strongholds along the coast.
There was comparative peace for a few years, but in April, 1898, Malietoa Laupepa, the old king, died. Mataafa, who had been brought back from exile, was elected king by certain of the chiefs, but others disputed the election, and fighting began. Mataafa was once more a rebel; his war parties seized the British section of the town, and H.M.S. Royalist and other ships shelled the
From a photo
H.M.S. Royalist shelling the rebels at Apia, 1899. H.M.S. Porpoise steaming out.
environs of Apia. In a night attack three British sailors and an American were killed. Young Malietoa Tanu was proclaimed king in March, 1899, and the British and Americans supported him by force of arms. Lieutenant Guy Gaunt, of H.M.S. Porpoise, and several other naval officers drilled and led picked bodies of Malietoa men against the rebels in the bush, and the warships shelled and burned rebel villages along the coast.
HOISTING OF THE GERMAN FLAG
Germany had proposed that a Commission of three representatives, one appointed by each Power, should examine and report upon the state of affairs in the islands, and temporarily take over their administration, and the suggestion was accepted by the British and American Governments. In May, 1899, the Commission arrived, the natives laid down their arms, Malietoa resigned the kingship, and a Provisional Government of the three Powers was set up. In November an agreement was concluded between the Powers. Upolu and Savaii were assigned absolutely to Germany, and Tutuila and the other islands east of longitude 171° west to the United States, Great Britain renouncing all her rights over the islands. In return Germany renounced in favour of Great Britain all her claims in the Tongan Islands, including the Vavau Group, and also in Savage Island, and ceded to her the German Islands of the Solomon Group with the exception of Bougainville and Buka.
At the end of 1899, the following Convention was signed by the Ambassadors of Great Britain, America, and Germany, and was ratified in 1900, and quickly followed by the hoisting of the German flag:—
Article I.
The General Act concluded and signed by the aforesaid Powers at Berlin on the 14th day of June, A.D. 1889, and all previous treaties, conventions and agreements relating to Samoa, are annulled.
Article II.
Germany renounces in favour of the United States of America all her rights and claims over and in respect to the Island of Tutuila and all other islands of the Samoan group east of Longitude 171 degrees west of Greenwich.
Great Britain in like manner renounces in favour of the United States of America all her rights and claims over and in respect to the Island of Tutuila and all other islands of the Samoan group east of Longitude 171 degrees west of Greenwich.
Reciprocally, the United States of America renounce in favour of Germany all their rights and claims over and in respect to the Islands of Upolu and Savaii and all other islands of the Samoan group west of Longitude 171 degrees west of Greenwich.
Article III.
It is understood and agreed that each of the three signatory Powers shall continue to enjoy, in respect to their commerce and commercial vessels, in all the islands of the Samoan group privileges and conditions equal to those enjoyed by the sovereign in all ports which may be open to the commerce of either of them.
Article IV.
The present Convention shall be ratified as soon as possible, and shall come into force immediately after the exchange of ratifications.
In faith whereof, we, the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed this Convention and have hereunto affixed our seals.
Done in triplicate, at Washington, the second day of December, in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine.
| John Hay | [Seal.] |
| Holleben | [Seal.] |
| Pauncefote | [Seal]. |