|
There is still some debate about where
the Polynesians who first colonised Samoa actually came from, though
conventional wisdom suggests people arrived from the East Indies, the
Malay Peninsula or the Phillipines. The Samoans themselves are far from
conventional on this issue however: other Polynesians might have come from
Asia, but Samoans, they say, come from Samoa. They believe themselves to
be the cradle of Polynesian culture,the race of people created by the god
Tagaloa while he was cooking up the world. In fact the Samoan legend of
the beginning of the world is startlingly similar to that told in the
Bible; a fact that assisted the later transition to Christianity. Carbon
testing on the remnants of a village on the island of Upolu (now in
Independent Samoa) date the site from about 1000 BC.
Despite its reputation as
an exotic far-away land, Samoa was in fact as busy as a shopping mall from
the mid-1770s when trading ships, plying the spice route and looking for
the Great Southern Land, popped in and out regularly. Even before this,
pirates, whalers, and escaped convicts had discovered the kinder shores of
Samoa and were opting out of the rat race. The first official European
contact came in 1722 when Dutchman Jacob Reggeveen did little more than
name the islands and sail away again.
Captain Loius-Antoine de
Bougainville passed through next and renamed the islands the Navigation
Islands before leaving the field open for the Compte de La Pérouse. La Pérouse
seriously strained public relations by punishing a number of Samoans
caught helping themselves to the ship's fittings. This resulted in
retaliatory action from the Samoans and the final body count tallied over
50. By the time the British arrived, looking for the troublesome Fletcher
Christian and his band of merry mutineers, the Samoans were hardly in a
welcoming mood. In the resulting fracas many Samoans were killed and the
incident gave rise to the mistaken impression that Samoans were hostile
and aggressive.
It's actually a testament to the Samoans'
easy-going nature that the missionaries who arrived in the early 19th
century, brandishing their Bibles and threats of everlasting hell and
damnation, weren't killed immediately. Instead there were wholesale
conversions, explained by the fact that Christianity and the old Samoan
beliefs were not disimiliar and that the god Nafanua had - in a curious
move by a deity - predicted the coming of a newer, better, stronger
religion. The firepower and obvious wealth of the palagi
(Europeans, or 'sky bursters' as they were known) was obvious and the
enthusiastic embracing of Christianity may have had more to do with a
pragmatic approach to the affairs of god and men than with blind faith.
Spreading the Good News of the Lord early in the
19th century was haphazard at best, with various independent zealots
working the islands. This changed in 1836 when John Williams and Charles
Barff became the first two men to take up official missionary positions in
Samoa. Williams converted a large number of Samoans before ending up as a
main course at a traditional Melanesian feast. But despite these
occasional hiccups, the missionaries' influence was considerable and even
today Samoa and nearby islands are known as 'the Bible belt of the
Pacific'.
Although Americans had trade relationships with
islander chiefs, American interest in the region kicked off properly in
1872 when the USA gained exclusive use of the deep water port of Pago Pago
- popular until then as a whaling port - from the High Chief of Tutuila
island. The British and Germans also had trade and political interests
established, and by the 1880s a three-way tug-of-war over the islands was
raging in earnest. A series of leadership systems based on power-sharing
were introduced. Colonial powers being what they were, however, these
schemes didn't stand a chance. Ships were called in. Tensions mounted.
More ships were called in until there were no less than seven warships
bristling and snarling inside the small confines of the Apia Harbour (now
in Independent Samoa).
The situation deteriorated into something that
resembled the first line of a bad joke - the British, the Americans and
the Germans were in a Mexican standoff in Samoa - but the punchline was
totally unexpected. The mighty combatants were so busy watching each other
that they failed to notice the falling barometer, and before they knew it,
a cyclone of monumental proportions had hit the harbour. After the palm
leaves had settled, the only ship to survive was Britain's Calliope.
This blow seemed to knock a bit of sense into the Europeans, and in 1889
they went to the table to negotiate. After a decade or so, western Samoa
was ceded to the Germans, eastern Samoa to the Americans, and the British
- happy with German renunciation of claims to Tonga, the Solomons and Niue
- hopped in their sturdy ships and went home.
Formal annexation of eastern Samoa by the USA
happened on 17 April 1900, when the region fell under the auspices of the
Department of the Navy. Traditional rights were protected in return for a
military base and coaling station. Islanders became US nationals, but not
citizens. They couldn't - and still can't - vote in US elections. And
right up to the early 1960s, life in American Samoa remained almost
entirely traditional and subsistence. With the publication in an American
magazine of an article entitled 'America's Shame in the South Seas' (an
exposé on the 'poverty' of the simple lifestyle of the locals), the
subtle and restrained US presence was suddenly over. President Kennedy
leapt into the modernisation car, put the pedal to the metal and drove
full-tilt through tradition, smashing the 'Samoan way' forever. American
Samoa became a construction project.
In just a few years American Samoa imported much
from the modern world, including European-style homes, sewage plants, an
international airport, tuna canneries, television, alcoholism, crime,
unemployment and juvenile delinquency. By the time the modernisation
project ran out of funds in 1967, locals were already lamenting their lost
traditions and the creation of a directionless welfare state. With
America's focus diverted to Southeast Asia, the following years saw the
slow but steady unravelling of the new society. In a series of referenda,
American Samoans voted to continue under the direction of appointed
governors, however after a little coercion from Washington, locals
determined that they were ready for democratically elected leadership and
some level of autonomy. The first elections took place in 1977. Commoners
and women were, and still are, not permitted to vote. Though never a
wealthy nation, austerity measures were nevertheless introduced in the
early 1990s to combat the US$17 million deficit and the devastation of
Cyclone Val, and by 1996 hundreds of public servants had lost their jobs
and the deficit was down to US$9 million. For
more general information
on Samoa, go to: |
